Robert Peters <[log in to unmask]> writes: >There is this famous Nietzsche quotation: "Without music life would be >a mistake / misunderstanding." (Ohne Musik ware das Leben ein Irrtum.) >Does anyone know when and where he said this and what the context is? This passage is from Nietzsche's 1888 work _Twilight of the Idols_. It is contained in a list of aphorisms at the beginning of the treatise, and so has no immediate context. The complete aphorism (# 33) reads: "How little is required for pleasure! The sound of a bagpipe. Without music, life would be an error. The German imagines even God singing songs" (tr. Kauffman, in _The Portable Nietzsche_ Penguin 1982, p. 471). Another amusing aphorism from that work (#22) is: "'Evil men have no songs.' How is it, then, that the Russians have songs?" Nietzsche was quite a character. Regards, Edward