I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful.
Friedrich Nietzsche- 1844-1900, German philosopher
“This comes from the second part of his life and it really struck me because it’s so different from most of what he had written. I was very struck by it because it is so unlike anything I ever read from Nietzsche, who’s initial work is all about the will, and the superman, and imposing our inwardness on the outer world. [Finding this quote] led me to investigate more about what did I really know about this man. This brings up a theme for me that is to really look for the story behind the story. When we can take the time to look for the story behind the story we find the real treasures. It turned out that Nietzsche had a breakdown at the age of 44 after which he was never the same and his work completely changed. He was in Turin, Italy, in a hotel, on a plaza, when he looked out his window and he saw a man whipping a horse and it cracked him. He ran into the square pleading with the man to stop who said, ‘It’s my horse, get out of the way.’ And so Nietzsche threw his arms around the neck of the horse and put himself between the whip and the whipped. For all the brilliant things he wrote, I believe that moment was the poem of his life and it’s after that transformation that he wrote this quote.”
Mark Nepo, author of The One Life We’re Given:
Finding the Wisdom That Waits in Your Heart
and Drinking From the River of Light
