Editing Eternal return (section)

===Nietzsche's formulation===
[[File:Nietzsche-Stein 01.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|right|Nietzsche wrote that the concept of eternal return first occurred to him at [[Lake Silvaplana]] in Switzerland, "beside a huge rock that towered aloft like a pyramid".<ref name=Ecce/>]]

Nietzsche may have drawn upon a number of sources in developing his own formulation of the theory. He had studied Pythagorean and Stoic philosophy,<ref name=Kaufmann>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/nietzschephiloso00kauf/mode/2up?view=theater |url-access=registration |last=Kaufmann |first=Walter A. |title=Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist |date=1974 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/nietzschephiloso00kauf/page/316/mode/2up?view=theater 317–319] |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-6910-1983-3 |edition=4th}}</ref> was familiar with the works of contemporary philosophers such as Dühring and Vogt,<ref>{{harvnb|D'Iorio|2014|page=43, 74}}</ref> and may have encountered references to Blanqui in a book by [[Friedrich Albert Lange]].<ref name=Fouillee>{{cite journal |first=Alfred |last=Fouillée |url=http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Note_sur_Nietzsche_et_Lange_:_%C2%AB_le_retour_%C3%A9ternel_%C2%BB |title=Note sur Nietzsche et Lange: 'le retour éternel' |journal=Revue philosophique de la France et de l'étranger |volume=67 |date=1909 |pages=519–525 |language=fr}}</ref> He was also a fan of the author [[Heinrich Heine]], one of whose books contains a passage discussing the theory of eternal return.<ref name=Kaufmann/> Nevertheless, Nietzsche claimed that the doctrine struck him one day as a sudden revelation, while walking beside [[Lake Silvaplana]] in Switzerland.<ref name=Ecce/>

The first published presentation of Nietzsche's version of the theory appears in ''[[The Gay Science]]'', section 341, where it is proposed to the reader as a [[thought experiment]].

{{blockquote|text=What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness, and say to you, "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence" ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: "You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Schacht|first=Richard|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eNdeC34id4wC|title=Nietzsche's Postmoralism: Essays on Nietzsche's Prelude to Philosophy's Future|date=2001|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-64085-5|pages=237|language=en}}</ref>}}

Nietzsche expanded upon this concept in the philosophical novel ''[[Thus Spoke Zarathustra]]'', later writing that eternal return was "the fundamental idea of the work".<ref name=Ecce>{{cite book |last=Nietzsche |first=Friedrich |translator=Anthony M. Ludovici |title=Ecce Homo |page=96 |url=https://archive.org/details/TheCompleteWorksOfFriedrichNietzschevol.17-EcceHomo/page/n115/mode/2up?view=theater |publisher=Macmillan |date=1911}}</ref> In this novel, the titular Zarathustra is initially struck with horror at the thought that all things must recur eternally; ultimately, however, he overcomes his aversion to eternal return and embraces it as his most fervent desire. In the penultimate chapter of the work ("The Drunken Song"), Zarathustra declares: "All things are entangled, ensnared, enamored; if you ever wanted one thing twice, if you ever said, 'You please me, happiness! Abide, moment!' then you wanted ''all'' back ... ''For all joy wants—eternity''."<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Kaufmann |editor-first=Walter |date=1954 |url=https://archive.org/details/portablenietzsch00niet/page/434/mode/2up?view=theater |url-access=registration |title=The Portable Nietzsche |publisher=The Viking Press |page=435}}</ref>