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Zur Genealogie der Moral. Eine Streitschrift
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
(1888)

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Genealogia della morale The Genealogy of Morals
Capitolo 11.
Noi che ricerchiamo la conoscenza, ci siamo sconosciuti, noi stessi ignoti a noi stessi, e la cosa ha le sue buone ragioni. Noi non ci siamo mai cercati, e come avremmo mai potuto, un bel giorno, trovarci? Si è detto e a ragione: «Dove è il vostro tesoro, è anche il vostro cuore», il nostro tesoro si trova dove sono gli alveari della nostra conoscenza. E per questo siamo sempre in movimento, come veri e propri animali alati e raccoglitori di miele dello spirito, preoccupati in realtà solo e unicamente di una cosa, di «portare a casa» qualcosa. Di fronte alla vita, poi, e a quello che concerne le cosiddette «esperienze», chi di noi mai ha anche solo la serietà necessaria? O il tempo necessario? Di queste cose, temo, non ci siamo mai veramente «occupati», infatti il nostro cuore è altrove, e anche le nostre orecchie! Simili piuttosto a chi, divinamente distratto e immerso in se stesso ha appena avuto le orecchie percosse dal suono della campana che con tutta la sua forza ha annunziato il mezzogiorno con dodici rintocchi, e si sveglia all’improvviso e si chiede «che suono è mai questo?», così noi, di quando in quando, dopo, ci stropicciamo le orecchie tutti sorpresi e imbarazzati e chiediamo «che cosa mai abbiamo realmente vissuto?» o ancora «chi siamo noi in realtà?» e contiamo solo dopo, come si è detto, tutti e dodici i frementi rintocchi della nostra esperienza, della nostra vita, del nostro essere – ahimè – e sbagliamo a contare… Infatti necessariamente rimaniamo estranei a noi stessi, non ci capiamo, dobbiamo scambiarci per altri, per noi vale per l’eternità, la frase «ognuno è per se stesso la cosa più lontana», noi non ci riconosciamo come gente che «ricerca la conoscenza»…




We are unknown, we knowers, ourselves to ourselves: this has its own good reason. We have never searched for ourselves - how should it then come to pass, that we should ever find ourselves? Rightly has it been said: "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Our treasure is there, where stand the hives of our knowledge. It is to those hives that we are always striving; as born creatures of flight, and as the honey-gatherers of the spirit, we care really in our hearts only for one thing - to bring something "home to the hive!"

As far as the rest of life with its so-called "experiences" is concerned, which of us has even sufficient serious interest? or sufficient time? In our dealings with such points of life, we are, I fear, never properly to the point; to be precise, our heart is not there, and certainly not our ear. Rather like one who, delighting in a divine distraction, or sunken in the seas of his own soul, in whose ear the clock has just thundered with all its force its twelve strokes of noon, suddenly wakes up, and asks himself, "What has in point of fact just struck?" so do we at times rub afterwards, as it were, our puzzled ears, and ask in complete astonishment and complete embarrassment, "Through what have we in point of fact just lived?" further, "Who are we in point of fact?" and count, after they have struck, as I have explained, all the twelve throbbing beats of the clock of our experience, of our life, of our being - ah! - and count wrong in the endeavour. Of necessity we remain strangers to ourselves, we understand ourselves not, in ourselves we are bound to be mistaken, for of us holds good to all eternity the motto, "Each one is the farthest away from himself" - as far as ourselves are concerned we are not "knowers."



  • ever: Ever means at any time.
  • suddenly: If something happens suddenly, it happens quickly and unexpectedly.
  • concern: Concern is a feeling of worry.
  • experience: An experience is something you have seen or done.
  • force: Force is a person’s strength or power.
  • sudden: When something is sudden, it happens very quickly.
  • certain: If you are certain about something, you know it is true.
  • far: If something is far, it is not close.
  • remain: To remain somewhere is to stay there.
  • rest: To rest is to stop being active while the body gets back its strength.
  • creature: A creature is any living thing.
  • serious: When something is serious, it is bad or unsafe.
  • strange: When something is strange, it is not normal.
  • wake: To wake is to not be sleeping anymore.
  • thin: If someone or something is thin, they are not fat.
  • owe: To owe is to have to pay or give back something received from another.
  • fear: Fear is the feeling of being afraid.
  • mistake: A mistake is something you do wrong.
  • beat: To beat someone means to do better than they do.
  • gather: To gather is to collect several things usually from different places.
  • real: If something is real, it actually exists.
  • war: A war is a big fight between two groups of people.
  • range: A range is a number or a set of similar things.
  • further: Further is used to say something is from a distance or time.
  • deal: A deal is an agreement that you have with another person.
  • puzzle: A puzzle is something that is hard to understand.
  • own: To own something means to have it. That thing belongs to you.
  • knowledge: Knowledge is information that you have about something.
  • proper: If something is proper, it is right.

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