Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.
Friedrich Nietzsche Beyond Good and Evil, §146 (1886) Translated by R. J. Hollingdale
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When and why it was written
- When
- Published in 1886, in the aphorisms on scholars and moralists.
- Why
- Nietzsche was interested in what fighting evil does to the fighter.
What it means
The mechanism he is describing is adaptation. To defeat something you become fit for the contest, and fitness for that contest is what the monster already has.
He is not counselling neutrality. He is naming a cost that the righteousness of the cause makes invisible.
Read the source
Beyond Good and Evil, 1886
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