Friedrich Nietzsche, who was a friend of the Wagner's and was influenced by the composer, wrote a book, Twilight of the Idols, in 1888, just before he went mad and was committed by his sister to an insane asylum. That same year he also wrote The Anti-christ.

Twilight of the Idols

The title of this highly polemical book, Twilight of the Idols, or How One Philosophizes with a Hammer (Götzen-Dämmerung, oder Wie man mit dem Hammer philosophiert, August-September 1888), word-plays upon Wagner's opera, The Twilight of the Gods (Götterdämmerung).

From twilight of the Gods to twilight of the Idols. Interesting!

schadenfreude (SHAHD-n-froy-duh), often capitalized, as it is in German, noun:

malicious joy in the misfortunes of others

1922, from Ger., lit. "damage-joy," from schaden "damage, harm, injury" (see scathe) + freude, from O.H.G. frewida "joy," from fro "happy," lit. "hopping for joy," from P.Gmc. *frawa-

"The historian Peter Gay -- who felt Schadenfreude as a Jewish child in Nazi-era Berlin, watching the Germans lose coveted gold medals in the 1936 Olympics -- has said that it "can be one of the great joys of life."
-- Edward Rothstein, "Missing the Fun of a Minor Sin", New York Times, February 5, 2000"

"Usually, it is stated that Schadenfreude has no direct English equivalent. For example, Harper Collins German-English Dictionary translates schadenfreude as "malicious glee or gloating." However, an apparent English equivalent is epicaricacy, derived from the Greek word ἐπιχαιρεκακία, epichaerecacia.[dubious – discuss] This word does not appear in most modern dictionaries, but does appear in Nathaniel Bailey's Universal Etymological English Dictionary (1727) under a slightly different spelling (epicharikaky), which gives its etymology as a compound of epi (upon), chara (joy), and kakon (evil).[citation needed] The word does not appear, in either spelling, in the Oxford English Dictionary.[1][2] A more common English equivalent than 'epicaricacy' might be the expression 'Roman holiday', which means pleasure derived from watching someone else's suffering, and is derived from the delight of Roman citizens' at the gladiatorial spectacles in the Colosseum." -wikipedia.com

"The Buddhist concept of mudita, "sympathetic joy" or "happiness in another's good fortune," is cited as an example of the opposite of schadenfreude." -wikipedia.com

-dictionary.com
-wikipedia.com

Oh, what a delightful sounding word! I love the way it rolls off the tongue, although it's a horrid word, when you think about it.

I tried this one off my co-worker who speaks German and she laughed. She said, "It's when you have a laugh at the expense of others" and mentioned that when someone slips on a banana peel and you laugh at them, that is Schadenfreude.

There's a whole lotta schadenfreude goin' on!

German can sound very beautiful. Frau Elsador Edse used to give German lessons over the radio at WOSU (Ohio State Univ.) and spoke beautiful-sounding German.

Weltanschauung (VELT-ahn-shou-oo ng), noun, German loan word, plural -s or -en.

1. The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world.
2. A collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or a group.

[German : Welt,world (from Middle High German wërlt, from Old High German weralt; see wī-ro- in Indo-European roots) + Anschauung, view (from Middle High German anschouwunge, observation, mystical contemplation : an-, on, at from Old High German ana-; see anlage + schouwunge, look from schouwen, to look at, from Old High German scouwōn).]

"[T]here is in mankind a persistent tendency to achieve a comprehensive interpretation, a Weltanschauung, or philosophy, in which a picture of reality is combined with a sense of meaning and value and with principles of action..." Wilhelm Dilthy, from The Encyclopedia of Philosophy

“In contradistinction to philosophy, religion is a tremendous force, which exerts its power over the strongest emotions of human beings. As we know, at one time it included everything that played any part in the mental life of mankind, that it took the place of science, when as yet science hardly existed, and that it built up a Weltanschauung of incomparable consistency and coherence which, although it has been severely shaken, has lasted to this day....” Sigmund Freud: Civilization & Die Weltanschauung, 1918

“Whenever men assert their essential unity with nature, strive for an integration of their intellectual with their emotional capacities, of consciousness with the unconscious, facts with values, and seek to identify subject with object, the term “romantic” has been applied by themselves or others to those who shared this Weltanschauung.” - Dictionary of the History of Ideas, “Romanticism in Post-Kantian Philosophy”, p.208,v.4

-Dictionary.com
-wikipedia.com
http://www.projectworldview.org/worldviews.htm
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1918freud-civwelt.html
http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv4-28
http://activerain.com/image_store/uploads/2/9/9/6/1/ar118418737016992.jpg

Weltschmertz (WELT-schmertz), noun.

Sorrow or sadness over the present or future evils or woes of the world in general; sentimental pessimism.

[G., fr. welt world + schmertz pain. ]
-Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

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"...the prevailing mood of melancholy and pessimism associated with the poets of the Romantic era that arose from their refusal or inability to adjust to those realities of the world that they saw as destructive of their right to subjectivity and personal freedom—a phenomenon thought to typify Romanticism. The word was coined by Jean Paul in his pessimistic novel, Selina (1827), to describe Lord Byron's discontent (especially as shown in Manfred and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage). Weltschmerz was characterized by a nihilistic loathing for the world and a view that was skeptically blasé. In France, where it was called the mal du siècle by Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve in 1833, Weltschmerz was expressed by Chateaubriand, Alfred de Vigny, and Alfred de Musset; in Russia by Aleksandr Pushkin and Mikhail Lermontov; in Poland by Juliusz Slowacki; in America by Nathaniel Hawthorne."
-Britiannica online

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"Akutagawa's 'last words' in literature expressed a feeling of despair toward man's happiness in social life. Like all pessimists, he had to find a conclusive comment on the eternal Weltschmertz with which man is burdened. This is not at all a new idea. It gives rise to the fatal logic of the petty bourgeoisie which views self-despair as the despair of society as a whole." - David Peace, in "Last words", Saturday September 8, 2007, The Guardian newspaper.

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" Whatever the ambiguity of the cosmic clues, [Saul] Bellow is optimistic about humanity’s future and has only scorn for Weltschmertz." - Paul Elmen, professor of Christian ethics and moral theology at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary (Episcopal), Evanston, Illinois, from an article in the Christian Century, November 24, 1976.

wunderkind (VOON-duhr-kint), noun; plural wunderkinder (-kin-duhr):

1. A child prodigy.
2. One who achieves great success or acclaim at an early age.

It was even written that, at 20, his best days were behind him. He had gone from a wunderkind to an object of sympathy, a hero struggling not to be forgotten.
-- "Owen shines like a beacon amid the wrecks", Times (London), May 29, 2000

In the mid-thirties, he became the youngest and best state director of FDR's National Youth Administration, a Texas wunderkind who at age twenty-eight beat several better known opponents for a south-central Texas congressional seat.
-- Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant

Wunderkind comes from German, from Wunder, "wonder" + Kind, child.

-dictionary.com

Here is a wonderful word for animal lovers. Formed of therio from the Greek θηρίον, wild beast + phily var. of Gk. philia "affection," from philos "loving."

theriophily (ther-ee-AHPH-eh-lee [just a guess]), noun.

“Theriophily is a word coined in 1933 by the author of this article [George Boax] to name a complex of ideas which express an admiration for the ways and character of the ani-
mals. Theriophilists have asserted with various emphases that the beasts are (1) as rational as men,or less rational than men but better off without reason,or more rational than men; (2) that they are happier than men, in that Nature is a mother to them but a cruel stepmother to us; (3) that they are more moral than men.” -GEORGE BOAS, Dictionry of the History of Ideas



"Alternative views of animals emerged from a countertradition to the humanist emphasis on keeping our innate animality in check, most notably in the natural philosophy that regarded the human soul as different in degree, not kind, from the souls of animals, or in proponents of theriophily (the love of animals as naturally virtuous). In various contexts Fudge shows how careful observation of particular animals undermined the construction of a supposedly unique human rationality by reminding people of their own beastliness and of the impressive capacities of other species." -Alvin Snider, Department of English, University of Iowa, reviewing Erica Fudge's book, Brutal Reasoning: Animals, Rationality, and Humanity in Early Modern England. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006.

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http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhiana.cgi?id=dv4-51
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=312621203102069

This word lives up to its definition. Lexicographers say it began as a "hedghog" word, but capriciously changed direction to become more like a "goat."

capricious (kuh-PRISH-us; -PREE-shus), adjective:

Apt to change suddenly; whimsical; changeable.

Capricious comes, via French, from Italian capriccio, a shivering, a shudder, finally (influenced by Italian capra, goat) a whim, from capo, head (from Latin caput) + riccio, hedgehog (from Latin ericius). The basic idea is that of a head with hair standing on end, like the spines of a hedgehog.

"Molly was a capricious woman. Her moods were unpredictable, her anger petty and vicious." -- Rand Roberts and James Olson, John Wayne: American

"The Countess was a capricious minx, by turns seductive and aloof." - Saul David, Prince of Pleasure: The Prince of Wales and the Making of the Regency

"Mathematics is logical; people are erratic, capricious, and barely comprehensible." - Bruce Schneier, Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World
- Dictionary.com

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The root of "capricious" is the noun "caprice," which means a whim or sudden change of mind. "Caprice," in turn, comes ultimately from the Italian word "capriccio," also meaning "whim," and at this point hedgehogs waddle gracefully into our investigation. Hedgehogs are known, of course, for their spiky, spiny coats. The Italian "capriccio" is a combination of "capo" (head) and "riccio" (hedgehog), and its original meaning was "hedgehog head," a description of someone so frightened or astonished that the hair on his or her head stood on end.

The transformation of the meaning of "capriccio" from "fright" to "whim or sudden impulse" seems to have involved our second animal actor, goats. While the Italian word "capra" (goat) is not directly related to "capriccio," the similarity of the words and the skittish, flighty behavior of goats apparently gradually pushed "capriccio" away from "fright" and towards "whim." By the time "caprice" entered English in 1667, it meant simply "whim or notion." - http://www.word-detective.com/061300.html#capricious