Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits

by Nietzsche, Friedrich (1996)

Abstract

This remarkable collection of almost 1,400 aphorisms was originally published in three instalments. The first (now Volume I) appeared in 1878, just before Nietzsche abandoned academic life, with a first supplement entitled The Assorted Opinions and Maxims following in 1879, and a second entitled The Wanderer and his Shadow a year later. In 1886 Nietzsche republished them together in a two-volume edition, with new prefaces to each volume. Both volumes are presented here in R. J. Hollingdale's distinguished translation (originally published in the series Cambridge Texts in German Philosophy) with a new introduction by Richard Schacht. In this wide-ranging work Nietzsche first employed his celebrated aphoristic style, so perfectly suited to his iconoclastic, penetrating and multi-faceted thought. Many themes of his later work make their initial appearance here, expressed with unforgettable liveliness and subtlety. Human, All Too Human well deserves its subtitle 'A Book for Free Spirits', and its original dedication to Voltaire, whose project of radical enlightenment here found a new champion.

Key Passage

457: Slaves and workers. - That we place more value on satisfaction of vanity than on any other form of well-being (security, accommodation, pleasure of all kinds) is demonstrated to a ludicrous degree in the fact that, quite apart from any political reasons, everyone desires the abolition of slavery and abominates the idea of reducing people to this condition: whereas everyone must at the same time realize that slaves live in every respect more happily and in greater security than the modern worker, and that the work done by slaves is very little work compared with that done by the 'worker'. One protests in the name of 'human dignity': but that, expressed more simply, is that precious vanity which feels being un¬ equal, being publicly rated lower, as the hardest lot. - The Cynic thinks differently, because he despises honour: - and thus Diogenes was for a time a slave and private tutor. 

(p.167)

Links to Reference

• https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/26637163

Translator

Hollingdale RJ

Citation

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