Friedrich Nietzsche on Duty

“What destroys a man more quickly than to work, think, and feel without inner necessity, without any deep personal desire, without pleasure — as a mere automaton of “duty.””

“It is difficult to preach, this morality of mediocrity! It may never admit what it is and what it wants! It must speak about restraint and worth and duty and love of one’s neighbor.”

““What is the task of all higher education?” To turn men into machines. “What are the means?” Man must learn to be bored. “How is that accomplished?” “By means of the concept of duty.””

“Consider the way “moral man” … is veiled behind moral formulas and concepts of decency — the way our actions are benevolently concealed by the concepts of duty, virtue, sense of community, honorableness, self-denial. … I am not suggesting that all this is meant to mask human malice and villainy, the wild animal in us; my idea is, on the contrary, that it is precisely as tame animals that we are a shameful sight and in need of the moral disguise.”