The people who know me are aware that Philosophy is important to me, especially Friedrich Nietzsche.  I will reread Nietzsche’s books and write a synopsis of each aphorism, providing my comments, and share it with you in the hope that you will read it and offer your own thoughts.  For copyright reasons, I use an older translation that is freely available for download on the internet. I will provide a link. The text may differ slightly from more modern translations, but this should not pose a significant problem.

The book I’m going to read is Human, All Too Human (1878/80). This is, more or less, his third book, but it is more relevant to start with because it aligns better with the work that followed, and it contains only short aphorisms that make it easy to complete one a day. I also started at the first chapter. Nietzsche himself republished the book in 1886, accompanied by a preface that he wrote. I find it beneficial to read the foreword after you have read the books published between 1880 and 1886; that way, you can put them in context.

On this page, you can read the book and use the links in the titles of every aphorism to read my comments on it.

My method:

• I write a synopsis in Roman, rephrase the original text, and try to eliminate as much as possible. Dutch is my first language, but by reading and writing in English, I force myself to find the meaning of the text and words I have difficulty with. I use the original German text to see the different translations into English and some synonyms. I can read German, but my knowledge doesn’t go deep enough to fully grasp all the nuances and hidden meanings in their language, especially while reading Nietzsche.
• I mix the synopsis with quotes from the 1909 Zimmern translation in italic.
• In bolt, you can read my take on the text. My goal with this bolt text is to provide a second synopsis, but now in my own words and based on my understanding of it. I use this, especially in longer aphorisms, to highlight each part of the text and make it easier to connect all the dots.
• Ultimately, I aim to encapsulate the entire aphorism in a single sentence. For me, this is an exercise to find the right words to capture the meaning of the aphorism, including the detours Nietzsche takes.
• There are also notes. Some notes will explain a specific word, often with the help of Wikipedia. In other notes, I highlight some unusual translations in the 1909 text. There are sometimes significant differences between the five translations I use, and I will spend some time determining why this is the case and whether it matters for understanding the text.

Sources:

I will read a Dutch translation that is based on the work of researchers Colli and Montinari. I also use a translation from R.J.Hollingdale and the Gary Handwerk translation from the Colli-Montinari edition. Both are more modern than the copyright free translation I use here. This is a translation from 1909 by Helen Zimmern, who knew Nietzsche personally, but there was no critical study of Nietzsche’s work done back then and this translation suffers from that. The same goes for the translation from Alexander Harvey. My German is not good enough to pretend that I can translate it better than the professionals do, but I will use the original as a referee.

1. Menselijk al te menselijk een boek voor vrije geesten, translated by Thomas Graftdijk, 2000. Buy it here
2. Human, all too human a book for free spirits, translated by R.J.Hollingdale, 1986
3. Human, all too human a book for free spirits I V3, translated by Gary handwerk 1997
4. Human, all too human a book for free spirits Part I, translated by Helen Zimmern 1909. Read it  here
5. Human, all too human a book for free spirits, translated by Alexander Harvey, 1908. Read it here
6. Menschliches allzu menschlich 1878/80. Read it here

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