Nihilism is not only a meditating over the "in vain"—not only the belief that everything deserves to perish; but one actually puts one's shoulder to the plough; one destroys. 22
The time is coming when we shall have to pay for having been Christians for two thousand years: we are losing the equilibrium which enables us to live—for a long while we shall not know in what direction we are travelling. We are hurling ourselves headlong into the opposite valuations, with that degree of energy which could only have been engendered in man by an overvaluation of himself.
Now, everything is false from the root, words and nothing but words, confused, feeble, or overstrained. 25
Modern Pessimism is an expression of the uselessness only of the modern world, not of the world and existence as such. 29
The "preponderance of pain over pleasure" or the reverse (Hedonism); both of these doctrines are already signposts to Nihilism....
For here, in both cases, no other final purpose is sought than the phenomenon pleasure or pain. 29
"Life is not worth living"; "Resignation"; "what is the good of tears?"—this is a feeble and sentimental attitude of mind. 29-30
People have not yet seen what is so terribly obvious—namely, that Pessimism is not a problem but a symptom,—that the term ought to be replaced by "Nihilism,"—that the question, "to be or not to be," is itself an illness, a sign of degeneracy, an idiosyncrasy.
The Nihilistic movement is only an expression of physiological decadence. 32
Decay, decline, and waste, are, per se, in no way open to objection; they are the natural consequences of life and vital growth. The phenomenon of decadence is just as necessary to life as advance or progress is: we are not in a position which enables us to suppress it. On the contrary, reason would have it retain its rights.