Glossary
Amor fati
amor fati (latin)
Amor fati, “love of fate”, is a Latin phrase coined by Friedrich Nietzsche. He gives it as his formula for greatness in Ecce Homo (1888) and, earlier, as a new year’s wish in The Gay Science, §276 (1882): to want nothing to be other than it is, and to learn to see what is necessary as beautiful. The words are not in Marcus Aurelius, Seneca or Epictetus. None of the editions we hold contains them, and no Stoic locator is given here for that reason.
The idea has Stoic neighbours, which is why the phrase is now attached to the school. Epictetus, in Enchiridion VIII (Carter, 1758), tells the reader not to require things to happen as he wishes but to wish them to happen as they do. Marcus Aurelius addresses the universe in Meditations IV, 23, accepting whatever is in due time for it, and in X, 21 borrows the poet’s line that the earth loves the shower. In each case the object is the order of nature, taken as rational and providential, and the response is assent rather than love. Nietzsche, who rejected providence, meant something harder: affirmation without the comfort of a rational whole.
Read as Stoic, then, amor fati is a modern label for an old consent to what does not depend on us, the second half of the dichotomy of control. Read as Nietzsche’s, it is a distinct thesis. The glossary keeps the two apart: the phrase is his; the neighbouring passages are theirs, and a quotation of “amor fati” should not carry a reference to the Meditations.
In the texts
The Latin phrase is Nietzsche’s, not a Stoic’s: it appears in The Gay Science, §276 (1882) and in Ecce Homo (1888). No passage of Marcus Aurelius, Seneca or Epictetus in the editions we hold contains it, so no locator is given.
What the term does not mean
- Not a Stoic phrase. Neither the Latin words nor a Greek equivalent appear in the three authors; attributing “amor fati” to Marcus Aurelius with a reference is a misattribution.
- Not resignation. The Stoic neighbours (Enchiridion VIII, Meditations IV, 23) describe assent to the order of things, alongside action on what depends on us.
- Not Nietzsche’s meaning either, once read as Stoic. He affirms fate without providence; the Stoics assent to a providential order.
Related terms
- Dichotomy of control — τὰ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν / τὰ οὐκ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν (ta eph’ hēmin, ta ouk eph’ hēmin)
- Premeditatio malorum — praemeditatio malorum (latin)
- Sympatheia — συμπάθεια (sympatheia)
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