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:
“Acknowledge your will and speak to us all, ‘This alone is what I will to be!’ Hang your own penal code up above you: we want to be its enforcers!”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Those who show pity and are always ready to help during times of trouble are seldom the same ones who rejoice in our joy: when others are happy they have nothing to do, they become superfluous and lose their feeling of superiority, and so they easily show their displeasure.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The enjoyment that all morality has given us to now and that it continues to give us—and so, what has kept it going up to now—lies in everyone’s right, without lengthy investigation, to praise and blame. And who could endure life without praising and blaming!”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“This crown to crown the laughing man, this rose-wreath crown: I myself have set this crown upon my head, I myself have pronounced my laughter holy.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“But eternal liveliness is what counts: what does ‘eternal life’ matter, or life at all?”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)