Quotation
Last reviewed:
“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.”
Friedrich Nietzsche · Genealogy and perspectivism · Modern · 1882
What does it mean?
The madman says God is dead, remains dead, and that we have killed him. The death is a cultural diagnosis: the Christian moral horizon no longer holds, even where churches are open and the killers have not noticed what fell with it. A rival reading takes the line as a boast, a schoolboy atheism, or a premise in an argument Nietzsche never bothers to give. The section is a parable. The speaker is not a press release. Triumph is the wrong tone.
Did Friedrich Nietzsche really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. This is the madman's speech in section 125, a cultural diagnosis of a horizon that has collapsed, not a boast and not Nietzsche clearing his throat in his own name. It is not the whole section. The madman is appalled that the killers do not grasp what they have done.
Where it comes from
The Gay Science §125, in Walter Kaufmann's translation
Approximate date: 1882.
How to use it
If you quote it in a seminar in Durham, include the disturbance. The madman wants a sense of what has been lost, not a round of applause. Using the sentence to win a row about whether you personally believe in God misses the page, whichever side you are on.
A mindset reading
A parable is not a premise. Identify the speaker. Then decide what the aphorism wants the reader to feel, which is vertigo more than victory. Section 108 has already said God is dead, as a lead-in to the shadows that remain.
Understand the philosophy
The Gay Science is probing a world after the old guarantee. Zarathustra and the genealogy will ask what values look like once that guarantee is not doing secret work. This sentence is not those books, and it is not the whole of section 125.
- meaning
- society
- change
FAQ
What does it mean?
The madman says God is dead, remains dead, and that we have killed him. The death is a cultural diagnosis: the Christian moral horizon no longer holds, even where churches are open and the killers have not noticed what fell with it. A rival reading takes the line as a boast, a schoolboy atheism, or a premise in an argument Nietzsche never bothers to give. The section is a parable. The speaker is not a press release. Triumph is the wrong tone.
Did Friedrich Nietzsche really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. This is the madman's speech in section 125, a cultural diagnosis of a horizon that has collapsed, not a boast and not Nietzsche clearing his throat in his own name. It is not the whole section. The madman is appalled that the killers do not grasp what they have done.
Which work is it in?
The Gay Science §125, in Walter Kaufmann's translation Approximate date: 1882.