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Humain, trop humain, avec ses deux continuations, est le monument commémoratif d'une crise. Je l'ai intitulé : un livre pour les esprits libres, et presque chacune de ses phrases exprime une victoire ; en l'écrivant, je me suis débarrassé de tout ce qu'il y avait en moi d'étranger à ma vraie nature. Tout idéalisme m'est étranger. Le titre de mon livre veut dire ceci : là où vous voyez des choses idéales, moi je vois... des choses humaines, hélas ! trop humaines ! [...] On trouvera ce livre sage, posé, parfois dur et ironique. On dirait qu'un certain « intellectualisme » au goût aristocratique s'efforce constamment de dominer un courant de passion qui gronde par en dessous.
Friedrich Nietzsche.
Commencé en 1876, et achevé au début de 1878, le premier livre de Humain, trop humain, qui comporte 638 aphorismes, a été pour l'essentiel dicté à Peter Gast, alors étudiant à Bâle. Il paraîtra le 30 mai 1878, pour saluer le centième anniversaire de la mort de Voltaire, « l'un des plus grands libérateurs de l'esprit ». Le second livre contient deux écrits distincts, Opinions et sentences mêlées et Le Voyageur et son ombre, qui seront quant à eux publiés l'un en 1879 et l'autre en 1880. Nietzsche s'est désormais libéré des influences qui pesaient sur lui et son radicalisme trouve enfin son expression la plus ferme. Il pourfend la métaphysique traditionnelle, affronte le problème de l'éthique, développe sa critique du christianisme, renforce sa réflexion sur l'art et aborde des sujets aussi divers que le mariage, la femme, les rapports humains, la violence entre les hommes...
Révision de la traduction, notes et commentaires par Angèle Kremer-Marietti.
514 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1878

The people no doubt possess something that might be called an artistic need, but it is small and cheap to satisfy. The refuse of art is at bottom all that is required: we should honestly admit that to ourselves. Just consider, for instance, the kind of songs and tunes the most vigorous, soundest and most naive strata of our populace nowadays take true delight in, dwelling among shepherds, cowherds, farmers, huntsmen, soldiers, seamen, and then supply yourself with an answer. And in the small town, in precisely the homes that are the seat of those civic virtues inherited from of old, do they not love, indeed dote on the very worst music in any way produced today? Whoever talks of a profound need for art, of an unfilled desire for art, on the part of the people as it is, is either raving or lying . . . Nowadays it is only in exceptional men that there exists an artistic need of an exalted kind. (2.1.169)
Active men are generally wanting in the higher activity: I mean that of the individual. They are active as officials, businessmen, scholars, that is to say as generic creatures, but not as distinct individual and unique human beings; in this regard they are lazy. —It is the misfortune of the active that their activity is always a little irrational. One ought not to ask the cash-amassing banker, for example, what the purpose of his restless activity is: it is irrational. The active roll as the stone rolls, in obedience to the stupidity of the laws of mechanics—As at all times, so now too, men are divided into the slaves and the free; for he who does not have two-thirds of his day to himself is a slave, let him be what he may otherwise: statesman, businessman, official, scholar. (1.283)
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If someone obstinately and for a long time wants to appear something it is in the end hard for him to be anything else. The profession of almost every man, even that of the artist, begins with hypocrisy, with an imitation from without, with a copying of what is most effective. He who is always wearing a mask of friendly countenance must finally acquire a power over benevolent moods without which the impression of friendliness cannot be obtained—and finally these acquire power over him, he is benevolent. (1.51)
There is one thing one has to have: either a cheerful disposition by nature or a disposition made cheerful by art and knowledge. (1.486)
201
Bad writers necessary. There will always have to be bad writers, for they reflect the taste of CRETINS who have needs as much as the mature do. If human life were longer, there would be more of the individuals who have matured than of the CRETINS, or at least as many. But as it is, the great majority ARE CRETINS which means there are always many more undeveloped intellects with bad taste. Moreover, these people demand satisfaction of their needs with the greater vehemence of CRETINS and they force the existence of bad authors.