That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. (Or not.)

NIETZSCHE’S FAMOUS MAXIM: “What does not kill me makes me stronger.” (“Was mich nicht umbringt macht mich stärker.”)        Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)        German philosopher        His famous maxim in Twilight of the Idols (1888)         The sayings “That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” “That which doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” and similar lines are all descendants of the aphorism above, which comes from the “Maxims and Arrows” section of Nietzsche’s book Twilight of the Idols. His original German line has been translated in several ways. Sometimes “Whatever” or “That which” is used in place of “What.” Sometimes “destroy” or some other verb is used in place of “kill” (though the German word Nietzsche used, umbringt, is derived from the verb umbringen, which is generally translated as meaning “to kill”).               Today, English translations and variations of Nietzsche’s maxim are often used for ironic effect. But they are also frequently used in a positive way, to express optimism and determination in the face of adversity.

JAX TELLER’S COUNTERQUOTE: “There’s an old saying: that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I don’t believe that. I think the things that try to kill you make you angry and sad. Strength comes from the good things — your family, your friends, the satisfaction of hard work. Those are the things that keep you whole. Those are the things to hold on to when you’re broken.”        Jackson “Jax” Teller (played by actor Charlie Hunnam)         Speaking in a voiceover in the “Sovereign” episode of the TV series Sons of Anarchy. (Season 5, Episode 1. First aired September 11, 2012)

CHUCK LORRE’S COUNTERQUOTE: “What doesn’t kill us makes us bitter. I used to believe that to be both funny and true...I now have a thicker skin, I’m less likely to sweat the small stuff, and, perhaps most importantly, I have a renewed sense of humility. All in all, better. That being said, I still try to stay reasonably bitter in order to maintain my eligibility in the Writers Guild of America.”          Chuck Lorre        American TV show producer        An excerpt from one of the popular “vanity cards” shown at the end of television shows he produces. This one comes from the “Spy Gaming” episode of his sitcom Big Bang Theory. (Season 4 Episode 22, first aired on May 5, 2011.) Lorre picked What Doesn't Kill Us Makes Us Bitter as the title of a book collecting his TV vanity cards.

TAYARI’S COUNTERQUOTE: “People say, That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. But they are wrong. What doesn’t kill you, doesn’t kill you. That’s all you get. Sometimes, you just have to hope that’s enough.”                         Tayari Jones        American novelist        In the epilogue of her novel Silver Sparrow (2011)

CHOKO’S COUNTER-COUNTERQUOTE: “Of course, what doesn’t make you stronger, will kill you, so there’s also that.”                        Kaarli Sylvester Makela (a.k.a. Choko)        American author        In her book Pure Speculation: One Juggalo’s Strange Story (2005)

See more witty variations of “What does not kill me…” in this previous QuoteCounterquote.com post . . . 

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“The past is a foreign country...”

L.P. HARTLEY’S OFT-QUOTED APHORISM: “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”        Leslie P. Hartley (1895-1972)        British novelist and short story writer        The first sentence in his novel The Go-Between (1953)        This is one of the most famous opening lines in modern literary history. It sets the stage for a story about class differences, sexual mores and love in England during the early Twentieth Century. The novel is written as the reminiscence of Leo Colston, a British man in his sixties. In looking through some of his old possessions, Colston comes across a diary he wrote in 1900 when he was thirteen. This sparks memories of the role he played as a fairly clueless “go-between” who carried messages back and forth for an older, upper class girl who was having a socially taboo affair with a “lower class” tenant farmer.        The opening words of the novel have essentially become a modern proverbial saying.

THE JOE BIDEN DILEMMA: “To young progressives, Biden is a voice of the past. The English novelist L.P. Hartley once wrote, ‘The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.’ Like bipartisanship and compromise. And collaboration with outright racists. To older Democrats, however, the past is when things used to work — before Trump came along to cause chaos and disruption. They’re counting on Biden to restore that past.”         Bill Schneider         Political journalist, Professor at George Mason University and author of Standoff: How America Became Ungovernable         In an opinion piece published on The Hill website, July 7, 2019

THE NOSTALGIC VIEWPOINT: “The past may be a foreign country where they do things differently as the L. P. Hartley line has it, but it is one to which many would readily immigrate given the opportunity.”        Michael Sacasas        American writer and theologian        In a post about the Woody Allen movie Midnight in Paris (2011) on his blog “The Fairest Thing”

ANTI-NOSTALGIA VIEWPOINT #1: “It’s easy to get washed along in nostalgia, to end up overshadowed by the past, because the past is a perfect country, a place we’ve made better in our heads through selective amnesia.”                       Emily Todd VanDerWerff        American TV reviewer and critic         Reflecting on the HBO series about mobsters, The Sopranos, in a post on the AV Club website

ANTI-NOSTALGIA VIEWPOINT #2: “If the past is a foreign country, it is a shockingly violent one. It is easy to forget how dangerous life used to be, how deeply brutality was once woven into the fabric of daily existence. Cultural memory pacifies the past, leaving us with pale souvenirs whose bloody origins have been bleached away. A woman donning a cross seldom reflects that this instrument of torture was a common punishment in the ancient world; nor does a person who speaks of a whipping boy ponder the old practice of flogging an innocent child in place of a misbehaving prince. We are surrounded by signs of the depravity of our ancestors’ way of life, but we are barely aware of them. Just as travel broadens the mind, a literal-minded tour of our cultural heritage can awaken us to how differently they did things in the past.”        Steven Pinker        Canadian-born Harvard psychologist and author        From his book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (2013)

THE BEAT WRITER’S VIEWPOINT: “All of life is a foreign country.”        Jack Kerouac (1922–1969)        American writer and founding father of the Beat movement in literature        In a letter he wrote on June 24, 1949, cited in the book The Beat Vision: A Primary Sourcebook

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“To crush your enemies...”

THE FAMOUS MOVIE QUOTE: Barbarian General (actor Akio Mitamura): “Conan, what is best in life?” Conan (Arnold Schwarzenegger): “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women!”        From the film Conan the Barbarian (released in the US on May 14, 1982)        Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “crush your enemies” line in Conan the Barbarian became the first of his many famous movie quotations as an actor. It’s also the first line he speaks in the film after a full twenty minutes of backstory recounting how Conan was captured as a boy by brutal barbarian raiders, used as a slave, then trained to be a vicious pit fighter and a warrior for his captors. Here’s the dialog from that scene (which you can watch on YouTube):                       Barbarian General: “We won again. This is good! But what is best in life?”          Warrior: “The open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, wind in your hair!”          General: “Wrong! Conan, what is best in life?”          Conan (Arnold): “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women!”          Barbarian General: “That is good.”       Conan’s last seven words are sometimes quoted as “to hear the lamentation of the women,” because Arnold’s Austrian accent makes the word “their” sound like “deh.” But I’m pretty sure it’s “their women” given the inspiration for the movie quote.       John Milius, who directed Conan the Barbarian and co-wrote the screenplay with Oliver Stone, didn’t create Arnold’s famed catchphrase from whole cloth. It’s not in the Conan stories written by the creator of the character, Robert Howard. But it’s based on a passage in a book by one of Howard’s favorite writers, Harold Lamb.                     In Lamb’s classic 1927 biography, Genghis Khan: The Emperor of All Men, he gives his version of a legendary quotation by the great conqueror at the end of Chapter 11. Lamb wrote:                        One day in the pavilion at Karakorum he asked an officer of the Mongol guard what, in all the world, could bring the greatest happiness.                        “The open steppe, a clear day, and a swift horse under you,” responded the officer after a little thought, “and a falcon on your wrist to start up hares.”                        “Nay,” responded the Khan, “to crush your enemies, to see them fall at your feet—to take their horses and goods and hear the lamentation of their women. That is best.”        The version of Khan’s words crafted by Milius (and/or Stone) for Conan the Barbarian became a popular catchphrase that has since been cited and adapted many times. Some of my favorite examples are below...

THE FAKE NEWS VERSION: “I said, ‘Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women,’ but the media took that totally out of context.”        Peter Kuper        American illustrator and cartoonist        His caption for a cartoon spoofing Conan and the frequent lament of politicians, published in The New Yorker, January 2017

COHEN THE BARBARIAN’S VARIATION: [Nomad]: “What is it that a man may call the greatest things in life?” [Cohen the Barbarian] “Hot water, good dentishtry and shoft lavatory paper.”        From the Discworld novel The Light Fantastic (1986) by Terry Pratchett                    This quote by the Cohen character (aka Ghenghiz Cohen) is a is a favorite of Discworld fans. Cohen is an aging, toothless barbarian who speaks with a lisp when he’s not wearing the special dentures he has made from the diamond teeth of the troll Old Grandad.        (Portrait of Cohen with his diamond dentures by Paul Kidby.)

THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL: “The heroic figure in Conan the Barbarian was actually paraphrasing Genghis Khan when he gave his famous answer to the question ‘What is best in life?'... An alternative idea came from Galilee: What is best in life is to love your enemies and see them reconciled to you.”        John Ortberg        Evangelical Christian author, speaker, and senior pastor of the ECO Presbyterian Menlo Church in Menlo Park, California        In his book Who Is This Man?: The Unpredictable Impact of the Inescapable Jesus (2012)

THE INTERNET TROLL MINDSET: “WHAT IS BEST IN LIFE? TO TROLL YOUR ENEMIES, TO SEE THEM BUTTHURT BEFORE YOU, AND TO HEAR THE LAMENTATIONS OF THEIR FOLLOWERS!”        An internet meme seen on ImgFlip.com

THE ROBOT CHICKEN MUSICAL ADAPTATION: [Conan singing]: “What is best in life? That is hard to say, for each man is unique in his own way. As a boy, I liked gumdrops and puppies, sailboats and frogs, and my best friend little Ricky Maebius! But when I became a young man, what was best in life began to change just like my body. I liked pretty Stacy Lyon with her long blonde hair and eyes that were blue as the ocean! But now that I’m grown, my thoughts have changed, and it’s pretty clear to me. The answer to the question, ‘What is best in life?’ is plain enough for all to see. Crush your enemies! Crush your enemies! And see them driven before you! Crush your enemies! Crush your enemies! And see them driven before you! And hear the lamentations of the women!”        A hilarious parody song sung by an animated Conan action figure in the “Boo Cocky” episode of the Comedy Channel’s “Adult Swim” cartoon series Robot Chicken (Season 3, Episode 16; first aired September 7, 2008)

CONAN-INSPIRED CHRISTMAS CHEER: “All I want for Christmas is TO CRUSH MY ENEMIES SEE THEM DRIVEN BEFORE ME AND HEAR THE LAMENTATION OF THEIR WOMEN”        Slogan printed on t-shirts and other clothes sold by LookHuman.com

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“Know thyself.” (And thy enemy.)

  

FAMOUS MAXIM OF THE GREEK SAGES: “Know thyself.” (“Gnothi seauton.”)        A saying inscribed at the Greek Temple of Apollo at Delphi (4th century BC)                     This oft-quoted advice is generally attributed to “The Seven Sages of Greece,” a group of famous Greek philosophers, statesmen and politicians. It’s one of 147 pithy sayings inscribed at Delphi.                     Some of those sayings have been attributed to specific sages. For example, “Know thyself” has been credited to the philosopher Thales, the Greek statesman Solon, and several other Greek wise men.        However, it’s likely that it and many other maxims inscribed at the Temple of Delphi are proverbial sayings that predate the Seven Sages.

THE CHINESE SAGE’S VERSION: “He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.”                     One of the most-cited quotes from the Tao Te Ching (a.k.a. the  Daodejing or Dao De Jing), a fundamental text of Taoism dating back to the 6th Century BC        This quote is traditionally attributed to Lao-Tzu (a.k.a.  Lao-Tze or Laozi), the legendary, possibly mythical founder of Taoism who is generally credited with authorship of the Tao Te Ching.          Modern scholars tend to believe that text is probably a compilation of ancient Chinese wisdom, rather than the creation of one man.

THE CHINESE GENERAL’S VERSION: “Know your enemy and know yourself, find naught in fear for 100 battles. Know yourself but not your enemy, find level of loss and victory. Know thy enemy but not yourself, wallow in defeat every time.”         Sun-Tzu (c. 544 BC-496 BC)         Chinese general, military strategist, and philosopher                      This is one of the most popular pieces of wisdom in his famed work The Art of War (5th century BC).         Although “Know thy enemy” and the variation “Know thine enemy” sound like and are sometimes assumed to be Biblical in origin, there is no such quote in the Bible. (Check it yourself if you don’t believe me.)

“POOR RICHARD’S” OBSERVATION: “There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.”        Benjamin Franklin (1705-1790)        American author, inventor, writer, publisher and statesman        A saying recorded the 1750 edition of Poor Richard’s Almanack, a yearly almanac published by Franklin under the pseudonym of “Poor Richard” Saunders.

A BRIT WIT’S COUNTERQUOTE: “Only the shallow know themselves.”        Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)        Irish poet and playwright        From his collection of aphorisms “Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young,” first published in December 1894 in the one and only issue of the Oxford student magazine The Chameleon.

A FRENCH WRITER’S COUNTERQUTE: “‘Know Thyself’ – a maxim as pernicious as it is odious. A person observing himself would arrest his own development. Any caterpillar who tried to ‘know himself’ would never become a butterfly.”        André Gide (1869-1951)        French writer and left-leaning political activist        A comment in his 1935 book Les Nouvelles Nourritures, meaning “The New Foods” in English. That rambling, part-philosophical, part-poetic, part-political work is a followup to Gide’s Les Nourritures Terrestres, or “Foods of the Earth,” (1897).

HENRY MILLER’S DARK VIEW: “The study of crime begins with the knowledge of oneself.”        Henry Miller (1891-1980)        American writer best known for his boundary-pushing, semi-autobiographical novels                     A line from his memoir The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (1945), an account of a year-long trip he took across the United States in 1939 after living in Paris for nearly a decade.         After the quote above, Miller goes on to say: “All that you despise, all that you loathe, all that you reject, all that you condemn and seek to convert by punishment springs from you. The source of it is God whom you place outside, above and beyond. Crime is identification, first with God, then with your own image.” For fun, also see the video riff on “Know thyself” that I posted on YouTube.

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“What does not kill me makes me stronger” – from Nietzsche and The Donald to Miley and Conan…

NIETZSCHE’S FAMOUS MAXIM: “What does not kill me makes me stronger.” (“Was mich nicht umbringt macht mich stärker.”)        Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)        German philosopher and poet        In the “Maxims and Arrows” section of his book Twilight of the Idols (1888)        This famous line by Nietzsche has been translated and paraphrased in various ways, often with Whatever or That which in place of the word What, doesn’t instead of does not, and destroy or some other verb in place of kill. Nietzsche used a similar line in Ecce Homo (written 1888, published 1908), the last book he wrote before going completely insane. In the chapter of Ecce Homo titled “Why I Am So Wise,” he wrote that a person who has “turned out well” could be recognized by certain attributes, such as a knack for exploiting bad accidents to his advantage. Regarding such a man, Nietzsche said: “What does not kill him makes him stronger.” (“Was ihn nicht umbringt, macht ihn stärker.”)

THE DONALD TRUMP MAXIM: “What doesn’t kill Trump makes him stronger. And louder.”        Sarah Rense        Assistant Editor at Esquire magazine        In a post about FOX News anchor Megyn Kelly's feud with Donald Trump on the Esquire.com website. (Cartoon by Tom Stiglich, TomStiglich.com.)

THE MILEY CYRUS MAXIM: “In our celebrity-obsessed culture, whatever outrageous act doesn’t manage to kill a celebrity’s career simply makes them a bigger celebrity.”         Comment posted by “JohnnyYuma” on the ABC News story about Miley Cyrus and her “twerking” performance on the August 2013 MTV Video Music Awards show

MEL’S STRENGTH-THROUGH-HUMILIATION SYSTEM: “You ask anybody what their number one fear is and it’s public humiliation. Multiply that on a global scale and that’s what I've been through. It changes you and makes you one tough motherf**ker. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. It’s really that simple.”        Mel Gibson         In a January 2010 interview in The Telegraph         Commenting on what he learned after the publicity flap over his 2006 arrest for DUI and the anti-Semitic remarks he made to the cops who arrested him. Mel told The Telegraph the incident had a positive effect on his life and he had learned from his mistakes. The interview came out before his highly-publicized, ranting attacks on his former girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva, which made Mel even stronger (and even less marketable as an actor).

THE JOKER’S VARIATION: “I believe whatever doesn’t kill you simply makes you stranger.”        Heath Ledger, as the Batman villain The Joker, in the movie The Dark Knight (2008)

ANGELINA’S VARIATION: “quod me nutrit   me destruit.”        Latin saying tattooed on Angelina Jolie’s lower abdomen        In English, it means “What nourishes me also destroys me.”

THE SCREW YOU VERSION: “Whatever hurts you makes me stronger.”          Leslie Stefanson, as the character Capt. Elisabeth Campbell, in the movie The General’s Daughter (1999)

THE SHARED PHILOSPHY OF CONAN AND CLAIREE: “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”        Quote shown at the beginning of the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Conan the Barbarian (1982) and also used as a quip by Clairee Belcher (actress Olympia Dukakis) in the movie Steel Magnolias (1989).

Here’s a link to another Quote/Counterquote post with variations on Nietzsche’s famous maxim.

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