What about that statement itself?

Try saying, at least to yourself, "What about that statement ITSELF" any time you hear these grandiose "Who is to judge?", "No one can know THE truth", "Everything's relative" types of philosophical claims and questions.

"What about that statement itself?"

is one the most important questions in philosophy, especially for non-philosophical individuals.

It can make a lot of lights go on, and turn the tables in many situations. The statement

"No one can know the truth" ---is paraded around like that statement itself is the truth, isn't it?

See? You're becoming a streetwise philosopher already!

I have seen non-philosophical people of all ages have eureka moments, even turning points in their lives, just from thinking about this one almost magic question.

Unvarnishing the Truth

One must be honest in intellectual matters to the point of harshness. One must be accustomed to living on mountains---to seeing the wretched ephemeral chatter about politics and national egoism beneath one. One must have become indifferent, one must never ask whether truth is useful or whether it is a fatality. A preference, born from strength, for questions for which no one today has the courage. Courage for the denied. Predestination for the labyrinth. An experience out of seven solitudes. New ears for new music. New eyes for the most distant things. A new conscience for truths which have so far remained silent.


Friedrich Nietzsche
Bonn, 1888

Pre-Birthing

My time has not yet come. Some are born posthumously.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Stating the Unstated

My ambition is to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book. And what everyone else does not say in a book.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Twilight of the Idols
"Expeditions of an Untimely Man"
1889

Immortal Concision

Aphorisms are the forms of eternity.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Twilight of the Idols
"Expeditions of an Untimely Man" 51
1889

Dancing with Philosophers

There is no formula for how much nourishment a spirit requires. But if its taste is for independence, for wandering, perhaps for adventures to which only the swiftest are equal, then it prefers to live free on a light diet, than unfree and stuffed.

Not fat, but the greatest suppleness and strength is what a good dancer wants from their food. And I don't know what more the spirit of a philosopher could wish to be than a good dancer. For the dance is their ideal, their art, and also the only kind of piety they know, their 'divine service'.

Friedrich Nietzsche 1887

Hot Issues and Cold Showers

I regard profound problems as I do a cold bath. In quickly and out quickly. That one thereby fails to get down deep enough, fails to reach the depths, is the superstition of the enemies of cold water. They speak without experience. Oh! Great cold makes one quick!

Friedrich Nietzsche
1887