Will to Strength

Interpretations of Nietzsche’s “What Does Not Kill Me Makes Me Stronger”

Few realize that the oft-quoted phrase, “What does not kill me makes me stronger,” originates with the philosopher and artist Friedrich Nietzsche. But what does it truly mean to become stronger? What happens when we go beyond the famed cliché?

In Imperial’s book, the radical possibilities of Nietzsche’s concept of strength are explored through the lives and works of three historical exemplars: the aesthetic militant Yukio Mishima, the revolutionary psychiatrist Frantz Fanon, and the Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl.

Through their intense journeys of suffering, these exemplars’ struggles are interpreted as expressing distinct "styles" of strength—physical, linguistic, and existential—challenging the listener to see strength not as a static trait, but as a dynamic, cyclical process of “becoming stronger”: what the author views as the curation and composition of a “will to strength."

©2025 Arthur C. Imperial (P)2025 Arthur C. Imperial