Nietzsche for Creative Spirits
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The Sedentary Life is the Real Sin against the Holy Spirit
...The sedentary life - as I have said once before - is the real sin against the holy spirit.
...We do not belong to those who have ideas only among books, when stimulated by books. It is our habit to think outdoors - walking, leaping, climbing, dancing, preferably on lonely mountains or near the sea where even the trails become thoughtful. Our first questions about the value of a book, of a human being, or a musical composition are: Can they walk? Even more, can they dance?
...We read rarely, but not worse on that account. How quickly we guess how someone has come by his ideas; whether it was while sitting in front of his inkwell, with a pinched belly, his head bowed low over the paper - in which case we are quickly finished with his book, too! Cramped intestines betray themselves - you can bet on that - no less than closet air, closet ceilings, closet narrowness.
...a reading room makes me sick.
from Nietzsche's Ecce Homo, (trans. W. Kaufmann), p2 s1Sit as little as possible; give no credence to any thought that was not born outdoors while one moved about freely - in which the muscles are not celebrating a feast, too. All prejudices come from the intestines.The sedentary life - as I have said once before - is the real sin against the holy spirit.
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from Nietzsche's The Gay Science, (trans. W. Kaufmann), s. 366Faced with a scholarly book. - We do not belong to those who have ideas only among books, when stimulated by books. It is our habit to think outdoors - walking, leaping, climbing, dancing, preferably on lonely mountains or near the sea where even the trails become thoughtful. Our first questions about the value of a book, of a human being, or a musical composition are: Can they walk? Even more, can they dance?
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from Nietzsche's The Gay Science, (trans. W. Kaufmann), s. 366We read rarely, but not worse on that account. How quickly we guess how someone has come by his ideas; whether it was while sitting in front of his inkwell, with a pinched belly, his head bowed low over the paper - in which case we are quickly finished with his book, too! Cramped intestines betray themselves - you can bet on that - no less than closet air, closet ceilings, closet narrowness. - This was what I felt just now as I closed a very decent scholarly book - gratefully, very gratefully, but also with a sense of relief.
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from Nietzsche's Ecce Homo, (trans. W. Kaufmann), p2 s3Otherwise I almost always seek refuge with the same books - actually, a small number - books proved to me. Perhaps it is not my way to read much, or diverse things: a reading room makes me sick. Nor is it my way to love much, or diverse things. Caution, even hostility against new books comes closer to my instincts than "tolerance," "largeur du coeur," and other "neighbor love."
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