Gay science Defn & Meang - Merriam-Webster

I recently fished readg The Gay Science, by Friedrich Nietzsche. In many ways, is a profound work. For me was a formative book--I enuntered a philosophy class llege. As to the meang of the tle, see paragraph 327 (below). The numbers refer to paragraph numbers rather than page numbers. The quot are taken om the 2001 translatn by Josefe Nckhoff. As far as why I chose the followg excerpts rather than others? They "spoke" to me more than the others. Havg wrten this, I would also note that The Gay Science is load wh far more thoughtful passag than I have prented here. I did also enjoy this newer translatn (I also have the translatn by Walter Kfmann, which is also excellent). For those not faiar wh Nietzsche, many of his works, cludg this one, are wrten numbered paragraphs. Preface, Paragraph 3 Life--to , that means nstantly transformg all that we are to light and flame and also all that wounds ; we simply n do no other. And as for illns: are we not almost tempted to ask whether we n do whout at all? Only great pa is the liberator of the spir, as the future of the great spicn that turns every U to an X, a real, proper X, that is the penultimate one before the fal one. Only great pa, that long slow pa that tak s time and which we are burned, as were, over green wood, forc philosophers to scend to our ultimate pths and put asi all tst, everythg good-natured, veilg, d, average--thgs which formerly we may have found our humany. I doubt that such a pa mak "better"--but I know that mak eper. Paragraph 19- Evil. Exame the liv of the bt and the most uful people and peopl and ask yourself whether a tree which is supposed to grow to a proud height uld do whout bad weather and storms: whether misfortune and external ristance, whether any kds of hatred, jealoy, stubbornns, mistst, hardns, greed and vlence do not belong to the favorable ndns whout which any great growth even of virtue is srcely possible? The poison om which the weaker nature perish strengthens the strong man--and he do not ll poison. Paragraph 110. Orig of knowledge. Through immense perds of time the tellect produce nothg but errors; some of them turned out to be eful and speci-prervg; those who h upon or hered them fought their fight for themselv and their progeny wh greater luck. Such erroneo articl of fah, which were passed on by herance further and further, and fally almost beme part of the basic endowment of the speci, are for example: that there are endurg thgs; that there are intil thgs; that there are thgs, kds of material, bodi; that a thg is what appears to be; that our will is ee; that what is good for me is also good and of self. Only very late did the niers and doubters of such proposns emerge; only very late did tth emerge as the weakt form of knowledge. It seemed that one was unable to live wh ; that our anism was cured for s oppose: all s higher functns, the perceptns of sense and generally every kd of sensatn, worked wh those basic errors that have been rporated sce time immemorial. Further, even the realm of knowledge those proposns beme the norms acrdg to which one termed “te" and “unte"--down to the most remote areas of pure logic. Th the strength of knowledge li not s gree of tth, but s age, s embeddns, s character as a ndn of life. Where life and knowledge seem to ntradict each other there was never any ser fight to beg wh; nial and doubt were simply nsired madns.