“What does not destroy me makes me stronger”

Along with “God is dead” this is Nietzsche’s most famous saying. It come from the first section of his book, Twilight of the Idols which was written in 1888

It is a quote that pops up throughout the Internet, was featured in a Kanye West song(kind of) and is constantly quoted throughout positive thinking sites and literature.

Na-na-na that that don’t kill me
Can only make me stronger

It’s a pity it isn’t true. It might be more accurate if it was something like – Small stuff that doesn’t destroy me make me stronger. That doesn’t sound great as a quote though.

Growth through adversity is always very inspiring but some things just make people weaker even when they survive them, be it physical or mental health issues, physical or mental abuse.

A great example of this is Nietzsche himself. A free thinker in a more conservative age, he published difficult work that went against the grain of society. In 1889 he had a complete breakdown and spent the last years of his life being cared for by his mother and then by his nationalistic and anti-Semitic sister with whom he’d had a strained relationship for many years.

The cause of Nietzsche’s breakdown is not definitively known. Speculation ranges from syphilis to an un-diagnosed bi polar condition. Whatever caused it, it didn’t make him stronger.

So it’s not true, so what? The best quotes capture some essence of truth and this one is so popular it clearly strikes a chord with many people.

Nietzsche is a hard read so it’s ironic he lives on in simplistic aphorisms. He believed in a tension between reason and passion, the mind and the body. He believed religion and philosophy largely rejected the real world and by extension rejected life. Both he saw as elevating the theoretical above experience and passion. One section of the book is called “How the true world finally became a fable”

He did not reject reason but instead saw it as half of human nature that is false without embracing the other. This tension was represented in his work as Apollo and Dionysus.

Nietzsche wrote so much and in such a literary style that it is easy to read what you want to into his work. The fundamental direction of his philosophy was, however, about being life affirming amongst the messiness and pain and uncertainty of life. Read in that context his quote makes more sense.

Another longer passage expresses it better but is not as snappy:

“the pangs of the woman giving birth consecrate all pain; and conversely all becoming and growing — all that guarantees a future — involves pain”

And when life requires pain, you’re better off enduring it for something that actually means something to you. Find your own meaning and live by it:

“Are you genuine? Or merely an actor? A representative? Or that which is represented? In the end, perhaps you are merely a copy of an actor.”