Next to Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary, The Gay Science is my favorite source of clever soundbites about various topics, so invest in an edition with an index! ( )

The thoughts on religion were probably the best part of this, the articulation of "God is Dead" (quoted from a madman...so many use this quote without knowing its context/meaning), and the worst part is definitively the poetry. Nietzsche is at his best using metaphor to philosophize, but when he uses poetry to do the same it comes out ugly. ( )

Not so much a review of Nietzsche's book as a comment on the review placed here by mrellis64; Nietzsche posits the idea that one should live a life so full, so enjoyable, that one would be happy to have to live it over and over again "for eternity". mrellis64 asks "what changes would you make?", thereby missing the central point that one cannot make any changes. There would be no circumstances in which one would be aware that any changes might be beneficial (or detrimental for that matter).

Imagine, if you will, that you (and everyone else) had to keep living the same life over and over again for eternity. What changes would you make? Nietzsche’s theory of the Eternal Recurrence should make us all stop and examine the lives we are leading. A must read! ( )

Probably the wrong book to bring on vacation. I did try though...

Nietzsche's The Gay Science is one of my favorite books with short text. You never get board with this magnificent stylist.
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http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nie...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedric... ( )