“When someone hides something behind a bush and looks for it again in the same place and finds it there as well, there is not much to praise in such seeking and finding. Yet this is how matters stand regarding seeking and finding "truth" within the realm of reason. If I make up the definition of a mammal, and then, after inspecting a camel, declare "look, a mammal' I have indeed brought a truth to light in this way, but it is a truth of limited value.”
On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)
Context: When someone hides something behind a bush and looks for it again in the same place and finds it there as well, there is not much to praise in such seeking and finding. Yet this is how matters stand regarding seeking and finding "truth" within the realm of reason. If I make up the definition of a mammal, and then, after inspecting a camel, declare "look, a mammal' I have indeed brought a truth to light in this way, but it is a truth of limited value. That is to say, it is a thoroughly anthropomorphic truth which contains not a single point which would be "true in itself" or really and universally valid apart from man. At bottom, what the investigator of such truths is seeking is only the metamorphosis of the world into man.
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Friedrich Nietzsche 655
German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and cl… 1844–1900Related quotes
“what is terrible when you seek the truth is that you find it..”
“One may demand of me that I should seek truth, but not that I should find it.”
On doit exiger de moi que je cherche la vérité, mais non que je la trouve.
No. 29; Variant translation: I can be expected to look for truth but not to find it.
Pensées Philosophiques (1746)
“Truth makes on the ocean of nature no one track of light — every eye looking on finds its own”
Caxtoniana: Hints on Mental Culture (1862)
Grzegorz Strzelczyk, a Catholic priest who co-authored a book that was a conversation record between him and Vetulani, in an interview with Tygodnik Sanocki http://tygodniksanocki.pl/2017/10/08/czy-w-mozgu-mieszka-bog/ (in Polish).
“When you find that people are not telling you the truth---look out!”
Source: The Mysterious Affair at Styles