My formula for human greatness is amor fati: that one wants to have nothing different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely to bear the necessary, still less to conceal it—all idealism is mendaciousness before the necessary—but to love it.

”

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Saw this quote via Mills.

He poses the key question: “would it be better for everything that happens to happen eternally?” For Nietzsche, eternal recurrence is pretty much the worst thing ever. It means the death of god, the birth of nihilism, etc. etc. It’s also a fact, and Nietzsche thought he had (he didn’t) a scientific proof to back it up. But there’s hope: amor fati represents the triumph of man over the horror eternal recurrence. It’s like Kevin Bacon saying “Thank you sir may I have another” in Animal House, only really meaning it.

Also, the whole syphilis thing is probably untrue and everything in this quote is pretty much core to Nietzsche’s whole philosophy.

At least, that’s what Walter Kaufmann tells me. I’m not capable of reading Nietzsche directly and emerging with anything smart or coherent to say.