Friedrich Nietzsche
The 19th century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche gives prominent focus to what he terms "the Brotherhood of Assassins", in section 24 of On the Genealogy of Morality. Nietzsche's signature work is to attempt the transvaluation of values, that is, to transcend the inherited Jewish and Christian politics, psychology and ethics of ressentiment and guilt. Nietzsche points to the Assassins as anti-ascetic 'free spirits' who no longer believe in metaphysical truth.
Importantly, Nietzsche attacks the false spirits who are the host of self-describing "unbelievers" of modern times who claim to reject religious deception as scholars and philosophers and yet retain the traditional refusal to question the value of truth. Nietzsche compares genuine free spirits with the Assassins: "When the Christian crusaders in the Orient came across that invincible order of Assassins – that order of free spirits par excellence whose lowest order received, through some channel or other, a hint about that symbol and spell reserved for the uppermost echelons alone, as their secret: "nothing is true, everything is permitted". Now that was freedom of the spirit, with that, belief in truth itself was renounced."
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Famous quotes by friedrich nietzsche:
“I teach the No to all that makes weak—that exhausts. I teach the Yes to all that strengthens, that stores up strength, that pride.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The inclination to self-depreciation, to freely accepting being robbed, being duped, and being swindled, could be the modesty of a god among men.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The machine is impersonal, it takes the pride away from a piece of work, the individual merits and defects that go along with all work that is not done by a machine—which is to say, its little bit of humanity.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Asceticism is the right way of thinking for those who have to extirpate their sensual drives because they are ravening beasts of prey. But only for those!”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“How is freedom measured, in individuals as in nations? By the resistance which has to be overcome, by the effort it costs to stay aloft. One would have to seek the highest type of free man where the greatest resistance is constantly being overcome: five steps from tyranny, near the threshold of the danger of servitude.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)