Why I am so wise

90 Pages·2005·0.45 MB·English

by  Nietzsche

PENGUIN BOOKS — GREAT IDEAS
Why I am So Wise
Friedrich Nietzsche
1844–1900
Friedrich Nietzsche
Why I am So Wise
TRANSLATED BY R. J. HOLLINGDALE
PENGUIN BOOKS — GREAT IDEAS
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South
Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Götzen-
Dämmerung first published 1889
This translation first published in Penguin Classics 1968
Ecce Homo first published 1908
This translation first published in Penguin Classics 1979
Published in Penguin Books (U.K.) 2004
First published in the United States of America by Penguin Books 2005
7 9 10 8
Translation copyright © R. J. Hollingdale, 1968, 1979
All rights reserved Taken from the Penguin Classics editions of Ecce Homo and
Twilight of the Idols/The Anti-Christ, translated by R. J. Hollingdale LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844–1900.
[Götzendämmerung. English]
Why I am so wise / Friedrich Nietzsche; translated by R. J. Hollingdale.
p. cm.—(Great ideas)
ISBN: 978-1-101-65156-8
1. Philosophy. I. Title. II. Series.
B3313.G6713 2005
193—dc22 2005047449
Printed in the United States of America
Set in Monotype Dante
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Contents

1 ECCE HOMO
How One Becomes What One Is

Foreword
Why I am So Wise
Why I am So Clever
Why I Write Such Good Books
Why I am a Destiny

2 TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
or How to Philosophize with a Hammer

Maxims and Arrows
The Four Great Errors
The Hammer Speaks
Ecce Homo
How One Becomes What One Is
Foreword
1

SEEING that I must shortly approach mankind with the heaviest demand that has
ever been made on it, it seems to me indispensable to say who I am. This ought
really to be known already: for I have not neglected to ‘bear witness’ about
myself. But the disparity between the greatness of my task and the smallness of
my contemporaries has found expression in the fact that I have been neither
heard nor even so much as seen. I live on my own credit, it is perhaps merely a
prejudice that I am alive at all?…I need only to talk with any of the ‘cultured
people’ who come to the Ober-Engadin in the summer to convince myself that I
am not alive…Under these circumstances there exists a duty against which my
habit, even more the pride of my instincts revolts, namely to say: Listen to me!
for I am thus and thus. Do not, above all, confound me with what I am not!