What were Nietzsche's 'Monsters' and 'Abyss'?

[Dropship]

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you."

That quote of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche has always intrigued me, but I could never understand what he meant.
What exactly were the 'monsters' and the 'abyss'?

[Excubis]

[Replying to post 1 by Dropship]

He was an out spoken opponent against religion, and a proponent of perspectivism. Perhaps he was talking about those who forget to question and become fixed in one perspective only, and since we seem to do just that no matter how objective we think we are. The abyss of a closed mind?

This quote kept me going during a period of being in a unsettled peer enviroment to put it gently.

[ttruscott]

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you."

That quote of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche has always intrigued me, but I could never understand what he meant.
What exactly were the 'monsters' and the 'abyss'?

I don't know what he meant but for me, I thought the sentence referred to human demons, the psychopaths of destruction of all human values and to look into them was to study their deeds and ways of thinking so one might fight them which can lead to despair and to our own excesses against our own values in the fight against them.

The abyss for me was a reality without GOD as exemplified for me by existentialism.

Sorry I can't help...

[enviousintheeverafter]

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you."

That quote of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche has always intrigued me, but I could never understand what he meant.
What exactly were the 'monsters' and the 'abyss'?

Within the context of Nietzsche's broader concerns in Beyond G&E (from which the quote is taken), a reasonable interpretation of "monsters" is roughly, something/someone which one fears and hates. The idea is that you have to take care, lest you become that which you hate and fear. And the "abyss" is, for Nietzsche, often associated with nihilism (one of his primary concerns)- so especially for philosophers like himself, explicitly concerned with the problem of nihilism, there is the danger that thinking about and reflecting on nihilism causes one to become nihilistic themselves. To become infected by it, as it were.

[Hatuey]

[Replying to post 1 by Dropship]

I think he was warning against being your own unique type of Christian that doesn't care what other Christians or nonbelievers think of your beliefs and how you arrived at them. Or maybe he was advocating that you do that? Hard to tell which.

[Dropship]

[Replying to post 1 by Dropship]

I think he was warning against being your own unique type of Christian that doesn't care what other Christians or nonbelievers think of your beliefs and how you arrived at them. Or maybe he was advocating that you do that? Hard to tell which.

As a freelance (ie non-denominational) Christian, I'm certainly not unique as there are many more like me who don't bother going to church or getting baptized and all that razzmatazz..
As for Nietzsche, I know he was an atheist and had mental problems didn't he, so perhaps his monsters were his personal demons, and the Abyss was the terrible emptiness of atheism?

[enviousintheeverafter]

As for Nietzsche, I know he was an atheist and had mental problems didn't he, so perhaps his monsters were his personal demons, and the Abyss was the terrible emptiness of atheism?

Nope, there's zero chance that's what he is referring to (especially since he didn't develop any mental illness until long after he wrote Beyond Good and Evil). You may actually try reading the relevant section, or a bio on Nietzsche, instead of taking just random (and ill-informed) guesses.