Friedrich Nietzsche - Ecce Homo, how one becomes oneself. Nietzsche: Ecce Homo: How one becomes oneself. Autobiographical work by Friedrich Nietzsche

ECCE HOMO

How to become yourself

Friedrich Nietzsche

PREFACE

1

difficult, for I have “testified of myself” more than once, but the discrepancy between the greatness of my task and the insignificance of my contemporaries was manifested in the fact that I was not heard or even seen. I live on my own credit, and perhaps the fact that I live is just a prejudice?.. I only need to talk to some “cultured” person who spent the summer in the Upper Engadine to be convinced that I am not living ... Under these conditions, an obligation arises, against which my usual restraint and even more the pride of my instincts essentially rebel, namely the obligation to say: Listen to me! Because I am such and such. First of all, don't confuse me with others!

2

I, for example, am not at all a scarecrow, not a moral monster - I am even a nature opposite to the breed of people who have hitherto been revered as virtuous. Between us, it seems to me, this is precisely what makes me proud. I am a student of the philosopher Dionysus, I would rather be a satyr than a saint, But read this essay. Perhaps it has no other meaning than to explain the said opposition in a lighter and more benevolent form. “Improving humanity would be the last thing I could promise. I do not create new idols; let them learn from the ancients how much clay feet cost. My craft is rather to overthrow idols - that’s what I call “ideals”. To the extent that they invented an ideal world, they robbed reality of its value, its meaning, its truth... “The true world” and the “apparent world” - in German: the lied world and reality... The lie of the ideal was still a curse that weighed heavily on above reality, humanity itself, imbued with this lie, was perverted down to its deepest instincts, to the deification of values opposite to those that would ensure development, future, the highest right to the future.

3

Anyone who knows how to breathe the air of my writings knows that this is the air of the heights, healthy air. You have to be created for it, otherwise you risk catching a cold. Ice nearby, monstrous loneliness - but how serenely all things rest in the light of day! How easy it is to breathe! How many things you feel are beneath you! - Philosophy, as I have understood and experienced it so far, is a voluntary stay among the ice and mountain heights, a search for everything strange and mysterious in existence, everything that has been until now persecuted by morality. Long experience The knowledge I acquired in this journey through the forbidden taught me to look differently than might have been desirable at the reasons that had hitherto forced me to moralize and create ideals. The hidden history of philosophers, the psychology of their great names, was revealed to me. “That degree of truth that only two can bear, that degree of truth to which only the spirit dares—that is what more and more became for me a real measure of value.” Delusion (faith in an ideal) is not blindness, delusion is cowardice... Every conquest, every step forward in knowledge flows from courage, from severity towards oneself, from cleanliness towards oneself... I do not reject ideals, I just put on gloves in their presence... Nitimur in vetitum (1): by this sign my philosophy will one day triumph, for until now only truth has been thoroughly forbidden.

4

Among my works, my Zarathustra occupies a special place. I did it to humanity greatest gift of all those done to him so far. This book, with a voice that resounds over millennia, is not only the highest book that has ever existed, a veritable book of the mountain air - the very fact of man lies in the monstrous distance below it - it is also the deepest book, born from the innermost depths of truth, an inexhaustible well, from where every bucket that is submerged returns to the surface full of gold and goodness. It is not a “prophet” who speaks here, not one of those terrible hermaphrodites of disease and the will to power who are called the founders of religions. We must first of all listen correctly to the voice coming from these lips, to this chalcyonic tone, so as not to be mistaken in the meaning of its wisdom. “The most quiet words- those who bring the storm. Thoughts coming like a dove rule the world.” -

The fruits fall from the fig trees, they are juicy and sweet; and as they fall, their red skin is torn off. I am a bad wind for ripe fruits.

Thus, like the fruits of a fig tree, these instructions fall to you, my friends; now drink their juice and eat their sweet meat! Autumn is around us, and clear skies, and it’s afternoon. -

Here it is not a fanatic who speaks, here they do not “preach”, here they do not require faith: from the infinite fullness of light and depth of happiness drop after drop falls, word after word - gentle slowness is the tempo of these speeches. Such speeches reach only the most chosen; to be a listener here is an incomparable advantage; not everyone has ears for Zarathustra... Nevertheless, is not Zarathustra a seducer?.. But what does he himself say when he returns to his loneliness for the first time? Exactly the opposite of what some “sage”, “saint”, “savior of the world” or some decadent would say in this case... He not only speaks differently, he himself is different...

My students, now I am leaving alone! Leave now, you too, and alone too! That's how I want it.

Get away from me and defend yourself from Zarathustra! Or better yet: be ashamed of him! Perhaps he deceived you.

A man of knowledge must not only love his enemies, but be able to hate even his friends.

A teacher who remains only a student forever is poorly paid. And why don’t you want to pluck my wreath?

You respect me; but what will happen if your respect ever falls? Be careful that the statue doesn't kill you!

You say you believe in Zarathustra? But what is the use of Zarathustra? You are the believers in me; but what is the use of all believers!

You were not yet looking for yourself when you found me. This is what all believers do; That's why faith means so little.

Now I command you to lose me and find yourself; and only when you all renounce me will I return to you...

Friedrich Nietzsche

On that perfect day, when everything reaches maturity and not only the grape bunches turn red, a ray of sunshine fell on my life: I looked back, I looked forward, and never have I seen so many good things at once. It was not in vain that I buried my forty-fourth birthday today, I had the right to bury it - what was vitally saved in it became immortal. The first book of the Revaluation of All Values, the Songs of Zarathustra (2), the twilight of the idols, my attempt to philosophize with a hammer - all the gifts brought to me this year, even his last quarter! Why shouldn't I be grateful throughout my life? - So, I tell myself my life.

WHY AM I SO WISE

1

The happiness of my existence, its uniqueness, lies, perhaps, in its fate: expressed in the form of a riddle, I have already died as my father, but as my mother I still live and grow old. This dual origin, as it were, from the highest and from the lowest rung on the ladder of life - at the same time both a decadent and a beginning - best explains, perhaps, what is distinctive for me is the neutrality, non-partisanship in relation to common problem life. I have a more subtle sense of ascending and descending evolution than anyone else; in this area I am the teacher par excellence - I know both, I embody both. - My father died at thirty-six years old: he was a fragile, kind and sickly creature who was destined to pass without a trace - he was more a kind memory of life than life itself. His existence declined in the same year as mine: at thirty-six I had sunk to the lowest limit of my vitality - I was still alive, but I could not see three steps ahead of me. At that time - it was in 1879 - I left my professorship in Basel, lived like a shadow in St. Moritz during the summer, and next winter, the sun-poor winter of my life, I spent like a shadow in Naumburg. This was my minimum: “The Wanderer and His Shadow” arose in the meantime. Without a doubt, I then knew a lot about shadows... In the next winter, my first winter in Genoa, that softening and spiritualization, which was almost due to the extreme depletion of blood and muscles, created the “dawn.” The perfect clarity, transparency, even excess of spirit, reflected in this work, coexisted in me not only with the deepest physiological weakness, but also with the excess of the feeling of pain. In the midst of the torture of three days of continuous headaches, accompanied by excruciating mucus, I had the clarity of a dialectician par excellence, I thought very coolly about things for which, in healthier conditions, I would not have found in myself sufficient refinement and calmness, I would not have found the audacity of a climber. My readers must know to what extent I consider dialectic a symptom of decadence, for example, in famous case: in the case of Socrates. - All painful disturbances of the intellect, even fainting following a fever, remained until now completely alien things to me, the nature of which I first learned only scientifically. My blood is running slow. No one has ever been able to detect my fever. One doctor, who had been treating me for a long time as a nervous patient, finally said: “No! It’s not your nerves that are sick, I myself am only sick with my nerves.” Of course, although it cannot be proven, there is a partial degeneration in me; my body is not affected by any gastric disease, but due to general exhaustion I suffer from extreme weakness of the gastric system. The eye disease, which sometimes led me almost to blindness, was not a cause, but only a consequence; every time my vitality, my vision also returned to a certain extent. - A long, too long series of years means recovery for me - it also means, unfortunately, a reverse crisis, decline, periodicity famous family decadence. Need I say after this that I am experienced in matters of decadence? I walked it in every direction, back and forth. This very filigree art of grasping and understanding in general, this index of nuances, this psychology of shades and curves and everything that forms the peculiarity, all this was then first studied and constituted a true gift of the time when everything in me was refined, observation itself and all the organs observations. Consider healthier concepts and values from the point of view of the patient, and vice versa, from the point of view of completeness and self-confidence. rich life to look at the mysterious work of the instinct of decadence - such was my long exercise, my actual experience, and if in anything, it was in this that I became a master. Now I have experience, experience in shifting perspectives: the main reason why “revaluation of values” has, perhaps, become generally accessible to me alone.

2

Apart from the fact that I am a decadent, I am also its opposite. My proof, by the way, is that I have always instinctively chosen the right remedies against painful conditions: whereas a decadent always chooses remedies that are harmful to himself. As summa summarum (3), I was healthy; as a particularity, as a special occasion, I was a decadent. Energy for absolute loneliness, rejection of the usual conditions of life, effort on oneself so as not to take care of oneself anymore, not to serve oneself and not allow oneself to be treated (4) - all this reveals an unconditional instinct-confidence in the understanding of what was then most necessary . I pulled myself together, I made myself newly healthy: the condition for this - every physiologist will agree with this - is to be fundamentally healthy. A typically sick creature cannot become healthy, and even less can it make itself healthy: for a typically healthy creature, on the contrary, illness can even be an energetic stimulus to life, to prolong life. This is how this long period of illness actually appears to me now: I seemed to have rediscovered life, included myself in it, I found taste in all good and even insignificant things, while others cannot easily find taste in them - I made it out of my will to health, to life, my philosophy... Because - and this should be noted - I ceased to be a pessimist in the years of my lowest vitality: the instinct of self-healing forbade me to the philosophy of poverty and despondency... And what is essentially the manifestation of success! The fact is that a successful person is pleasing to our external senses, that he is carved from hard, tender and at the same time fragrant wood. He only likes what is useful to him; his pleasure, his desire, ceases when the measure of what is useful is exceeded, he divines healing remedies against injuries, he turns harmful accidents to his advantage; what doesn't destroy him makes him stronger. He instinctively collects his sum from everything he sees, hears, experiences: he himself is the principle of selection, he lets a lot pass by. He is always in his company, whether he is surrounded by books, people or landscapes; he honors by choosing, by allowing, by trusting. He reacts to all kinds of irritations slowly, with the slowness that long-term caution and deliberate pride have developed in him - he experiences the irritation that comes to him, but he is far from meeting it halfway. He does not believe in “misfortune.” ”, nor “blame”: he copes with himself, with others, he knows how to forget - he is strong enough to turn everything to his own benefit. Well, I am the opposite of decadent: for I have just described myself.

3

This double series of experiences, this accessibility to supposedly separated worlds is repeated in my nature in all respects - I am a double, I also have a “second person” besides the first. And, perhaps, there is also a third... Already my origin allows me to penetrate with my gaze beyond all perspectives determined only by locality, only by nationality; It doesn’t cost me any effort to be a “good European.” On the other hand, I may be more German than today's Germans, ordinary imperial Germans, can be - I am the last anti-political German. And yet, my ancestors were Polish nobles: from them there are many racial instincts in my body, who knows? In the end, even liberum veto (5). When I think about how often even the Poles themselves address me on the road as a Pole, how rarely they mistake me for a German, it may seem that I belong only to the marked Germans. However, my mother, Franziska Ehler, is in any case something very German; as well as my paternal grandmother, Erdmut Krause. The latter spent her entire youth in good old Weimar, not without communicating with Goethe’s circle. Her brother, professor of theology Krause in Königsberg, was called after Herder's death to Weimar as superintendent general. It is possible that their mother, my great-grandmother, appears under the name “Mutgen” in the diary of young Goethe (6). She remarried Superintendent Nietzsche in Eulenburg; in that day great war 1913, when Napoleon and his general staff entered Eulenburg on October 10, she was relieved of her burden. She, as a Saxon, was a great admirer of Napoleon; It is possible that this passed on to me as well. My father, born in 1813, died in 1849. Before taking office parish priest In the community of Recken near Lützen, he lived for several years in Altenburg Palace and was there as a teacher to four princesses. His students were the Queen of Hanover, the wife of Grand Duke Constantine, the Grand Duchess of Oldenburg and Princess Theresa of Saxe-Altenburg. He was filled with deep reverence for the Prussian king Frederick William IV, from whom he received the church parish; the events of 1848 saddened him extremely. I myself, born on the birthday of the said king, October 15, received, as it should have, the Hohenzollern name - Friedrich Wilhelm. In any case, there was one benefit in choosing this day: my birthday was a holiday throughout my childhood. - I consider it a great advantage that I had such a father: it also seems to me that this explains all my other advantages - and minus life, the great affirmation of life. First of all, I do not need intention at all, but only simple waiting, in order to involuntarily enter into the world of lofty and fragile things: I am at home there, my deepest passion becomes free there for the first time. The fact that I paid almost the price of my life for this advantage is not, of course, an unfair deal. - In order to understand anything in my Zarathustra, it is necessary, perhaps, to be in the same conditions as me - to stand with one foot on the other side of life.

4

I have never known the art of turning against myself - I also owe this to my incomparable father - even in those cases when it seemed to me extremely important. Even, no matter how un-Christian it may seem, I am not turned against myself; you can turn my life around as you please, and rarely, in fact only once, will traces of ill will be discovered towards me - but, perhaps, there will be too many traces of good will... My experiences, even with those on whom everyone makes unsuccessful experiments, speak without exceptions in their favor; I train every bear; I also make jesters well-behaved. For seven years, when I taught Greek in the senior class of the Basel Pedagogium, I never had a reason to resort to punishment; The laziest ones were the most diligent ones. I am always above chance; I don't have to be prepared to control myself. From such an instrument, even if it is as out of tune as a “human” instrument can be, I manage, if I am not sick, to extract something that can be listened to. And how often have I heard from the “instruments” themselves that they have never sounded like this before... Best of all, perhaps, I heard this from that unforgivably early deceased Heinrich von Stein (7), who once, after carefully asking permission, appeared at three days in Sils Maria, explaining to everyone that he had not come for the Engadin. This great person, mired with all the impetuous naivety of a Prussian cadet in a Wagnerian swamp (and also in a Dühringian one!), was in these three days as if reborn by the stormy wind of freedom, like someone who suddenly rises to his height and receives wings. I repeated to him that this is the result good air here above, that this happens to everyone who, for good reason, rises to a height of 6000 feet above Bayreuth - but he did not want to believe me... If, despite this, more than one small or large offense was sinned against me, then the reason for this was not “ will”, least of all evil will: rather I could - I just pointed out this - complain about good will, which has brought considerable disorder into my life. My experiences give me the right to distrust in general the so-called “disinterested” instincts, the “love of one’s neighbor,” which is always ready to interfere in word and deed. For me, she in itself is a weakness, isolated case inability to resist irritations - compassion is called a virtue only among decadents. I reproach the compassionate for the fact that they easily lose modesty, respect and a delicate sense of distance, that compassion in the blink of an eye reeks of the mob and it resembles, to the point of confusion, bad manners - that compassionate hands can, on occasion, destructively invade great destiny, in solitude after wounds, in the preferential right to heavy guilt. I consider overcoming compassion to be an aristocratic virtue6 in “The Temptation of Zarathustra” I described the case when a great cry for help reaches him, when compassion, like the last sin, descends on him and wants to force him to betray himself. Here to remain a master, here the height of his task to keep pure in front of the lower and short-sighted impulses operating in so-called selfless actions, this is the test, perhaps the last test that Zarathustra must pass - the true proof of his strength...

5

Also in another respect, I am once again my father and, as it were, a continuation of his life after too early death. Like everyone who has never lived among their equals and to whom the concept of “retribution” is as inaccessible as the concept of “ equal rights“, I forbid myself in those cases when a small or very large stupidity is committed against me, any measure of counteraction, any measure of defense, as well as any defense, any “justification”. My method of retribution is to send something smart after stupidity as soon as possible: in this way, perhaps, I can still catch up with it. To use a parable: I send a pot of jam to get rid of a sour story... As soon as someone treats me badly, I “take revenge” for it, you can be sure of this: I will soon find a reason to express my gratitude to the “villain” (between among other things, even for an atrocity) - or ask him for something that obliges him to do more than give anything... It also seems to me that the rudest word, the rudest letter is still more polite, still more honest than silence. Those who are silent almost always lack subtlety and courtesy of heart; silence is an objection; swallowing of necessity creates a bad character - it even spoils the stomach. All silent people suffer from poor digestion. - Apparently, I would not like rudeness to be rated too low; it is the most humane form of contradiction and, among modern effeminacy, one of our first virtues. - For those who are rich enough, it is even happiness to bear injustice. A God who would descend to earth would not do anything other than injustice - take upon himself not punishment, but guilt - only this would be divine.

6

Freedom from ressentiment, a clear understanding of ressentiment - who knows how much gratitude I owe to my long illness for this! The problem is not so simple: you have to survive it, based on strength and based on weakness. If there is anything at all to be argued against the state of illness, against the state of weakness, it is that the real instinct of healing weakens in it, and this is the instinct of defense and attack in man. You can't get rid of anything, you can't cope with anything, you can't push away anything - everything offends. People and things come annoyingly close, experiences strike too deeply, memories appear as a festering wound. The painful state is itself a kind of ressentiment. - The patient has only one great healing remedy against it - I call it Russian fatalism, that resigned fatalism with which a Russian soldier, when a military campaign is too burdensome for him, finally lies down in the snow. Don’t accept anything anymore, don’t allow anything into yourself, don’t take it into yourself - don’t react at all anymore... Deep meaning This fatalism, which is not always only the courage to die, but also the preservation of life under the most life-threatening circumstances, expresses a weakening of metabolism, its slowdown, a kind of will to hibernation. A few more steps further in this logic - and you come to a fakir, sleeping for weeks in a coffin... Since you would be exhausted too quickly, if you reacted at all, you no longer react at all - this is logic. But nothing burns out faster than from the affects of ressentiment. Annoyance, painful sensitivity to insults, powerlessness in revenge, desire, thirst for revenge, poisoning in every sense - all this for the exhausted is undoubtedly the most dangerous race reactions: rapid waste of nervous strength, painful increase in harmful secretions, for example bile into the stomach, are caused by all this. Ressentiment is something in itself forbidden to the patient - his evil: unfortunately, also his most natural inclination. - The profound physiologist Buddha understood this. His “religion,” which could rather be called hygiene, so as not to confuse it with such pitiable things as Christianity, made its action dependent on the victory over ressentiment: freeing the soul from it is the first step towards recovery. “Enmity does not end with enmity, enmity ends with friendship” - this is at the beginning of the Buddha’s teaching: it is not morality that says so, physiology says so. - Ressentiment, born from weakness, is most harmful to the weakest - in the opposite case, when a rich nature is assumed, ressentiment is an extra feeling, a feeling over which remaining master is already proof of wealth. Who knows the seriousness with which my philosophy undertook the fight against the vengeful last-born feelings, right up to the doctrine of “free will” - my fight against Christianity is only special case her, - he will understand why it is here that I clarify my personal behavior, my instinct-confidence in practice. During the decadence I forbade them to myself as harmful; so as soon as life again became sufficiently rich and proud, I forbade them to myself as something that was beneath me. That “Russian fatalism” that I was talking about manifested itself in me in the fact that for years I stubbornly clung to almost unbearable situations, localities, homes, societies, since they were given to me by chance - it was better than changing them, than to feel them changeable is better than to rebel against them... At that time, I considered hindering myself in this fatalism, forcibly arousing myself, as mortally harmful: truly, this was always mortally dangerous. - Accepting yourself as fate, not wanting yourself to be “other” - this is the greatest understanding in such circumstances.

7

War is a different matter. I am militant in my own way. It is my instinct to attack. To be able to be an enemy, to be an enemy - this presupposes, perhaps, a strong nature, in any case this is conditioned in every strong nature. She needs resistance, therefore, she seeks resistance: aggressive pathos just as necessarily belongs to strength, as the vengeful last-born feelings belong to weakness. A woman, for example, is vindictive: this is due to her weakness, as well as her sensitivity to other people's misfortune. - The strength of the attacker has a kind of measure in the enemy he needs; every growth manifests itself in the search for a stronger opponent - or problem: for a philosopher who is warlike challenges problems to a duel. The task is not to defeat resistance in general, but to overcome such resistance, against which you need to expend all your strength, dexterity and skill in wielding weapons - an equal opponent... Equality before the enemy is the first condition of a fair duel. Where they despise, there cannot be war: where they command, where they see something beneath them, there should be no war. - My praxis of war is expressed in four provisions. First: I attack only things that are victorious - I wait for them to be victorious on occasion. Secondly: I attack only things against which I would not find allies, where I stand alone - where I only compromise myself... I have never publicly taken a single step that would not compromise: this is my criterion the right image actions. Thirdly: I never attack individuals - I use the individual only as a strong magnifying glass that can make obvious a general, but elusive and elusive disaster. So I attacked David Strauss, or rather, the success of his decrepit book among German “education” “- so I caught this education red-handed... So I attacked Wagner, or rather, the falsity of the half-hearted instinct of our “culture”, which confuses the refined with the rich, the belated with the great. Fourthly: I attack only things where any difference in personalities is excluded, where there is no background of bad experiences. On the contrary, an attack is for me proof of goodwill, in some circumstances even gratitude. I honor, I distinguish by associating my name with a thing, with a person: for or against - it makes no difference to me. If I wage a war with Christianity, then it befits me, because I have not experienced any fatalities or constraints on this side - the most convinced Christians have always been favorable to me. I myself, an opponent of Christianity de rigueur, am far from taking revenge on individuals for what has been the fate of thousands of years.

8

Can I dare to point out one more, final feature of my nature, which causes me considerable difficulties in communicating with people? I have a completely creepy impressionability of the instinct for purity, so intimacy - what am I saying? - the most intimate, or “guts”, of every soul I perceive physiologically - I smell... In this impressionability are my psychological antennae, with which I feel and master every secret: large hidden dirt at the bottom of other souls, caused, perhaps, by bad blood, but disguised by the whitewash of upbringing, becomes known to me almost at the first contact. If my observations are correct, such natures, not reconciled with my cleanliness, in turn treat my disgust with caution: but this does not make them fragrant... As I constantly taught myself - extreme cleanliness in relation to myself is a precondition for my existence, I perish in unclean conditions - I seem to be swimming, bathing and splashing constantly in light water or in some other completely transparent and shiny element. This makes communicating with people a considerable test of patience for me: my humanity does not consist in sympathizing with a person as he is, but in enduring this very sympathy for him... My humanity is his constant self-overcoming. - But I need solitude, I want to say, healing, a return to myself, a breath of free, light, playful air... My entire Zarathustra is a dithyramb to loneliness, or, if you understand me, purity... Fortunately, not to pure madness, - Who has eyes for colors, he will call it diamond. - Disgust for man, for “rabble” has always been my greatest danger... Do you want to listen to the words in which Zarathustra speaks about his liberation from disgust?

What happened to me? How did I get rid of disgust? Who rejuvenated my look? How did I ascend to a height where the rabble no longer sits at the source?

Was it not my very disgust that created for me wings and strength that guessed the source? Truly, I had to fly to the very heights in order to regain the source of joy! -

Oh, I have found it, my brothers! Here, at the very heights, a spring of joy flows for me! And there is a life from which the rabble does not drink with me!

You flow too quickly for me, source of joy! And often you empty the cup, wanting to fill it.

And I still need to learn to approach you more modestly: my heart is still beating too quickly towards you:

my heart, where my summer burns, short, sultry, sad and overly blissful - how my summer-heart yearns for your coolness!

The slow sadness of my spring has passed! The malice of my snow flakes in June has passed! I became completely summer, and the midday of summer!

In the summer at the very heights, with cold springs and blissful silence - oh, come, my friends, so that the silence becomes even more blissful!

For this is our height and our homeland: we live here too high and steep for all the unclean and for their thirst.

Cast your pure gaze, friends, into the spring of my joy! Will he become confused? He will smile back at you with his purity.

On the tree of the future we build our nest; eagles must bring food to us lonely ones in their beaks!

Truly, this is not food that even the unclean can eat! They would feel as if they were being consumed by fire, and their throats would be burned.

Verily, we do not prepare dwellings here for the unclean! An ice cave would be our happiness for their body and spirit!

And, like mighty winds, we want to live above them, neighbors to eagles, neighbors to snow, neighbors to the sun - this is how mighty winds live.

And, like the wind, I want to blow among them someday again and take the breath away from their spirit with my spirit - that’s what my future wants.

Verily, the mighty wind Zarathustra is for all the lowlands; and he gives this advice to his enemies and to everyone who spits and coughs: beware of coughing into the wind!..

Friedrich Nietzsche

Esce Homo. How to become yourself

Preface

In anticipation that the day is not far off when I will have to subject humanity to a test more severe than all that it has ever been subjected to, I consider it necessary to say, Who I. Knowing this, in essence, is not so difficult, for I have “testified of myself” more than once. But the discrepancy between the greatness of my task and nonentity of my contemporaries it manifested itself in the fact that they did not hear me or even see me. I live on my own credit, and perhaps the fact that I live is just a prejudice?.. I only have to talk to some “cultured” person who spent the summer in the Upper Engadine to be convinced that I Not I live... Under these conditions, an obligation arises, against which, in essence, my usual restraint and even more the pride of my instincts rebel, namely the obligation to say: Listen to me! for I am such and such. First of all, don't confuse me with others!

I, for example, am not at all a scarecrow, not a moral monster - I am even a nature opposite to the breed of people who have hitherto been revered as virtuous. Between us, it seems to me, this is precisely what makes me proud. I am a disciple of the philosopher Dionysus, I would rather be a satyr than a saint. But read this essay. Perhaps it has no other meaning than to explain the said opposition in a lighter and more benevolent form. "Improving" humanity would be the last thing I could promise. I do not create new idols; let them learn from the ancients how much clay feet cost. My craft is rather - overthrow idols– that’s what I call “ideals”. To the extent that you thought the ideal world, they robbed reality of its value, its meaning, its truth... “True world” and “apparent world” - in German: world slandered and reality... Lie the ideal was still a curse that weighed on reality; humanity itself, imbued with this lie, was perverted right down to its deepest instincts, to the deification of values, reverse those that would ensure development, future, higher right for the future.

- Anyone who knows how to breathe the air of my works knows that this is the air of the heights, healthy air. You have to be made for it, otherwise you risk catching a cold. Ice nearby, monstrous loneliness - but how serenely all things rest in the light of day! how easy it is to breathe! how much you feel below myself! – Philosophy, as I have understood and experienced it so far, is a voluntary stay among the ice and mountain heights, a search for everything strange and mysterious in existence, everything that has hitherto been persecuted by morality. The long experience I acquired in this wandering through forbidden, taught me to look differently than might have been desirable at the reasons that had hitherto forced me to moralize and create ideals. It opened up to me hidden history of philosophers, psychology of their great names. - That degree of truth, which only the spirit endures that degree of truth to which only dares spirit - this is what more and more became for me the real measure of value. Delusion (belief in an ideal) is not blindness, delusion is cowardice… Every conquest, every step forward in knowledge flows out out of courage, out of severity towards oneself, out of cleanliness towards oneself... I do not reject ideals, I just put on gloves in their presence... Nitimur in vetitum: With this sign my philosophy will one day triumph, for until now only truth has been thoroughly forbidden.

– Among my works is my Zarathustra occupies a special place. With it I gave humanity the greatest gift of all that have been given to it so far. This book with a voice that sounds over millennia is not only the highest book that has ever existed, a real book of mountain air - the very fact of man lies in a monstrous distance below her – she is also a book the deepest born from the innermost depths of truth, an inexhaustible well, from where every submerged bucket returns to the surface full of gold and kindness. It is not a “prophet” who speaks here, not one of those terrible hermaphrodites of disease and the will to power who are called the founders of religions. First of all it is necessary to do it right listen in the voice coming from these lips, in this chalkyonic tone, so as not to be mistaken in the meaning of his wisdom. “The quietest words are those that bring the storm. Thoughts coming like a dove rule the world.” -

The fruits fall from the fig trees, they are juicy and sweet; and as they fall, their red skin is torn off. I am the north wind for ripe fruits.

Thus, like the fruits of a fig tree, these instructions fall to you, my friends; now drink their juice and eat their sweet meat! Autumn is around us, and clear skies, and it’s afternoon. -

Such speeches reach only the most chosen; to be a listener here is an incomparable advantage; not everyone has ears for Zarathustra... Nevertheless, not seducer is Zarathustra?.. But what does he himself say when he returns to his loneliness for the first time? Exactly the opposite of what some “sage”, “saint”, “savior of the world” or some decadent would say in this case... He not only speaks differently, he himself is different...

My students, now I am leaving alone! Leave now, you too, and alone too! That's how I want it.

Get away from me and defend yourself from Zarathustra! Or better yet, be ashamed of him! Perhaps he deceived you.

A man of knowledge must not only love his enemies, but be able to hate even his friends.

He repays the teacher poorly who forever remains only a student. And why don’t you want to pluck my wreath?

You respect me; but what will happen if ever will fall your respect? Be careful that the statue doesn't kill you!

You say you believe in Zarathustra? But what is the use of Zarathustra? You are those who believe in me; but what is the use of all believers!

You were not yet looking for yourself when you found me. This is what all believers do; That's why faith means so little.

Now I command you to lose me and find yourself; but only when you all deny me, I'll get back to you...

Ecce Homo, how to become yourself

Nietzsche dated the appearance of the book from October 15 (the day of his birth) until November 4, 1888, but work on the text continued in the course of everything is already so short term the conscious life allotted to him - the last passage belonging to " Ecce Homo", dated January 2, i.e. the day before the disaster. About putting all the material in order, Of course, there was no question; This was taken up by the Archive, represented by E. Förster-Nietzsche, the writer's sister, and P. Gast. The manuscript was published in 1908. 53 years later, in 1961, E.F. Podakh, through careful work in the Nietzsche Archive, managed to restore the complete text in chronological sequence of passages. The results were the most unexpected: it turned out that the book itself simply did not exist and that we are talking about a series of numerous options and parallels that never waiting for the last author's edits and composition. Nevertheless, the significance of this publication and the relative integrity of the traditional publication allows us to still include this work in the section of Nietzsche’s books, although the very edge beyond which the division of the draft heritage begins. The work is published according to the edition: Friedrich Nietzsche, works in 2 volumes, volume 2, publishing house "Mysl", Moscow 1990. Translation - Yu. M. Antonovsky.

PREFACE

1

In anticipation that the day is not far off when I will have to subject humanity is undergoing a test more severe than all those to which it has been subjected ever, I find it necessary to say who I am. To know this is not really true difficult, because I have “testified of myself” more than once. But the discrepancy between the greatness of my task and the insignificance of my contemporaries was manifested in the fact that They didn’t hear me or even see me. I live on my own credit, and be Maybe the fact that I live is just a prejudice?.. It’s enough for me only talk to some “cultured” person who spent the summer in Verkhniy Engadine to make sure that I do not live... Under these conditions, it occurs a duty against which my usual reserve actually rebels and even more the pride of my instincts, namely the duty to say: Listen to me! for I am such and such. First of all don't confuse me with others!

2

For example, I am not a scarecrow at all, not a moral monster - I am even a nature, opposite to the breed of people who have hitherto been revered as virtuous. Between us, it seems to me, this is precisely the subject my pride. I am a student of the philosopher Dionysus, I would rather be satyr than saint. But read this essay. Perhaps it doesn't have another meaning, how to explain the named opposition in a lighter and in a friendly manner. "Improve" humanity would be the last thing I do could promise. I do not create new idols; let them learn from the ancients what feet of clay are used. My craft is rather to overthrow idols - so I call them "ideals". To the extent that they invented an ideal world, they took it away from reality, its value, its meaning, its truth... “The true world” and “the world apparent" - in German: the lied world and reality... The lie of the ideal was before humanity itself is still a curse that weighs on reality, imbued with this lie, it was perverted right down to its deepest instincts, to the deification of values opposite to those that would ensure development, futurity, the highest right to the future.

3

- Anyone who knows how to breathe the air of my works knows that this is air heights, healthy air. You have to be created for it, otherwise you risk it catch a cold. Ice nearby, monstrous loneliness - but how serene all things rest in the light of day! how easy it is to breathe! how much you feel below yourself! - Philosophy, as I have understood and experienced it so far, is voluntary stay among ice and mountain heights, searching for everything strange and mysterious in existence, everything that was hitherto persecuted by morality. The long experience I acquired in this journey through the forbidden taught me me to look differently than might be desirable at the reasons that forced me to still moralize and create ideals. A hidden story was revealed to me philosophers, psychology of their great names. - That degree of truth, which only the spirit endures, that degree of truth to which only the spirit dares - that’s all more and more became a real measure of value for me. Misconception (faith in an ideal) is not blindness, delusion is cowardice... Anything conquest, every step forward in knowledge flows from courage, from rigor to myself, out of cleanliness towards myself... I do not reject ideals, I I just put on gloves in their presence... Nitimur in vetitum: this it is a sign that my philosophy will one day win, for it is still thoroughly only truth was forbidden.

4

- Among my works, my Zarathustra occupies a special place. Im done I give humanity the greatest gift that has been given to it so far. This book with a voice that resonates over millennia is not only the highest book, that ever existed, the real book of mountain air - the most the fact is that a person lies in a monstrous distance below her - she is also the book deep, born from the innermost depths of truth, an inexhaustible well, from where every submerged bucket returns to the surface full of gold and kindness. It's not a "prophet" speaking here, not one of those terrible hermaphrodites of disease and the will to power, who are called the founders of religions. First of all, we must listen correctly to the voice coming from these lips, in this chalcyonic tone, so as not to be mistaken in the meaning of his wisdom. "The most quiet words are those that bring the storm. Thoughts coming like a dove rule peace." - The fruits fall from the fig trees, they are juicy and sweet; and while they fall, their red skin is peeled off. I am the north wind for ripe fruits. So, like the fruits of a fig tree, these instructions fall to you, friends. my; now drink their juice and eat their sweet meat! Autumn is around us, and clean sky, and time after noon. - It’s not a fanatic speaking here, they’re not “preaching” here, they’re not demanding here. faith: drop after drop falls from the infinite fullness of light and depth of happiness, word by word - gentle slowness is the pace of these speeches. Similar speeches reach only the most chosen; to be a listener here is incomparable advantage; not everyone has ears for Zarathustra... Nevertheless, not Is Zarathustra a seducer?.. But what does he himself say when for the first time returns to his loneliness again? Just the opposite of what in this case some “sage”, “saint”, “savior of the world” would say or some decadent... He not only speaks differently, he himself is different... My students, now I am leaving alone! Leave now, you too, and alone too! So I want. Get away from me and defend yourself from Zarathustra! Better yet: be ashamed his! Perhaps he deceived you. A man of knowledge must not only love his enemies, but also be able to hate even your friends. He repays the teacher poorly who forever remains only a student. AND Why don’t you want to pluck my wreath? You respect me; but what will happen if your respect ever falls? Be careful that the statue doesn't kill you! You say you believe in Zarathustra? But what is the use of Zarathustra? You - those who believe in me; but what is the use of all believers! You were not yet looking for yourself when you found me. This is what all believers do; That's why faith means so little. Now I command you to lose me and find yourself; and only when you are all If you renounce me, I will return to you... Friedrich Nietzsche On that perfect day when everything reaches maturity and not only the grape bunches are turning red, a ray of sun fell on my life: I looked back back, I looked forward, and never have I seen so many good things at once. It was not in vain that I buried my forty-fourth birthday today, I had the right bury him - what was vital in him was saved, became immortal. The first book of the Revaluation of All Values, Songs of Zarathustra, Twilight of the Idols, my attempt to philosophize with a hammer - solid gifts brought to me by this year, even its last quarter! Why shouldn't I be grateful to all own life? - So, I tell myself my life.

Friedrich Nietzsche is a German philosopher, a representative of the “philosophy of life”, one of the most original thinkers of the 19th century.

The text of "Ecce homo" was based on a short self-description, created during two weeks in the autumn of 1888, when Nietzsche, as he wrote in a letter, "carried out the incredibly difficult task of telling himself, his books, his views ... his life." Then the text was revised and supplemented by the author, work on it continued throughout the short period of his remaining conscious life, but was never completed. Nevertheless, the significance and relative integrity of this work still allows us to consider it, albeit on the very edge, as a completed work.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Esce Homo. How to become yourself

Preface

1

I, for example, am not at all a scarecrow, not a moral monster - I am even a nature opposite to the breed of people who have hitherto been revered as virtuous. Between us, it seems to me, this is precisely what makes me proud. I am a disciple of the philosopher Dionysus, I would rather be a satyr than a saint. But read this essay. Perhaps it has no other meaning than to explain the said opposition in a lighter and more benevolent form. "Improving" humanity would be the last thing I could promise. I do not create new idols; let them learn from the ancients how much clay feet cost. My craft is rather - overthrow idols– that’s what I call “ideals”. To the extent that you thought the ideal world, they have robbed reality of its value, its meaning, its truth... “True world” and “apparent world” - in German: world slandered and reality... Lie the ideal was still a curse that weighed on reality; humanity itself, imbued with this lie, was perverted right down to its deepest instincts, to the deification of values, reverse those that would ensure development, future, higher right for the future.

3

4

– Among my works is my Zarathustra occupies a special place. With it I gave humanity the greatest gift of all that have been given to it so far. This book with a voice that sounds over millennia is not only the highest book that has ever existed, a real book of mountain air - the very fact of man lies in a monstrous distance below her – she is also a book the deepest born from the innermost depths of truth, an inexhaustible well, from where every submerged bucket returns to the surface full of gold and kindness. It is not a “prophet” who speaks here, not one of those terrible hermaphrodites of disease and the will to power who are called the founders of religions. First of all it is necessary to do it right listen in the voice coming from these lips, in this chalkyonic tone, so as not to be mistaken in the meaning of his wisdom. "The quietest words are those that bring the storm. Thoughts that come like a dove rule the world." -

The fruits fall from the fig trees, they are juicy and sweet; and as they fall, their red skin is torn off. I am the north wind for ripe fruits. Thus, like the fruits of a fig tree, these instructions fall to you, my friends; now drink their juice and eat their sweet meat! Autumn is around us, and clear skies, and it’s afternoon. -

It’s not a fanatic speaking here, they’re not “preaching” here, they’re not demanding here. faith: from the endless fullness of light and depth of happiness drop by drop falls, word by word - gentle slowness is the tempo of these speeches. Such speeches reach only the most chosen; to be a listener here is an incomparable advantage; not everyone has ears for Zarathustra... Nevertheless, not seducer is Zarathustra?.. But what does he himself say when he returns to his loneliness for the first time? Exactly the opposite of what some “sage”, “saint”, “savior of the world” or some decadent would say in this case... He not only speaks differently, he himself is different...