This postToday’s post will be short. :) It’s this quote from Nietzche:
He who has a “why” to live, can bear with almost any “how.”
So true, both on the grand scale of things and on an individual event-by-event basis. Keep that “why” in focus and you’ll be set.
This is just a side note, but when Holland came and did us a mission tour, he said (and I quote) “Well, we don’t quote Nietzche in the church, but my point is anyway that he is totally wrong” when discussing some of the late philosopher’s views on life. Just throwing that out there.
Accurate on Elder Holland’s part, however, I’m pretty sure he was referring to some of the quotes that Nietzche is more famous for. Like they say, there’s truth to be found everywhere–the adversary couldn’t fool us without that being the case.
The prescriptivist in me screams, “That comma should not be there!!!” But other than that, after reading Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, I think the quote is pretty valid. Compare this one by Frankl:
We who lived in the concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: The last of the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
Granted that every rule (including this very one) has exceptions.
Hi Ben,
This is off topic, but you wrote a post a little while back (I think in March) and your sister made a long and very wonderful comment on the post about how she studies the scriptures. Shirley commented on April’s comment just a little while ago (that’s how I found the post). My computer was broken at the time. Now that it is fixed, I want to read April’s comment again but I can’t find it.Would you mind emailing me the link to that post?
Thanks
Ray: Oh, I agree, a lot of Nietzche’s viewpoints don’t fit in at all with the gospel perspective. But of course (as you indirectly pointed out) that doesn’t invalidate everything he said. :)
Joe: Exactly — there’s that Brigham Young quote about gleaning truth even from hell itself, for example.
Scott: Haha, the comma does sort of stick out, doesn’t it. Good Frankl quote — thanks for sharing. And yes, all rules have exceptions, or at least they have higher laws that supercede them.
Janet: It’s A famine in the land. :)
Frankl uses that quote from Nietzche in “Man’s Search for Meaning.” I love “Man’s Search for Meaning.” It’s very consistent with gospel principles.
I still need to read it… I own it but haven’t yet opened it.
