The Thought of Death. It gives me a melancholy happiness to live in the midst of this confusion of streets, of necessities, of voices: how much enjoyment, impatience and desire, how much thirsty life and drunkenness of life comes to light here every moment! And yet it will soon be so still for all these shouting, lively, life- loving people! How everyone's shadow, his gloomy travelling companion stands behind him! It is always as in the last moment before the departure of an emigrant- ship: people have more than ever to say to one another, the hour presses, the ocean with its lonely silence waits impatiently behind all the noise-so greedy, so certain of its prey! And all, all, suppose that the past has been nothing, or a small matter, that the near future is everything: hence this haste, this crying, this self-deafening and self-overreaching! Everyone wants to be foremost in this future-and yet death and the stillness of death are the only things certain and common to all in this future! How strange that this sole thing that is certain and common to all, exercises almost no influence on men, and that they are the furthest from regarding themselves as the brotherhood of death! It makes me happy to see that men do not want to think at all of the idea of death! I would fain do something to make the idea of life to us to be more than friends in the sense of that sublime possibility. And so we will believe in our even a hundred times more worthy of their attention. Friedrich Nietzsche
About This Quote

Montaigne’s idea of happiness is to live in the midst of confusion and noise, to be at the center of life, to be an active person who has a desire for life. He also says that people tend to avoid thinking about death because it is scary. If you think about death, you might not want to do anything because you are scared of losing all that you have achieved. However, Montaigne points out that there are two things that are certain and common to us all; death and the silence of death (the thought of death).

Death is common because it is inevitable. It is certain because we will all die one day. And the silence of death (the thought of death) may be very powerful but it never truly affects us unless we take it seriously.

This idea can also apply to other things in life, such as work. When people talk about the challenges that come with their jobs, they tend to say that they don’t want to think about them too much because it makes them nervous. However, if you are truly at peace with your work then being aware of what can happen if you mess up won’t bother you because you know that it is out of your control.

Source: The Gay Science

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More Quotes By Friedrich Nietzsche
  1. It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.
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  3. The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
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