Note 8 — Chapter IV · THE NEW MORALISTS
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"I believe only in French culture, and regard everything else in Europe which calls itself 'culture' as a misunderstanding. I do not even take the German kind into consideration.... The few instances of higher culture with which I have met in Germany were all French in their origin."—Ecce Homo, p. 27.
"Wherever Germany extends her sway, she ruins culture."—Ibid. p. 38.
"Culture and the state are antagonists: a 'culture-state' is merely a modern idea. The one lives upon the other, the one flourishes at the expense of the other. All great periods of culture have been periods of political decline; that which was great from the standpoint of culture was always unpolitical—even anti-political.... In the history of European culture the rise of the (German) Empire signifies, above all, a displacement of the centre of gravity. Everywhere people are already aware of this: in things that really matter—and these after all constitute culture—the Germans are no longer worth considering.... The fact that there is no longer a single German philosopher worth mentioning is an increasing wonder."—The Twilight of the Idols, p. 54.
"Every great crime against culture for the last four centuries lies on their [the German] conscience.... It was the Germans who caused Europe to lose the fruits, the whole meaning of her last period of greatness—the period of the Renaissance...."—Ecce Homo, p. 124.
"The future of German culture rests with the sons of Prussian officers."—The Genealogy of Morals, p. 222.
"If any one wishes to see the 'German soul' demonstrated ad oculos, let him only look at German taste, at German arts and manners: what boorish indifference to 'taste'!"—The Antichrist.