Thinker Friedrich Nietzsche mentioned, “Should you crush a cockroach, you’re a hero. Should you crush a gorgeous butterfly, you’re a villain. Morals have aesthetic standards.”
For years, social media customers have claimed the Nineteenth-century German thinker Friedrich Nietzsche as soon as mentioned: “Should you crush a cockroach, you are a hero. Should you crush a gorgeous butterfly, you are a villain. Morals have aesthetic standards.”
In September 2023, for instance, a Fb person posted (archived) the declare in meme format in a submit that had acquired round 99,000 reactions, 3,400 feedback, and 31,000 shares on the time of this writing.
Simply over a 12 months later, an X post (archived) made on Oct. 2, 2024, featured the identical quote in a distinct meme format. That submit had acquired round 44,000 likes and 382 reposts.
(X person @QuoteNietzsche)
The quote additionally appeared in quite a few different posts on Facebook (archived), on X (archived), and on Reddit (archived), in addition to on Goodreads (archived). It was additionally a part of an inventory of Nietzsche quotes included in a blog post (archived) on the web site of the library of West Virginia’s Fairmont State College, with no point out of which of Nietzsche’s works it purportedly got here from.
Some web customers expressed doubt concerning the accuracy of the quote’s attribution. For instance, responding to the October 2024 X submit, one particular person wrote (archived): “Nietzsche by no means mentioned this,” with a clapping fingers emoji between every phrase.
Nietzsche 👏 by no means 👏 mentioned 👏 this 👏
— Goose (@NonkantianGoose) October 3, 2024
Quoting the identical X submit, one other person wrote (archived): “it is an incredible quote, however there’s zero proof Nietzsche mentioned this, literal misinformation posted by some bot in all probability lol.”
These web customers have been proper to be skeptical: There is no such thing as a credible proof to recommend that Nietzsche ever mentioned or wrote the passage in query.
In an try and confirm the attribution, we looked for it — unsuccessfully — in every of the 18 volumes of “The Full Works of Friedrich Nietzsche.” We consulted this work by means of The Online Books Page, a listing of public-domain and in any other case freely accessible on-line books hosted by the College of Pennsylvania’s libraries.
To account for the potential for completely different translations, we additionally searched every of the 18 volumes for situations of particular person phrases talked about within the quote. A seek for “butterfly” discovered a complete of 15 leads to Nietzsche’s writings, none of which matched or resembled the substance of the quote when learn in context. Searches for “cockroach” and “roach,” however, returned zero leads to any of the volumes.
The Quote’s Origin
If Nietzsche did not originate the quote, who did?
Some web customers have attributed the phrases to different historic figures such because the Sufi mystic poet Rumi (archived) or to Arthur Schopenhauer (archived), one other Nineteenth-century German thinker. Nevertheless, we discovered no credible proof linking the quote to either individual.
The WikiQuote web page for Friedrich Nietzsche, which had the quote in its “Misattributed” section, pointed towards one other attribution. In a word below the alleged quote, a WikiQuote editor wrote:
Generally attributed to Nietzsche, the quote seems in none of his works, the probably origin is a June 2015 submit on the reddit “showerthoughts” discussion board, the place it was not attributed to Nietzsche. There are not any earlier examples on reddit and in addition none on google books.
The quote did certainly characteristic — with no attribution — in a June 2015 post (archived) on r/showerthoughts. Nevertheless, a comment (archived) on that submit linked to a fair earlier instance of the quote in a December 2012 X post (archived).
Should you crush a cockroach, you are a hero. Should you crush a gorgeous butterfly, you are a villain. Morals have aesthetic standards.
— IG (@samalmightysam) December 11, 2012
This submit was, the truth is, the earliest instance of the quote we recognized wherever on the web. We have reached out to the X person who created the submit for affirmation that he was the unique writer of the quote, and can replace this story if and once we get a response.
Both manner, there was no credible proof to help the declare that the quote originated from Friedrich Nietzsche. As such, we’ve got rated the quote as misattributed.
We have beforehand investigated the attributions of different quotes about bugs, together with whether or not David Attenborough ever said: “Should you gather 100 black ants and 100 crimson ants and put them in a glass jar nothing will occur, however if you happen to take the jar, shake it violently and go away it on the desk, the ants will begin killing one another,” in addition to whether or not Albert Einstein ever said: “If the bee disappeared off the floor of the globe, then man would solely have 4 years of life left.”
