"Christianity was from the beginning, essentially and fundamentally, life's nausea and disgust with life, merely concealed behind, masked by, dressed up as, faith in 'another' or 'better' life."
Nietzsche has never concealed his distaste for the Christian faith. He does not condemn the religion itself, but he does not believe the sincerity of the people who practice the religion. In this quotation he explains that he believes Christians are prudes because they believe in a higher existence. They are not content with this life because of all the bad in it, so they force themselves to believe in a glorious, perfect afterlife.
“Suppose a human being has thus put his ear, as it were, to the heart chamber of the world will and felt the roaring desire for existence pouring from there into all the veins of the world, as a thundering current or as the gentlest brook, dissolving into a mist—how could he fail to break suddenly? How could he endure to perceive the echo of innumerable shouts of pleasure and woe in the "wide space of the world night," enclosed in the wretched glass capsule of the human individual, without inexorably fleeing toward his primordial home, as he hears this shepherd's dance of metaphysics? But if such a work could nevertheless be perceived as a whole, without denial of individual existence; if such a creation could be created without smashing its creator—whence do we take the solution of such a contradiction?”
Nietzsche theorizes here that a person tries to listen to the entire universe in one moment. He argues that no human could possibly stand the intensity of experiencing all of existence at once. Too many pleasures and woes exist for one person to bear alone or even comprehend. He believes, however, that such an act would force a person to revert to an animal state of innocence, lacking higher intelligence. If, however, someone could withstand such an experience, then that person would be forced to acknowledge exactly how small they are and where they fit in the entire existence of the universe. By feeling everything, they would not only find themselves but embrace their role in life.
“Without myth, however, every culture loses its healthy creative natural power: it is only a horizon encompassed with myth that rounds off to unify a social movement.”
Nietzsche is a strong believer in the power of myth and its role in society. Without a doubt, Joseph Campbell builds many of his ideas off of Nietzsche's work. To Nietzsche the myth is the main source of creativity in a culture. An individual may be creative in a certain regard, but an entire community will always manifest its creative energy in mythology. Legends and tall tales serve to inform a culture about its inherent fear of the unknown, which are the only deterrents to unity amongst a social group.
“Language can never adequately render the cosmic symbolism of music, because music stands in symbolic relation to the primordial contradiction and primordial pain in the heart of the primal unity, and therefore symbolizes a sphere which is beyond and prior to all phenomena. Rather, all phenomena, compared with it, are merely symbols: hence language, as the organ and symbol of phenomena, can never by any means disclose the innermost heart of music; language, in its attempt to imitate it, can only be in superficial contact with music; while all the eloquence of lyric poetry cannot bring the deepest significance of the latter one step nearer to us.”
In this quote, Nietzsche addresses the phenomenon of music. He believes that music transcends the ability of language. Music can explain secrets about existence that cannot be spoken. Universally expressing concepts and feelings to all people, music is able to unite humanity in a way that can only be described as ancient (Nietzsche uses "primordial"), dating back to the earliest existence of life. He argues that a poet can never ascribe to attain the level of expression that a musician does.
