otherwise one comes to grief through him.
574.
MARVELLOUS VANITY.--Whoever has courageously prophesied the weather
three times and has been successful in his hits, acquires a certain
amount of inward confidence in his prophetic gift. We give credence to
the marvellous and irrational when it flatters our self-esteem.
575.
A PROFESSION.--A profession is the backbone of life.
576.
THE DANGER OF PERSONAL INFLUENCE.--Whoever feels that he exercises a
great inward influence over another person must give him a perfectly
free rein, must, in fact, welcome and even induce occasional
opposition, otherwise he will inevitably make an enemy.
577.
RECOGNITION OF THE HEIR.--Whoever has founded something great in an
unselfish spirit is careful to rear heirs for his work. It is the sign
of a tyrannical and ignoble nature to see opponents in all possible
heirs, and to live in a state of self-defence against them.
578.
PARTIAL KNOWLEDGE.--Partial knowledge is more triumphant than complete
knowledge; it takes things to be simpler than they are, and so makes
its theory more popular and convincing.
579.
UNSUITABLE FOR A PARTY-MAN.--Whoever thinks much is unsuitable for a
party-man; his thinking leads him too quickly beyond the party.
580.
A BAD MEMORY.--The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several
times the same good things for the _first_ time.
581.
SELF-AFFLICTION.--Want of consideration is often the sign of a
discordant inner nature, which craves for stupefaction.
582.
MARTYRS.--The disciples of a martyr suffer more than the martyr.
583.
ARREARS OF VANITY.--The vanity of many people who have no occasion to
be vain is the inveterate habit, still surviving from the time when
people had no right to the belief in themselves and only begged it in
small sums from others.
584.
_PUNCTUM SALIENS_ OF PASSION.--A person falling into a rage or into a
violent passion of love reaches a point when the soul is full like a
hogshead, but nevertheless a drop of water has still to be added, the
good will for the passion (which is also generally called the evil
will). This item only is necessary, and then the hogshead overflows.
585.
A GLOOMY THOUGHT.--It is with men as with the charcoal fires in the
forest. It is only when young men have cooled down and have got
charred, like these piles, that they become _useful._ As long as they
fume and smoke they are perhaps more interesting, but they are useless
and too often uncomfortable. Humanity ruthlessly uses every individual
as material for the heating of its great machines; but what then is the
purpose of the machines, when all individuals (that is, the human race)
are useful only to maintain them? Machines that are ends in themselves:
is that the _umana commedia_?
586.
THE HOUR-HAND OF LIFE.--Life consists of rare single moments of the
greatest importance, and of countless intervals during which, at best,
the phantoms of those moments hover around us. Love, the Spring, every
fine melody, the mountains, the moon, the sea--all speak but once
fully to the heart, if, indeed, they ever do quite attain to speech.
For many people have not those moments at all, and are themselves
intervals and pauses in the symphony of actual life.
587.
ATTACK OR COMPROMISE.--We often make the mistake of showing violent
enmity towards a tendency, party, or period, because we happen only
to get a sight of its most exposed side, its stuntedness, or the
inevitable "faults of its virtues,"--perhaps because we ourselves have
taken a prominent part in them. We then turn our backs on them and
seek a diametrically opposite course; but the better way would be to
seek out their strong good sides, or to develop them in ourselves. To
be sure, a keener glance and a better will are needed to improve the
becoming and the imperfect than are required to see through it in its
imperfection and to deny it.
588.
MODESTY.--There is true modesty (that is the knowledge that we are
not the works we create); and it is especially becoming in a great
mind, because such a mind can well grasp the thought of absolute
irresponsibility (even for the good it creates). People do not hate
a great man's presumptuousness in so far as he feels his strength,
but because he wishes to prove it by injuring others, by dominating
them, and seeing how long they will stand it. This, as a rule, is even
a proof of the absence of a secure sense of power, and makes people
doubt his greatness. We must therefore beware of presumption from the
stand-point of wisdom.
589.
THE DAY'S FIRST THOUGHT.--The best way to begin a day well is to think,
on awakening, whether we cannot give pleasure during the day to at
least one person. If this could become a substitute for the religious
habit of prayer our fellow-men would benefit by the change.
590.
PRESUMPTION AS THE LAST CONSOLATION.--When we so interpret a
misfortune, an intellectual defect, or a disease that we see therein
our predestined fate, our trial, or the mysterious punishment of our
former misdeeds, we thereby make our nature interesting and exalt
ourselves in imagination above our fellows. The proud sinner is a
well-known figure in all religious sects.
591.
THE VEGETATION OF HAPPINESS.--Close beside the world's woe, and
often upon its volcanic soil, man has laid out his little garden of
happiness. Whether one regard life with the eyes of him who only seeks
knowledge therefrom, or of him who submits and is resigned, or of him
who rejoices over surmounted difficulties--everywhere one will find
some happiness springing up beside the evil--and in fact always the
more happiness the more volcanic the soil has been,--only it would be
absurd to say that suffering itself is justified by this happiness.
592.
THE PATH OF OUR ANCESTORS.--It is sensible when a person develops still
further in himself the _talent_ upon which his father or grandfather
spent much trouble, and does not shift to something entirely new;
otherwise he deprives himself of the possibility of attaining
perfection in any one craft. That is why the proverb says, "Which road
shouldst thou ride?--That of thine ancestors."
593.
VANITY AND AMBITION AS EDUCATORS.--As long as a person has not become
an instrument of general utility, ambition may torment him; if,
however, that point has been reached, if he necessarily works like a
machine for the good of all, then vanity may result; it will humanise
him in small matters and make him more sociable, endurable, and
considerate, when ambition has completed the coarser work of making him
useful.
594.
PHILOSOPHICAL NOVICES.--Immediately we have comprehended the wisdom of
a philosopher, we go through the streets with a feeling as if we had
been re-created and had become great men; for we encounter only those
who are ignorant of this wisdom, and have therefore to deliver new and
unknown verdicts concerning everything. Because we now recognise a
law-book we think we must also comport ourselves as judges.
595.
PLEASING BY DISPLEASING.--People who prefer to attract attention, and
thereby to displease, desire the same thing as those who neither wish
to please nor to attract attention, only they seek it more ardently and
indirectly by means of a step by which they apparently move away from
their goal. They desire influence and power, and therefore show their
superiority, even to such an extent that it becomes disagreeable; for
they know that he who has finally attained power, pleases in almost all
he says and does, and that even when he displeases he still seems to
please. The free spirit also, and in like manner the believer, desire
power, in order some day to please thereby; when, on account of their
doctrine, evil fate, persecution, dungeon, or execution threaten them,
they rejoice in the thought that their teaching will thus be engraved
and branded on the heart of mankind; though its effect is remote they
accept their fate as a painful but powerful means of still attaining to
power.
596.
_CASUS BELLI_ AND THE LIKE.--The prince who, for his determination
to make war against his neighbour, invents a _casus belli,_ is like
a father who foists on his child a mother who is henceforth to be
regarded as such. And are not almost all publicly avowed motives of
action just such spurious mothers?
597.
PASSION AND RIGHT.--Nobody talks more passionately of his rights than
he who, in the depths of his soul, is doubtful about them. By getting
passion on his side he seeks to confound his understanding and its
doubts,--he thus obtains a good conscience, and along with it success
with his fellow-men.
598.
THE TRICK OF THE RESIGNING ONE.--He who protests against marriage,
after the manner of Catholic priests, will conceive of it in its
lowest and vulgarest form. In the same way he who disavows the honour
of his contemporaries will have a mean opinion of it; he can thus
dispense with it and struggle against it more easily. Moreover, he
who denies himself much in great matters will readily indulge himself
in small things. It might be possible that he who is superior to the
approbation of his contemporaries would nevertheless not deny himself
the gratification of small vanities.
599.
THE YEARS OF PRESUMPTION.--The proper period of presumption in gifted
people is between their twenty-sixth and thirtieth years; it is the
time of early ripeness, with a large residue of sourness. On the
ground of what we feel within ourselves we demand honour and humility
from men who see little or nothing of it, and because this tribute
is not immediately forthcoming we revenge ourselves by the look, the
gesture of arrogance, and the tone of voice, which a keen ear and
eye recognise in every product of those years, whether it be poetry,
philosophy, or pictures and music. Older men of experience smile
thereat, and think with emotion of those beautiful years in which one
resents the fate of _being_ so much and _seeming_ so little. Later on
one really _seems_ more,--but one has lost the good belief in _being_
much,--unless one remain for life an incorrigible fool of vanity.
600.
DECEPTIVE AND YET DEFENSIBLE.--Just as in order to pass by an abyss or
to cross a deep stream on a plank we require a railing, not to hold
fast by,--for it would instantly break down with us,--but to give
the notion of security to the eye, so in youth we require persons
who unconsciously render us the service of that railing. It is true
they would not help us if we really wished to lean upon them in great
danger, but they afford the tranquillising sensation of protection
close to one (for instance, fathers, teachers, friends, as all three
usually are).
601.
LEARNING TO LOVE.--One must learn to love, one must learn to be kind,
and this from childhood onwards; when education and chance give us no
opportunity for the exercise of these feelings our soul becomes dried
up, and even incapable of understanding the fine devices of loving men.
In the same way hatred must be learnt and fostered, when one wants to
become a proficient hater,--otherwise the germ of it will gradually die
out.
602.
RUIN AS ORNAMENT.--Persons who pass through numerous mental phases
retain certain sentiments and habits of their earlier states, which
then project like a piece of inexplicable antiquity and grey stonework
into their new thought and action, often to the embellishment of the
whole surroundings.
603.
LOVE AND HONOUR.--Love desires, fear avoids. That is why one cannot
be both loved and honoured by the same person, at least not at the
same time.[2] For he who honours recognises power,--that is to say, he
fears it, he is in a state of reverential fear (_Ehr-furcht_) But love
recognises no power, nothing that divides, detaches, superordinates,
or subordinates. Because it does not honour them, ambitious people
secretly or openly resent being loved.
604.
A PREJUDICE IN FAVOUR OF COLD NATURES.--People who quickly take fire
grow cold quickly, and therefore are, on the whole, unreliable. For
those, therefore, who are always cold, or pretend to be so, there
is the favourable prejudice that they are particularly trustworthy,
reliable persons; they are confounded with those who take fire slowly
and retain it long.
605.
THE DANGER IN FREE OPINIONS.--Frivolous occupation with free opinions
has a charm, like a kind of itching; if one yields to it further,
one begins to chafe the places; until at last an open, painful wound
results; that is to say, until the free opinion begins to disturb and
torment us in our position in life and in our human relations.
606.
DESIRE FOR SORE AFFLICTION.--When passion is over it leaves behind an
obscure longing for it, and even in disappearing it casts a seductive
glance at us. It must have afforded a kind of pleasure to have
been beaten with this scourge. Compared with it, the more moderate
sensations appear insipid; we still prefer, apparently, the more
violent displeasure to languid delight.
607.
DISSATISFACTION WITH OTHERS AND WITH THE WORLD.--When, as so frequently
happens, we vent our dissatisfaction on others when we are really
dissatisfied with ourselves, we are in fact attempting to mystify and
deceive our judgment; we desire to find a motive _a posteriori_ for
this dissatisfaction, in the mistakes or deficiencies of others, and
so lose sight of ourselves. Strictly religious people, who have been
relentless judges of themselves, have at the same time spoken most ill
of humanity generally; there has never been a saint who reserved sin
for himself and virture for others, any more than a man who, according
to Buddha's rule, hides his good qualities from people and only shows
his bad ones.
608.
CONFUSION OF CAUSE AND EFFECT.--Unconsciously we seek the principles
and opinions which are suited to our temperament, so that at last it
seems as if these principles and opinions had formed our character
and given it support and stability, whereas exactly the contrary has
taken place. Our thoughts and judgments are, apparently, to be taken
subsequently as the causes of our nature, but as a matter of fact _our_
nature is the cause of our so thinking and judging. And what induces
us to play this almost unconscious comedy? Inertness and convenience,
and to a large extent also the vain desire to be regarded as thoroughly
consistent and homogeneous in nature and thought; for this wins
respect and gives confidence and power.
609.
AGE IN RELATION TO TRUTH.--Young people love what is interesting and
exceptional, indifferent whether it is truth or falsehood. Riper minds
love what is interesting and extraordinary when it is truth. Matured
minds, finally, love truth even in those in whom it appears plain and
simple and is found tiresome by ordinary people, because they have
observed that truth is in the habit of giving utterance to its highest
intellectual verities with all the appearance of simplicity.
610.
MEN AS BAD POETS.--Just as bad poets seek a thought to fit the rhyme
in the second half of the verse, so men in the second half of life,
having become more scrupulous, are in the habit of seeking pursuits,
positions, and conditions which suit those of their earlier life, so
that outwardly all sounds well, but their life is no longer ruled and
continuously determined anew by a powerful thought: in place thereof
there is merely the intention of finding a rhyme.
611.
ENNUI AND PLAY.--Necessity compels us to work, with the product of
which the necessity is appeased; the ever new awakening of necessity,
however, accustoms us to work. But in the intervals in which necessity
is appeased and asleep, as it were, we are attacked by ennui. What is
this? In a word it is the habituation to work, which now makes itself
felt as a new and additional necessity; it will be all the stronger the
more a person has been accustomed to work, perhaps, even, the more a
person has suffered from necessities. In order to escape ennui, a man
either works beyond the extent of his former necessities, or he invents
play, that is to say, work that is only intended to appease the general
necessity for work. He who has become satiated with play, and has no
new necessities impelling him to work, is sometimes attacked by the
longing for a third state, which is related to play as gliding is to
dancing, as dancing is to walking, a blessed, tranquil movement; it is
the artists' and philosophers' vision of happiness.
612.
LESSONS FROM PICTURES.--If we look at a series of pictures of
ourselves, from the time of later childhood to the time of mature
manhood, we discover with pleased surprise that the man bears more
resemblance to the child than to the youth: that probably, therefore,
in accordance with this fact, there has been in the interval a
temporary alienation of the fundamental character, over which the
collected, concentrated force of the man has again become master. With
this observation this other is also in accordance, namely, that all
strong influences of passions, teachers, and political events, which
in our youthful years draw us hither and thither, seem later on to be
referred back again to a fixed standard; of course they still continue
to exist and operate within us, but our fundamental sentiments and
opinions have now the upper hand, and use their influence perhaps as a
source of strength, but are no longer merely regulative, as was perhaps
the case in our twenties. Thus even the thoughts and sentiments of the
man appear more in accordance with those of his childish years,--and
this objective fact expresses itself in the above-mentioned subjective
fact.
613.
THE TONE OF VOICE OF DIFFERENT AGES.--The tone in which youths speak,
praise, blame, and versify, displeases an older person because it is
too loud, and yet at the same time dull and confused like a sound in
a vault, which acquires such a loud ring owing to the emptiness; for
most of the thought of youths does not gush forth out of the fulness
of their own nature, but is the accord and the echo of what has been
thought, said, praised or blamed around them. As their sentiments,
however (their inclinations and aversions), resound much more forcibly
than the reasons thereof, there is heard, whenever they divulge these
sentiments, the dull, clanging tone which is a sign of the absence
or scarcity of reasons. The tone of riper age is rigorous, abruptly
concise, moderately loud, but, like everything distinctly articulated,
is heard very far off. Old age, finally, often brings a certain
mildness and consideration into the tone of the voice, and as it were,
sweetens it; in many cases, to be sure it also sours it.
614.
THE ATAVIST AND THE FORERUNNER.--The man of unpleasant character,
full of distrust, envious of the success of fellow-competitors and
neighbours, violent and enraged at divergent opinions, shows that he
belongs to an earlier grade of culture, and is, therefore, an atavism;
for the way in which he behaves to people was right and suitable only
for an age of club-law; he is an _atavist._ The man of a different
character, rich in sympathy, winning friends everywhere, finding all
that is growing and becoming amiable, rejoicing at the honours and
successes of others and claiming no privilege of solely knowing the
truth, but full of a modest distrust,--he is a forerunner who presses
upward towards a higher human culture. The man of unpleasant character
dates from the times when the rude basis of human intercourse had
yet to be laid, the other lives on the upper floor of the edifice of
culture, removed as far as possible from the howling and raging wild
beast imprisoned in the cellars.
615.
CONSOLATION FOR HYPOCHONDRIACS.--When a great thinker is temporarily
subjected to hypochondriacal self-torture he can say to himself, by
way of consolation: "It is thine own great strength on which this
parasite feeds and grows; if thy strength were smaller thou wouldst
have less to suffer." The statesman may say just the same thing when
jealousy and vengeful feeling, or, in a word, the tone of the _bellum
omnium contra omnes,_ for which, as the representative of a nation, he
must necessarily have a great capacity, occasionally intrudes into his
personal relations and makes his life hard.
616.
ESTRANGED FROM THE PRESENT.--There are great advantages in estranging
one's self for once to a large extent from one's age, and being as
it were driven back from its shores into the ocean of past views of
things. Looking thence towards the coast one commands a view, perhaps
for the first time, of its aggregate formation, and when one again
approaches the land one has the advantage of understanding it better,
on the whole, than those who have never left it.
617.
SOWING AND REAPING ON THE FIELD OF PERSONAL DEFECTS.--Men like Rousseau
understand how to use their weaknesses, defects, and vices as manure
for their talent. When Rousseau bewails the corruption and degeneration
of society as the evil results of culture, there is a personal
experience at the bottom of it, the bitterness which gives sharpness to
his general condemnation and poisons the arrows with which he shoots;
he unburdens himself first as an individual, and thinks of getting a
remedy which, while benefiting society directly, will also benefit
himself indirectly by means of society.
618.
PHILOSOPHICALLY MINDED.--We usually endeavour to acquire _one_
attitude of mind, _one_ set of opinions for all situations and events
of life--it is mostly called being philosophically minded. But for
the acquisition of knowledge it may be of greater importance not to
make ourselves thus uniform, but to hearken to the low voice of the
different situations in life; these bring their own opinions with
them. We thus take an intelligent interest in the life and nature of
many persons by not treating ourselves as rigid, persistent single
individuals.
619.
IN THE FIRE OF CONTEMPT.--It is a fresh step towards independence when
one first dares to give utterance to opinions which it is considered as
disgraceful for a person to entertain; even friends and acquaintances
are then accustomed to grow anxious. The gifted nature must also pass
through this fire; it afterwards belongs far more to itself.
620.
SELF-SACRIFICE.--In the event of choice, a great sacrifice is preferred
to a small one, because we compensate ourselves for the great sacrifice
by self-admiration, which is not possible in the case of a small one.
621.
LOVE AS AN ARTIFICE.--Whoever really wishes to _become acquainted
with_ something new (whether it be a person, an event, or a book),
does well to take up the matter with all possible love, and to avert
his eye quickly from all that seems hostile, objectionable, and false
therein,--in fact to forget such things; so that, for instance, he
gives the author of a book the best start possible, and straightway,
just as in a race, longs with beating heart that he may reach the goal.
In this manner one penetrates to the heart of the new thing, to its
moving point, and this is called becoming acquainted with it. This
stage having been arrived at, the understanding afterwards makes its
restrictions; the over-estimation and the temporary suspension of the
critical pendulum were only artifices to lure forth the soul of the
matter.
622.
THINKING TOO WELL AND TOO ILL OF THE WORLD.--Whether we think too
well or too ill of things, we always have the advantage of deriving
therefrom a greater pleasure, for with a too good preconception we
usually put more sweetness into things (experiences) than they actually
contain. A too bad preconception causes a pleasant disappointment, the
pleasantness that lay in the things themselves is increased by the
pleasantness of the surprise. A gloomy temperament, however, will have
the reverse experience in both cases.
623.