Michael Ratnam’s Reviews > Twilight of the Idols / The Anti-Christ > Status Update

The wrong never lies in unequal rights; it lies in the claim to equal rights.

The most intellectual men, as the strongest find their happiness where others meet with their ruin: in the labyrinth, in hardness towards themselves and others, in endeavour; their delight is self-mastery: with them asceticism becomes a second nature, a need, an instinct They regard a difficult task as their privilege; to play with burdens which crush their fellows is to them a recreation.

Every inch of truth has been conquered only after a struggle, almost everything to which our heart, our love and our trust in life cleaves, has had to be sacrificed for it Greatness of soul is necessary for this: the service of truth is the hardest of all services. A man is severe towards his own heart, that he scorns "beautiful feelings," and that he makes a matter of conscience out of every Yea or Nay

the "inner world" of the religious man is ridiculously like the "inner world" of over-irritable and exhausted people; the "highest" states which Christianity holds up to mankind as the value of values, are epileptic in character,—

Freidrich Nietzsche. Twilight of the Idols & Antichrist (p. 173). (Function). Kindle Edition.

Man must not cast his glance upon the outer world, he must turn it inwards into himself; he must not as a learner look cleverly and cautiously into things; he must not see at all: he must suffer. ... And he must suffer, so that he may be in need of the priest every minute.—

The priest knows only one great danger, and that is science,—the healthy concept of cause and effect But, on the whole, science flourishes onlyunder happy conditions,—a man must have time, he must also have superfluous mental energy in order to "pursue knowledge" ... "Consequently man must be made unhappy,"—this has been the argument of priest for ages

God created woman. And boredom did indeed cease from that moment,—but many other things ceased as well!
Woman was God's second mistake.—
"Woman in her innermost nature is a serpent, Heva"—every priest knows this: "all evil came into this world through woman,"—every priest knows this too.

"Consequently science also comes from woman."

Insignificant little abortions of bigots and liars began to lay sole claim to the concepts "God," "Truth," "Light," "Spirit," "Love," "Wisdom," "Life," as if these things were, so to speak, synonyms of themselves, in order to fence themselves off from "the world"; little ultra-Jews, ripe for every kind of madhouse, twisted values round in order to suit themselves.

What was the only part of Christianity which was subsequently borrowed by Muhamed? St Paul's invention, his expedient for priestly tyranny and to the formation of herds: the belief in immortality—that is to say, the doctrine of the "Last Judgment." ...

Friedrich Nietzsche. Twilight of the Idols & Antichrist (p. 158). (Function). Kindle Edition.

Whoever might seek for signs pointing to the guiding fingers of an ironical deity behind the great comedy of existence, would find no small argument in the huge note of interrogation that is called Christianity.