Anthony Mario Ludovici > Quotes

“Where attempts have not been made to reconcile the two moralities, they may be described as follows:— All is good in the noble morality which proceeds from strength, power, health, well-constitutedness, happiness, and awfulness; for, the motive force behind the people practising it is “the struggle for power.” The antithesis “good and bad” to this first class means the same as “noble” and “despicable.” “Bad” in the master-morality must be applied to the coward, to all acts that spring from weakness, to the man with “an eye to the main chance,” who would forsake everything in order to live.

With the second, the slave-morality, the case is different. There, inasmuch as the community is an oppressed, suffering, unemancipated, and weary one, all that will be held to be good which alleviates the state of suffering. Pity, the obliging hand, the warm heart, patience, industry, and humility—these are unquestionably the qualities we shall here find flooded with the light of approval and admiration; because they are the most useful qualities —; they make life endurable, they are of assistance in the “struggle for existence” which is the motive force behind the people practising this morality. To this class, all that is awful is bad, in fact it is the evil par excellence. Strength, health, superabundance of animal spirits and power, are regarded with hate, suspicion, and fear by the subordinate class.”
― Anthony M. Ludovici, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, Ecce Homo, Genealogy of Morals, Birth of Tragedy, The Antichrist, The Twilight of the ... Idols, The Case of Wagner, Letters & Essays

“To hold typically liberal views, therefore, and to assume that if we liked we could all settle down to love one another and live in perfect amity and harmony together, is possible only to those idealists who are congenitally blind to the true character of all life; whilst as for those numskulls who begin to see and think of the Will to Power only when figures like Napoleon, Stalin or Hitler appear, and who overlook it wholly in themselves, their wives, their children and their cat, they are even more dangerous than the idealists aforesaid”
― Anthony Mario Ludovici, Religion for Infidels

“The modern world has in Nietzsche's stupendously courageous inquiry into the broad question of sick and healthy values, an outline of its task, and a signpost as to the direction that it should pursue, which it can ignore only at its own hurt and peril.”
― Anthony Mario Ludovici, A Defence of Aristocracy: A Text Book for Tories

“Superficial statesmen and politicians — always too plentifully represented in every Reform, Radical or Revolutionary Party — constantly make the mistake of assuming that if a well-tried and old-established institution begins to reveal serious flaws, the fault must inevitably lie with the institution itself and not with the men trying to run it.
Consequently, the facile remedy such men invariably seek is that of scrapping the institution altogether and replacing it by some new-fangled untried contraption, hastily contrived, which is then with infantile naivete handed over to the very same generation of men who have made a mess of the scrapped edifice.
At bottom, this policy amounts to attempting to correct the faulty and incompetent driving of a car by tinkering with its mechanisms and structure, instead of improving the driver.”
― Anthony Mario Ludovici, A Defence of Aristocracy: A Text Book for Tories

“To the strong there is no such thing as free will; for free will implies an alternative, and the strong man has no alternative. His ruling instinct leaves him no alternative, allows him no hesitation or vacillation. Strength of will is the absence of free will. If to the weak man strong will appears to have an alternative, it is a total misapprehension on his part.

To the strong there is also no such thing as determinism as the determinists understand it. Environment and circumambient conditions determine nothing in the man of strong will. To him the only thing that counts, the only thing he hears is his inner voice, the voice of his ruling instinct. The most environment can do is to provide this ruling instinct with an anvil on which to beat out its owner's destiny, and beneath the racket and din of its titanic action all the voices of stimuli from outside, all the determining suggestions and hints from environment, sink into an insignificant and inaudible whisper, not even heard, much less heeded, therefore, by the strong man. That is why the passion of a strong man may be permanent, that is why the actions of a strong man may be consistent; because they depend upon an inner constitution of things which cannot change, and not upon environment which can and does change. If the strong man is acquainted with determinism at all, it is a determinism from within, a voice from his own breast; but this is not the determinism of the determinists.”
― Anthony Mario Ludovici

“To the strong there is no such thing as free will; for free will implies an alternative, and the strong man has no alternative. His ruling instinct leaves him no alternative, allows him no hesitation or vacillation. Strength of will is the absence of free will. If to the weak man strong will appears to have an alternative, it is a total misapprehension on his part.”
― Anthony Ludovici

“To the strong there is also no such thing as determinism as the determinists understand it. Environment and circumambient conditions determine nothing in the man of strong will. To him the only thing that counts, the only thing he hears is his inner voice, the voice of his ruling instinct. The most environment can do is to provide this ruling instinct with an anvil on which to beat out its owner's destiny, and beneath the racket and din of its titanic action all the voices of stimuli from outside, all the determining suggestions and hints from environment, sink into an insignificant and inaudible whisper, not even heard, much less heeded, therefore, by the strong man. That is why the passion of a strong man may be permanent, that is why the actions of a strong man may be consistent; because they depend upon an inner constitution of things which cannot change, and not upon environment which can and does change. If the strong man is acquainted with determinism at all, it is a determinism from within, a voice from his own breast; but this is not the determinism of the determinists.”
― Anthony Ludovici

“Nietzsche practically tells us here that it is not he who intentionally wears eccentric clothes or does eccentric things who is truly the individualist. The profound man, who is by nature differentiated from his fellows, feels this difference too keenly to call attention to it by any outward show. He is shamefast and bashful with those who surround him and wishes not to be discovered by them, just as one instinctively avoids all lavish display of comfort or wealth in the presence of a poor friend.”
― Anthony Mario Ludovici, Notes on Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“No one better than the average member of the English Array perceived the speciousness of the popular and irrational appeal in rabid antisemitism. It is always unpleasant to be shown a scapegoat and told that he is responsible for all our iniquities. Such tactics tend to relieve us of any implication in the mismanagement and deplorable state of our country and to give us a sense of righteousness at once exhilarating and comforting to our indolence. In this respect antisemitism gives the same relief as does the medical man's bacteriological bias, when he assures us that our maladies are in no way of our own making, but wholly due to the 'bug' that has 'invaded' our system.”
― Anthony Mario Ludovici

“[Nietzsche's] quarrel is not with women—what indeed could be more undignified?—it is with those who would destroy the natural relationship between the sexes, by modifying either the one or the other with a view to making them more alike. The human world is just as dependent upon women’s powers as upon men’s. It is women’s strongest and most valuable instincts which help to determine who are to be the fathers of the next generation. By destroying these particular instincts, that is to say by attempting to masculinise woman, and to feminise men, we jeopardise the future of our people.”
― Anthony M. Ludovici, Notes on Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“The principle that guides all true Conservatives (or should guide them) and makes their political attitude fool-proof is that enunciated by Emerson over a century ago, that "No institution will be better than the institutor".
In other words, they should exercise that wise caution and hesitation in reform, which is inspired by a proper and tender regard for traditional usages and practices throughout the nation.”
― Anthony Mario Ludovici, A Defence of Aristocracy: A Text Book for Tories