The Philosopher as Clown & the Clown as Philosopher: Nietzsche & Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde and Friedrich Nietzsche, two giants of literature and philosophy (respectively), are rarely mentioned in the same sentence. Yet, both expressed themselves in similar fashion -- in aphorisms, epigrams and maxims -- to an uncanny degree.

These forms were practically invented by pre-Socratic Greek philosophers and mastered by French moralists. Vast thoughts could be carried condensed in these deceptively slight vessels. Moreover, their pithy phrasing ensured that they were memorable:

“Whoever writes in blood and aphorisms does not want to be read but to be learned by heart. In the mountains the shortest way is from peak to peak: but for that one must have long legs. Aphorisms should be peaks – and those who are addressed, tall and lofty,” as Nietzsche writes in Zarathustra.

Or in Twilight of the Idols he puts it this way: “Aphorisms, of which I am the first master among Germans, are the forms of ‘eternity’; my ambition is to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book – what everyone else does not say in a book.”

As a stylist, Nietzsche felt he was so good he spoiled the tastes of his readers, since they could enjoy no one after him; and that, along with the poet Heine, he would be regarded as the greatest stylist in the German language (he later added Goethe to this exclusive list).

Wilde shared this incredibly high estimation of himself, once famously replying “Only my genius” to a US customs official’s standard question, “Do you have anything to declare?” In his long letter from prison, De Profundis, Wilde surveyed his life’s work approvingly:

“I had summed up all systems in a sentence and existence in an epigram.” But, braggadocio aside, it is astounding how nearly indistinguishable some of Nietzsche’s and Wilde’s aphorisms are – almost interchangeable in form and substance.

Below, is a list that I compliled of their aphorisms:

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