Twilight of the Idols How to Philosophize with a Hammer

<p><b>Twilight of the Idols</b></p> <p> Friedrich Nietzsche [1895]</p> <p>Text prepared from the original German and the translations by Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale</p> <p>Twilight of the Idols, or, How to Philosophize with a Hammer (German: Götzen-Dämmerung, oder, Wie man mit dem Hammer philosophirt) is a book by Friedrich Nietzsche, written in 1888, and published in 1889.</p> <p><b>CONTENTS</b></p> <ul> <li>Preface</li> <li>Maxims and Arrows</li> <li>The Problem of Socrates</li> <li>"Reason" in Philosophy</li> <li>How the "True World" Finally Became a Fable</li> <li>Morality as Anti-Nature</li> <li>The Four</li> <li>Great Errors</li> <li>The "Improvers" of Mankind</li> <li>What the Germans Lack</li> <li>Skirmishes of an Untimely Man</li> <li>What I Owe to the Ancients</li> <li>The Hammer Speaks</li> </ul> <p>Maintaining cheerfulness in the midst of a gloomy task, fraught with immeasurable responsibility, is no small feat; and yet what is needed more than cheerfulness? Nothing succeeds if prankishness has no part in it. Excess strength alone is the proof of strength.</p> <p>A revaluation of all values: this question mark, so black, so huge that it casts a shadow over the man who puts it down -- such a destiny of a task compels one to run into the sunlight at every opportunity to shake off a heavy, all-too-heavy seriousness. Every means is proper to do this; every "case" is a case of luck. Especially, war. War has always been the great wisdom of all spirits who have become too introspective, too profound; even in a wound there is the power to heal. A maxim, the origin of which I withhold from scholarly curiosity, has long been my motto:</p> <p>Increscunt animi, virescit volnere virtus.</p> <p>["The spirits increase, vigor grows through a wound."]</p> <p>Another mode of convalescence (in certain situations even more to my liking) is sounding out idols. There are more idols than realities in the world: that is my "evil eye" upon this world; that is also my "evil ear." Finally to pose questions with a hammer, and sometimes to hear as a reply that famous hollow sound that can only come from bloated entrails -- what a delight for one who has ears even behind his ears, for me, an old psychologist and pied piper before whom just that which would remain silent must finally speak out.</p> <p>This essay -- the title betrays it -- is above all a recreation, a spot of sunshine, a leap sideways into the idleness of a psychologist. Perhaps a new war, too? And are new idols sounded out? This little essay is a great declaration of war; and regarding the sounding out of idols, this time they are not just idols of the age, but eternal idols, which are here touched with a hammer as with a tuning fork: there are no idols that are older, more assured, more puffed-up -- and none more hollow. That does not prevent them from being those in which people have the most faith; nor does one ever say "idol," especially not in the most distinguished instance.</p> <p>Turin, September 30, 1888, on the day when the first book of the Revaluation of All Values was completed.</p> <p>FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE</p>