208.
A QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE.—“Now, _in summa_, tell me what this new thing is
that you want.”—“We no longer wish causes to be sinners and effects to be
executioners.”
209.
THE UTILITY OF THE STRICTEST THEORIES.—People are indulgent towards a
man’s moral weaknesses, and in this connection they use a coarse sieve,
provided that he always professes to hold the most strict moral theories.
On the other hand, the lives of free-thinking moralists have always been
examined closely through a microscope, in the tacit belief that an error
in their lives would be the best argument against their disagreeable
knowledge.(6)
210.
THE “THING IN ITSELF.”—We used to ask formerly: What is the ridiculous?—as
if there were something above and beyond ourselves that possessed the
quality of provoking laughter, and we exhausted ourselves in trying to
guess what it was (a theologian even held that it might be “the _naïveté_
of sin”). At the present time we ask: What is laughter? how does it arise?
We have considered the point, and finally reached the conclusion that
there is nothing which is good, beautiful, sublime, or evil in itself; but
rather that there are conditions of soul which lead us to attribute such
qualities to things outside ourselves and in us. We have taken back their
predicates from things; or we have at all events recollected that we have
merely lent the things these predicates. Let us be careful that this
insight does not cause us to lose the faculty of lending, and that we do
not become at the same time wealthier and more avaricious.
211.
TO THOSE WHO DREAM OF IMMORTALITY.—So you desire the everlasting
perpetuity of this beautiful consciousness of yourselves? Is it not
shameful? Do you forget all those other things which would in their turn
have to support _you_ for all eternity, just as they have borne with you
up to the present with more than Christian patience? Or do you think that
you can inspire them with an eternally pleasant feeling towards yourself?
A single immortal man on earth would imbue everyone around him with such a
disgust for him that a general epidemic of murder and suicide would be
brought about. And yet, ye petty dwellers on earth, with your narrow
conceptions of a few thousand little minutes of time, ye would wish to be
an everlasting burden on this everlasting universal existence! Could
anything be more impertinent? After all, however, let us be indulgent
towards a being of seventy years: he has not been able to exercise his
imagination in conceiving his own “eternal tediousness”—he had not time
enough for that!
212.
WHEREIN WE KNOW OURSELVES.—As soon as one animal sees another it mentally
compares itself with it; and men of uncivilised ages did the same. The
consequence is that almost all men come to know themselves only as regards
their defensive and offensive faculties.
213.
MEN WHOSE LIVES HAVE BEEN FAILURES.—Some men are built of such stuff that
society is at liberty to do what it likes with them—they will do well in
any case, and will not have to complain of having failed in life. Other
men are formed of such peculiar material—it need not be a particularly
noble one, but simply rarer—that they are sure to fare ill except in one
single instance: when they can live according to their own designs,—in all
other cases the injury has to be borne by society. For everything that
seems to the individual to be a wasted or blighted life, his entire burden
of discouragement, powerlessness, sickness, irritation, covetousness, is
attributed by him to society—and thus a heavy, vitiated atmosphere is
gradually formed round society, or, in the most favourable cases, a
thundercloud.
214.
WHAT INDULGENCE!—You suffer, and call upon us to be indulgent towards you,
even when in your suffering you are unjust towards things and men! But
what does our indulgence matter! You, however, should take greater
precautions for your own sake! That’s a nice way of compensating yourself
for your sufferings, by imposing still further suffering on your own
judgment! Your own revenge recoils upon yourselves when you start reviling
something: you dim your own eyes in this way, and not the eyes of others;
you accustom yourself to looking at things in the wrong way, and with a
squint.
215.
THE MORALITY OF VICTIMS.—“Enthusiastic sacrifice,” “self-immolation”—these
are the catch-words of your morality, and I willingly believe that you, as
you say, “mean it honestly”: but I know you better than you know
yourselves, if your “honesty” is capable of going arm in arm with such a
morality. You look down from the heights of this morality upon that other
sober morality which calls for self-control, severity, and obedience; you
even go so far as to call it egoistic—and you are indeed frank towards
yourselves in saying that it displeases you—it must displease you! For, in
sacrificing and immolating yourselves with such enthusiasm, you delight in
the intoxication of the thought that you are now one with the powerful
being, God or man, to whom you are consecrating yourselves: you revel in
the feeling of his power, which is again attested by this sacrifice.
In reality, however, you only _appear_ to sacrifice yourselves; for your
imagination turns you into gods and you enjoy yourselves as such. Judged
from the point of view of this enjoyment, how poor and feeble must that
other “egoistic” morality of obedience, duty, and reason seem to you: it
is displeasing to you because in this instance true self-sacrifice and
self-surrender are called for, without the victim thinking himself to be
transformed into a god, as you do. In a word, you want intoxication and
excess, and this morality which you despise takes up a stand against
intoxication and excess—no wonder it causes you some displeasure!
216.
EVIL PEOPLE AND MUSIC.—Should the full bliss of love, which consists in
unlimited confidence, ever have fallen to the lot of persons other than
those who are profoundly suspicious, evil, and bitter? For such people
enjoy in this bliss the gigantic, unlooked-for, and incredible _exception_
of their souls! One day they are seized with that infinite, dreamy
sensation which is entirely opposed to the remainder of their private and
public life, like a delicious enigma, full of golden splendour, and
impossible to be described by mere words or similes. Implicit confidence
makes them speechless—there is even a species of suffering and heaviness
in this blissful silence; and this is why souls that are overcome with
happiness generally feel more grateful to music than others and better
ones do: for they see and hear through music, as through a coloured mist,
their love becoming, as it were, more distant, more touching, and less
heavy. Music is the only means that such people have of observing their
extraordinary condition and of becoming aware of its presence with a
feeling of estrangement and relief. When the sound of music reaches the
ears of every lover he thinks: “It speaks of me, it speaks in my stead; it
knows everything!”
217.
THE ARTIST.—The Germans wish to be transported by the artist into a state
of dreamy passion; by his aid the Italians wish to rest from their real
passions; the French wish him to give them an opportunity of showing their
judgment and of making speeches. So let us be just!
218.
TO DEAL LIKE AN ARTIST WITH ONE’S WEAKNESSES.—If we must positively have
weaknesses and come in the end to look upon them as laws beyond ourselves,
I wish that everybody may be possessed of as much artistic capacity as
will enable him to set off his virtues by means of his weaknesses, and to
make us, through his weaknesses, desirous of acquiring his virtues: a
power which great musicians have possessed in quite an exceptional degree.
How frequently do we notice in Beethoven’s music a coarse, dogmatic, and
impatient tone; in Mozart, the joviality of an honest man, whose heart and
mind have not overmuch to give us; in Richard Wagner, an abrupt and
aggressive restlessness, in the midst of which, just as the most patient
listener is on the point of losing his temper, the composer regains his
powers, and likewise the others. Through their very weaknesses, these
musicians have created in us an ardent desire for their virtues, and have
given us a palate which is ten times more sensitive to every note of this
tuneful intellect, tuneful beauty, and tuneful goodness.
219.
DECEIT IN HUMILIATION.—By your foolishness you have done a great wrong to
your neighbour and destroyed his happiness irretrievably—and then, having
overcome your vanity, you humble yourself before him, surrender your
foolishness to his contempt, and fancy that, after this difficult scene,
which is an exceedingly painful one for you, everything has been set
right, that your own voluntary loss of honour compensates your neighbour
for the injury you have done to his happiness. With this feeling you take
your leave comforted, believing that your virtue has been re-established.
Your neighbour, however, suffers as intensely as before. He finds nothing
to comfort him in the fact that you have been irrational and have told him
so: on the contrary, he remembers the painful appearance you presented to
him when you were disparaging yourself in his presence—it is as if another
wound had been inflicted on him. He does not think of revenging himself,
however; and cannot conceive how a proper balance can be struck between
you and him. In point of fact, you have been acting that scene for
yourself and before yourself: you invited a witness to be present, not on
his account, but on your own—don’t deceive yourself!
220.
DIGNITY AND TIMIDITY.—Ceremonies, official robes and court dresses, grave
countenances, solemn aspects, the slow pace, involved speech—everything,
in short, known as dignity—are all pretences adopted by those who are
timid at heart: they wish to make themselves feared (themselves or the
things they represent). The fearless (_i.e._ originally those who
naturally inspire others with awe) have no need of dignity and ceremonies:
they bring into repute—or, still more, into ill-repute—honesty and
straightforward words and bearing, as characteristics of their
self-confident awefulness.
221.
THE MORALITY OF SACRIFICE.—The morality which is measured by the spirit of
sacrifice is that of a semi-civilised state of society. Reason in this
instance gains a hard-fought and bloody victory within the soul; for there
are powerful contrary instincts to be overcome. This cannot be brought
about without the cruelty which the sacrifices to cannibal gods demand.
222.
WHERE FANATICISM IS TO BE DESIRED.—Phlegmatic natures can be rendered
enthusiastic only by being fanaticised.
223.
THE DREADED EYE.—Nothing is dreaded more by artists, poets, and writers
than the eye which sees through their little deceptions and subsequently
notices how often they have stopped at the boundary where the paths branch
off either to innocent delight in themselves or to the straining after
effect; the eye which checks them when they try to sell little things
dear, or when they try to exalt and adorn without being exalted
themselves; the eye which, despite all the artifices of their art, sees
the thought as it first presented itself to them, perhaps as a charming
vision of light, perhaps also, however, as a theft from the whole world,
or as an everyday conception which they had to expand, contract, colour,
wrap up, and spice, in order to make something out of it, instead of the
thought making something out of them.—Oh, this eye, which sees in your
work all your restlessness, inquisitiveness, and covetousness, your
imitation and exaggeration (which is only envious imitation) which knows
both your blush of shame and your skill in concealing it from others and
interpreting it to yourselves!
224.
THE “EDIFYING” ELEMENT IN OUR NEIGHBOUR’S MISFORTUNE.—He is in distress,
and straightway the “compassionate” ones come to him and depict his
misfortune to him. At last they go away again, satisfied and elevated,
after having gloated over the unhappy man’s misfortune and their own, and
spent a pleasant Sunday afternoon.
225.
TO BE QUICKLY DESPISED.—A man who speaks a great deal, and speaks quickly,
soon sinks exceedingly low in our estimation, even when he speaks
rationally—not only to the extent that he annoys us personally, but far
lower. For we conjecture how great a burden he has already proved to many
other people, and we thus add to the discomfort which he causes us all the
contempt which we presume he has caused to others.
226.
RELATIONS WITH CELEBRITIES.—_A._ But why do you shun this great man?—_B._
I should not like to misunderstand him. Our defects are incompatible with
one another: I am short-sighted and suspicious, and he wears his false
diamonds as willingly as his real ones.
227.
THE CHAIN-WEARERS.—Beware of all those intellects which are bound in
chains! clever women, for example, who have been banished by fate to
narrow and dull surroundings, amid which they grow old. True, there they
lie in the sun, apparently lazy and half-blind; but at every unknown step,
at everything unexpected, they start up to bite: they revenge themselves
on everything that has escaped their kennel.
228.
REVENGE IN PRAISE.—Here we have a written page which is covered with
praise, and you call it flat; but when you find out that revenge is
concealed in this praise you will find it almost too subtle, and you will
experience a great deal of pleasure in its numerous delicate and bold
strokes and similes. It is not the man himself, but his revenge, which is
so subtle, rich, and ingenious: he himself is scarcely aware of it.
229.
PRIDE.—Ah, not one of you knows the feeling of the tortured man after he
has been put to the torture, when he is being carried back to his cell,
and his secret with him!—he still holds it in a stubborn and tenacious
grip. What know ye of the exultation of human pride?
230.
“UTILITARIAN.”—At the present time men’s sentiments on moral things run in
such labyrinthic paths that, while we demonstrate morality to one man by
virtue of its utility, we refute it to another on account of this utility.
231.
ON GERMAN VIRTUE.—How degenerate in its taste, how servile to dignities,
ranks, uniforms, pomp, and splendour must a nation have been, when it
began to consider the simple as the bad, the simple man (_schlicht_) as
the bad man (_schlecht_)! We should always oppose the moral bumptiousness
of the Germans with this one little word “bad,” and nothing else.
232.
FROM A DISPUTE.—_A._ Friend, you have talked yourself hoarse.—_B._ Then I
am refuted, so let’s drop the subject.
233.
THE “CONSCIENTIOUS” ONES.—Have you noticed the kind of men who attach the
greatest value to the most scrupulous conscientiousness? Those who are
conscious of many mean and petty sentiments, who are anxiously thinking of
and about themselves, are afraid of others, and are desirous of concealing
their inmost feelings as far as possible. They endeavour to impose upon
themselves by means of this strict conscientiousness and rigorousness of
duty, and by the stern and harsh impression which others, especially their
inferiors, cannot fail to receive of them.
234.
DREAD OF FAME.—_A._ The endeavour to avoid one’s renown, the intentional
offending of one’s panegyrists, the dislike of hearing opinions about
one’s self, and all through fear of renown: instances like these are to be
met with; they actually exist—believe it or not!—_B._ They are found, no
doubt! They exist! A little patience, Sir Arrogance!
235.
REFUSING THANKS.—We are perfectly justified in refusing a request, but it
is never right to refuse thanks—or, what comes to the same thing, to
accept them coldly and conventionally. This gives deep offence—and why?
236.
PUNISHMENT.—A strange thing, this punishment of ours! It does not purify
the criminal; it is not a form of expiation; but, on the contrary, it is
even more defiling than the crime itself.
237.
PARTY GRIEVANCES.—In almost every party there is a ridiculous, but
nevertheless somewhat dangerous grievance. The sufferers from it are those
who have long been the faithful and honourable upholders of the doctrine
propagated by the party, and who suddenly remark that one day a much
stronger figure than themselves has got the ear of the public. How can
they bear being reduced to silence? So they raise their voices, sometimes
changing their notes.
238.
STRIVING FOR GENTLENESS.—When a vigorous nature has not an inclination
towards cruelty, and is not always preoccupied with itself; it
involuntarily strives after gentleness—this is its distinctive
characteristic. Weak natures, on the other hand, have a tendency towards
harsh judgments—they associate themselves with the heroes of the contempt
of mankind, the religious or philosophical traducers of existence, or they
take up their position behind strict habits and punctilious “callings”: in
this way they seek to give themselves a character and a kind of strength.
This is likewise done quite involuntarily.
239.
A HINT TO MORALISTS.—Our musicians have made a great discovery. They have
found out that interesting ugliness is possible even in their art; this is
why they throw themselves with such enthusiastic intoxication into this
ocean of ugliness, and never before has it been so easy to make music. It
is only now that we have got the general, dark-coloured background, upon
which every luminous ray of fine music, however faint, seems tinged with
golden emerald lustre; it is only now that we dare to inspire our audience
with feelings of impetuosity and indignation, taking away their breath, so
to speak, in order that we may afterwards, in an interval of restful
harmony, inspire them with a feeling of bliss which will be to the general
advantage of a proper appreciation of music.
We have discovered the contrast: it is only now that the strongest effects
are possible—and cheap. No one bothers any more about good music. But you
must hurry up! When any art has once made this discovery, it has but a
short space of time to live.—Oh, if only our thinkers could probe into the
depths of the souls of our musicians when listening to their music! How
long we must wait until we again have an opportunity of surprising the
inward man in the very act of his evil doing, and his innocence of this
act! For our musicians have not the slightest suspicion that it is their
own history, the history of the disfigurement of the soul, which they are
transposing into music. In former times a good musician was almost forced
by the exigencies of his art to become a good man—and now!
240.
THE MORALITY OF THE STAGE.—The man who imagines that the effect of
Shakespeare’s plays is a moral one, and that the sight of Macbeth
irresistibly induces us to shun the evil of ambition, is mistaken, and he
is mistaken once more if he believes that Shakespeare himself thought so.
He who is truly obsessed by an ardent ambition takes delight in beholding
this picture of himself; and when the hero is driven to destruction by his
passion, this is the most pungent spice in the hot drink of this delight.
Did the poet feel this in another way? How royally and with how little of
the knave in him does his ambitious hero run his course from the moment of
his great crime! It is only from this moment that he becomes
“demoniacally” attractive, and that he encourages similar natures to
imitate him.—There is something demoniacal here: something which is in
revolt against advantage and life, in favour of a thought and an impulse.
Do you think that Tristan and Isolde are warnings against adultery, merely
because adultery has resulted in the death of both of them? This would be
turning poets upside down, these poets who, especially Shakespeare, are in
love with the passions in themselves, and not less so with the readiness
for death which they give rise to: this mood in which the heart no more
clings to life than a drop of water does to the glass. It is not the guilt
and its pernicious consequences which interests these poets—Shakespeare as
little as Sophocles (in the _Ajax_, _Philoctetes_, _Œdipus_)—however easy
it might have been in the cases just mentioned to make the guilt the lever
of the play, it was carefully avoided by the poets.
In the same way the tragic poet by his images of life does not wish to set
us against life. On the contrary, he exclaims; “It is the charm of charms,
this exciting, changing, and dangerous existence of ours, so often gloomy
and so often bathed in sun! Life is an adventure—whichever side you may
take in life it will always retain this character!”—Thus speaks the poet
of a restless and vigorous age, an age which is almost intoxicated and
stupefied by its superabundance of blood and energy, in an age more evil
than our own: and this is why it is necessary for us to adapt and
accommodate ourselves first to the purpose of a Shakespearian play, that
is, by misunderstanding it.
241.
FEAR AND INTELLIGENCE.—If that which is now expressly maintained is true,
viz. that the cause of the black pigment of the skin must not be sought in
light, might this phenomenon perhaps be the ultimate effect of frequent
fits of passion accumulated for century after century (and an afflux of
blood under the skin)? while in other and more intelligent races the
equally frequent spasms of fear and blanching may have resulted in the
white colour of the skin?—For the degree of timidity is the standard by
which the intelligence may be measured; and the fact that men give
themselves up to blind anger is an indication that their animal nature is
still near the surface, and is longing for an opportunity to make its
presence felt once more. Thus a brownish-grey would probably be the
primitive colour of man—something of the ape and the bear, as is only
proper.
242.
INDEPENDENCE.—Independence (which in its weakest form is called “freedom
of thought”) is the type of resignation which the tyrannical man ends by
accepting—he who for a long time had been looking for something to govern,
but without finding anything except himself.
243.
THE TWO COURSES.—When we endeavour to examine the mirror in itself we
discover in the end that we can detect nothing there but the things which
it reflects. If we wish to grasp the things reflected we touch nothing in
the end but the mirror.—This is the general history of knowledge.
244.
DELIGHT IN REALITY.—Our present inclination to take delight in reality—for
almost every one of us possesses it—can only be explained by the fact that
we have taken delight in the unreal for such a long time that we have got
tired of it. This inclination in its present form, without choice and
without refinement, is not without danger—its least danger is its want of
taste.
245.
THE SUBTLETY OF THE FEELING OF POWER.—Napoleon was greatly mortified at
the fact that he could not speak well, and he did not deceive himself in
this respect: but his thirst for power, which never despised the slightest
opportunity of showing itself, and which was still more subtle than his
subtle intellect, led him to speak even worse than he might have done. It
was in this way that he revenged himself upon his own mortification (he
was jealous of all his emotions because they possessed power) in order to
enjoy his autocratic pleasure.
He enjoyed this pleasure a second time in respect to the ears and judgment
of his audience, as if it were good enough for them to be addressed in
this way. He even secretly enjoyed the thought of bewildering their
judgment and good taste by the thunder and lightning of his highest
authority—that authority which lies in the union of power and genius—while
both his judgment and his good taste held fast proudly and indifferently
to the truth that he did not speak well.—Napoleon, as the complete and
fully developed type of a single instinct, belongs to ancient humanity,
whose characteristic—the simple construction and ingenious development and
realisation of a single motive or a small number of motives—may be easily
enough recognised.
246.
ARISTOTLE AND MARRIAGE.—Insanity makes its appearance in the children of
great geniuses, and stupidity in those of the most virtuous—so says
Aristotle. Did he mean by this to invite exceptional men to marry?
247.
THE ORIGIN OF A BAD TEMPERAMENT.—Injustice and instability in the minds of
certain men, their disordered and immoderate manner, are the ultimate
consequences of the innumerable logical inexactitudes, superficialities,
and hasty conclusions of which their ancestors have been guilty. Men of a
good temperament, on the other hand, are descended from solid and
meditative races which have set a high value upon reason—whether for
praiseworthy or evil purposes is of no great importance.
248.
DISSIMULATION AS A DUTY.—Kindness has been best developed by the long
dissimulation which endeavoured to appear as kindness: wherever great
power existed the necessity for dissimulation of this nature was
recognised—it inspires security and confidence, and multiplies the actual
sum of our physical power. Falsehood, if not actually the mother, is at
all events the nurse of kindness. In the same way, honesty has been
brought to maturity by the need for a semblance of honesty and integrity:
in hereditary aristocracies. The persistent exercise of such a
dissimulation ends by bringing about the actual nature of the thing
itself: the dissimulation in the long run suppresses itself, and organs
and instincts are the unexpected fruits in this garden of hypocrisy.
249.
WHO, THEN, IS EVER ALONE.—The faint-hearted wretch does not know what it
means to be lonely. An enemy is always prowling in his tracks. Oh, for the
man who could give us the history of that subtle feeling called
loneliness!
250.
NIGHT AND MUSIC.—It was only at night time, and in the semi-obscurity of
dark forests and caverns, that the ear, the organ of fear, was able to
develop itself so well, in accordance with the mode of living of the
timid—that is, the longest human epoch which has ever yet existed: when it
is clear daylight the ear is less necessary. Hence the character of music,
which is an art of night and twilight.
251.
STOICAL.—The Stoic experiences a certain sense of cheerfulness when he
feels oppressed by the ceremonial which he has prescribed for himself: he
enjoys himself then as a ruler.
252.
CONSIDER.—The man who is being punished is no longer he who has done the
deed. He is always the scapegoat.
253.
APPEARANCE.—Alas! what must be best and most resolutely proved is
appearance itself; for only too many people lack eyes to observe it. But
it is so tiresome!
254.
THOSE WHO ANTICIPATE.—What distinguishes poetic natures, but is also a
danger for them, is their imagination, which exhausts itself in advance:
which anticipates what will happen or what may happen, which enjoys and
suffers in advance, and which at the final moment of the event or the
action is already fatigued. Lord Byron, who was only too familiar with
this, wrote in his diary: “If ever I have a son he shall choose a very
prosaic profession—that of a lawyer or a pirate.”
255.
CONVERSATION ON MUSIC.—
_A._ What do you say to that music?
_B._ It has overpowered me, I can say nothing about it. Listen! there it
is beginning again.
_A._ All the better! This time let us do our best to overpower it. Will
you allow me to add a few words to this music? and also to show you a
drama which perhaps at your first hearing you did not wish to observe?
_B._ Very well, I have two ears and even more if necessary; move up closer
to me.
_A._ We have not yet heard what he wishes to say to us, up to the present
he has only promised to say something—something as yet unheard, so he
gives us to understand by his gestures, for they are gestures. How he
beckons! How he raises himself up! How he gesticulates! and now the moment
of supreme tension seems to have come to him: two more fanfares, and he
will present us with his superb and splendidly-adorned theme, rattling, as
it were, with precious stones.
Is it a handsome woman? or a beautiful horse? Enough, he looks about him
as if enraptured, for he must assemble looks of rapture. It is only now
that his theme quite pleases him: it is only now that he becomes inventive
and risks new and audacious features. How he forces out his theme! Ah,
take care!—he not only understands how to adorn, but also how to gloss it
over! Yes, he knows what the colour of health is, and he knows how to make
it up,—he is more subtle in his self-consciousness than I thought. And now
he is convinced that he has convinced his hearers; he sets off his
impromptus as if they were the most important things under the sun: he
points to his theme with an insolent finger as if it were too good for
this world.—Ah, how distrustful he is! He is afraid we may get tired!—that
is why he buries his melody in sweet notes.—Now he even appeals to our
coarser senses that he may excite us and thus get us once again into his
power. Listen to him as he conjures up the elementary force of tempestuous
and thundering rhythms!
And now that he sees that these things have captivated our attention,
strangle us, and almost overwhelm us, he once again ventures to introduce
his theme amidst this play of the elements in order to convince us,
confused and agitated as we are, that our confusion and agitation are the
effects of his miraculous theme. And from now onwards his hearers believe
in him: as soon as the theme is heard once more they are reminded of its
thrilling elementary effects. The theme profits by this recollection—now
it has become demoniacal! What a connoisseur of the soul he is! He gains
command over us by all the artifices of the popular orator. But the music
has stopped again.
_B._ And I am glad of it; for I could no longer bear listening to your
observations! I should prefer ten times over to let myself be deceived to
knowing the truth once after your version.
_A._ That is just what I wished to hear from you. The best people now are
just like you: you are quite content to let yourselves be deceived. You
come here with coarse, lustful ears, and you do not bring with you your
conscience of the art of listening. On the way here you have cast away
your intellectual honesty, and thus you corrupt both art and artists.
Whenever you applaud and cheer you have in your hands the conscience of
the artists—and woe to art if they get to know that you cannot distinguish
between innocent and guilty music! I do not indeed refer to “good” and
“bad” music—we meet with both in the two kinds of music mentioned! but I
call innocent music that which thinks only of itself and believes only in
itself, and which on account of itself has forgotten the world at
large—this spontaneous expression of the most profound solitude which
speaks of itself and with itself, and has entirely forgotten that there
are listeners, effects, misunderstandings and failures in the world
outside. In short, the music which we have just heard is precisely of this
rare and noble type; and everything I said about it was a fable—pardon my
little trick if you will!
_B._ Oh, then you like _this_ music, too? In that case many sins shall be
forgiven you!
256.
THE HAPPINESS OF THE EVIL ONES.—These silent, gloomy, and evil men possess
a peculiar something which you cannot dispute with them—an uncommon and
strange enjoyment in the _dolce far niente_; a sunset and evening rest,
such as none can enjoy but a heart which has been too often devoured,
lacerated, and poisoned by the passions.
257.
WORDS PRESENT IN OUR MINDS.—We always express our thoughts with those
words which lie nearest to hand. Or rather, if I may reveal my full
suspicion; at every moment we have only the particular thought for the
words that are present in our minds.
258.
FLATTERING THE DOG.—You have only to stroke this dog’s coat once, and he
immediately splutters and gives off sparks like any other flatterer—and he
is witty in his own way. Why should we not endure him thus?
259.
THE QUONDAM PANEGYRIST.—“He has now become silent now in regard to me,
although he knows the truth and could tell it; but it would sound like
vengeance—and he values truth so highly, this honourable man!”
260.
THE AMULET OF DEPENDENT MEN.—He who is unavoidably dependent upon some
master ought to possess something by which he can inspire his master with
fear, and keep him in check: integrity, for example, or probity, or an
evil tongue.
261.
WHY SO SUBLIME!—Oh, I know them well this breed of animals! Certainly it
pleases them better to walk on two legs “like a god”—but it pleases me
better when they fall back on their four feet. This is incomparably more
natural for them!
262.
THE DEMON OF POWER.—Neither necessity nor desire, but the love of power,
is the demon of mankind. You may give men everything possible—health,
food, shelter, enjoyment—but they are and remain unhappy and capricious,
for the demon waits and waits; and must be satisfied. Let everything else
be taken away from men, and let this demon be satisfied, and then they
will nearly be happy—as happy as men and demons can be; but why do I
repeat this? Luther has already said it, and better than I have done, in
the verses:
“And though they take our life,
Goods, honour, children, wife,
Yet is their profit small,
These things shall vanish all,
The Kingdom it remaineth.”
The Kingdom! there it is again!(7)
263.
CONTRADICTION INCARNATE AND ANIMATED.—There is a physiological
contradiction in what is called genius: genius possesses on the one hand a
great deal of savage disorder and involuntary movement, and on the other
hand a great deal of superior activity in this movement. Joined to this a
genius possesses a mirror which reflects the two movements beside one
another, and within one another, but often opposed to one another. Genius
in consequence of this sight is often unhappy, and if it feels its
greatest happiness in creating, it is because it forgets that precisely
then, with the highest determinate activity, it does something fantastic
and irrational (such is all art) and cannot help doing it.
264.
DECEIVING ONE’S SELF.—Envious men with a discriminating intuition
endeavour not to become too closely acquainted with their rivals in order
that they may feel themselves superior to them.
265.
THERE IS A TIME FOR THE THEATRE.—When the imagination of a people begins
to diminish, there arises the desire to have its legends represented on
the stage: it then tolerates the coarse substitutes for imagination. In
the age of the epic rhapsodist, however, the theatre itself, and the actor
dressed up as a hero, form an obstacle in the path of the imagination
instead of acting as wings for it—too near, too definite, too heavy, and
with too little of dreamland and the flights of birds about them.
266.
WITHOUT CHARM.—He lacks charm and knows it. Ah, how skilful he is in
masking this defect! He does it by a strict virtue, gloomy looks, and
acquired distrust of all men, and of existence itself; by coarse jests, by
contempt for a more refined manner of living, by pathos and pretensions,
and by a cynical philosophy—yea, he has even developed into a character
through the continual knowledge of his deficiency.
267.
WHY SO PROUD?—A noble character is distinguished from a vulgar one by the
fact that the latter has not at ready command a certain number of habits
and points of view like the former: fate willed that they should not be
his either by inheritance or by education.
268.
THE ORATOR’S SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS.—How difficult it was in Athens to speak
in such a way as to win over the hearers to one’s cause without repelling
them at the same time by the form in which one’s speech was cast, or
withdrawing their attention from the cause itself by this form! How
difficult it still is to write thus in France!
269.
SICK PEOPLE AND ART.—For all kinds of sadness and misery of soul we should
first of all try a change of diet and severe manual labour; but in such
cases men are in the habit of having recourse to mental intoxicants, to
art for example—which is both to their own detriment and that of art! Can
you not see that when you call for art as sick people you make the artists
themselves sick?
270.
APPARENT TOLERATION.—Those are good, benevolent, and rational words on and
in favour of science, but, alas! I see behind these words your toleration
of science. In a corner of your inmost mind you think, in spite of all you
say, that _it is not necessary for you_, that it shows magnanimity on your
part to admit and even to advocate it, more especially as science on its
part does not exhibit this magnanimity in regard to your opinion! Do you
know that you have no right whatever to exercise this toleration? that
this condescension of yours is an even coarser disparagement of science
than any of that open scorn which a presumptuous priest or artist might
allow himself to indulge in towards science? What is lacking in you is a
strong sense for everything that is true and actual, you do not feel
grieved and worried to find that science is in contradiction to your own
sentiments, you are unacquainted with that intense desire for knowledge
ruling over you like a law, you do not feel a duty in the need of being
present with your own eyes wherever knowledge exists, and to let nothing
that is “known” escape you. You do not know that which you are treating
with such toleration! and it is only because you do not know it that you
can succeed in adopting such a gracious attitude towards it. You,
forsooth, would look upon science with hatred and fanaticism if it for
once cast its shining and illuminating glance upon you! What does it
matter to us, then, if you do exhibit toleration—and towards a phantom!
and not even towards us!—and what do we matter!
271.
FESTIVE MOODS.—It is exactly those men who aspire most ardently towards
power who feel it indescribably agreeable to be overpowered! to sink
suddenly and deeply into a feeling as into a whirlpool! To suffer the
reins to be snatched out of their hand, and to watch a movement which
takes them they know not where! Whatever or whoever may be the person or
thing that renders us this service, it is nevertheless a great service: we
are so happy and breathless, and feel around us an exceptional silence, as
if we were in the most central bowels of the earth. To be for once
entirely powerless! the plaything of the elementary forces of nature!
There is a restfulness in this happiness, a casting away of the great
burden, a descent without fatigue, as if one had been given up to the
blind force of gravity.
This is the dream of the mountain climber, who, although he sees his goal
far above him, nevertheless falls asleep on the way from utter exhaustion,
and dreams of the happiness of the contrast—this effortless rolling down
hill. I describe happiness as I imagine it to be in our present-day
society, the badgered, ambitious society of Europe and America. Now and
then they _wish_ to fall back into impotence—this enjoyment is offered
them by wars, arts, religions, and geniuses. When a man has temporarily
abandoned himself to a momentary impression which devours and crushes
everything—and this is the modern festive mood—he afterwards becomes
freer, colder, more refreshed, and more strict, and again strives
tirelessly after the contrary of all this: power.
272.
THE PURIFICATION OF RACES.—It is probable that there are no pure races,
but only races which have become purified, and even these are extremely
rare.(8) We more often meet with crossed races, among whom, together with
the defects in the harmony of the bodily forms (for example when the eyes
do not accord with the mouth) we necessarily always find defects of
harmony in habits and appreciations. (Livingstone heard some one say, “God
created white and black men, but the devil created the half-castes.”)
Crossed races are always at the same time crossed cultures and crossed
moralities: they are, as a rule, more evil, cruel, and restless. Purity is
the final result of innumerable adjustments, absorptions, and
eliminations; and progress towards purity in a race is shown by the fact
that the latent strength in the race is more and more restricted to a few
special functions, whilst it formerly had to carry out too many and often
contradictory things. Such a restriction will always have the appearance
of an impoverishment, and must be judged with prudence and moderation. In
the long run, however, when the process of purification has come to a
successful termination, all those forces which were formerly wasted in the
struggle between the disharmonious qualities are at the disposal of the
organism as a whole, and this is why purified races have always become
stronger and more beautiful.—The Greeks may serve us as a model of a
purified race and culture!—and it is to be hoped that some day a pure
European race and culture may arise.
273.
PRAISE.—Here is some one who, you perceive, wishes to praise you: you bite
your lips and brace up your heart: Oh, that _that_ cup might go hence! But
it does not, it comes! let us therefore drink the sweet impudence of the
panegyrist, let us overcome the disgust and profound contempt that we feel
for the innermost substance of his praise, let us assume a look of
thankful joy—for he wished to make himself agreeable to us! And now that
it is all over we know that he feels greatly exalted; he has been
victorious over us. Yes, and also over himself, the villain!—for it was no
easy matter for him to wring this praise from himself.
274.
THE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES OF MAN.—We human beings are the only creatures
who, when things do not go well with us, can blot ourselves out like a
clumsy sentence,—whether we do so out of honour for humanity or pity for
it, or on account of the aversion we feel towards ourselves.
275.
THE TRANSFORMED BEING.—Now he becomes virtuous; but only for the sake of
hurting others by being so. Don’t pay so much attention to him.
276.
HOW OFTEN! HOW UNEXPECTED!—How may married men have some morning awakened
to the fact that their young wife is dull, although she thinks quite the
contrary! not to speak of those wives whose flesh is willing but whose
intellect is weak!
277.
WARM AND COLD VIRTUES.—Courage is sometimes the consequence of cold and
unshaken resolution, and at other times of a fiery and reckless élan. For
these two kinds of courage there is only the one name!—but how different,
nevertheless, are cold virtues and warm virtues! and the man would be a
fool who could suppose that “goodness” could only be brought about by
warmth, and no less a fool he who would only attribute it to cold. The
truth is that mankind has found both warm and cold courage very useful,
yet not often enough to prevent it from setting them both in the category
of precious stones.
278.
THE GRACIOUS MEMORY.—A man of high rank will do well to develop a gracious
memory, that is, to note all the good qualities of people and remember
them particularly; for in this way he holds them in an agreeable
dependence. A man may also act in this way towards himself: whether or not
he has a gracious memory determines in the end the superiority,
gentleness, or distrust with which he observes his own inclinations and
intentions, and finally even the nature of these inclinations and
intentions.
279.
WHEREIN WE BECOME ARTISTS.—He who makes an idol of some one endeavours to
justify himself in his own eyes by idealising this person: in other words,
he becomes an artist that he may have a clear conscience. When he suffers
he does not suffer from his ignorance, but from the lie he has told
himself to make himself ignorant. The inmost misery and desire of such a
man—and all passionate lovers are included in this category—cannot be
exhausted by normal means.
280.
CHILDLIKE.—Those who live like children—those who have not to struggle for
their daily bread, and do not think that their actions have any ultimate
signification—remain childlike.
281.
OUR EGO DESIRES EVERYTHING.—It would seem as if men in general were only
inspired by the desire to possess: languages at least would permit of this
supposition, for they view past actions from the standpoint that we have
been put in possession of something—“I _have_ spoken, struggled,
conquered”—as if to say, I am now in possession of my word, my struggle,
my victory. How greedy man appears in this light! he cannot even let the
past escape him: he even wishes to _have_ it still!
282.
DANGER IN BEAUTY.—This woman is beautiful and intelligent: alas, how much
more intelligent she would have become if she had not been beautiful!
283.
DOMESTIC AND MENTAL PEACE.—Our habitual mood depends upon the mood in
which we maintain our habitual entourage.
284.
NEW THINGS AS OLD ONES.—Many people seem irritated when something new is
told them: they feel the ascendancy which the news has given to the person
who has learnt it first.
285.
WHAT ARE THE LIMITS OF THE EGO.—The majority of people take under their
protection, as it were, something that they know, as if the fact of
knowing it was sufficient in itself to make it their property. The
acquisitiveness of the egoistic feeling has no limits: Great men speak as
if they had behind them the whole of time, and had placed themselves at
the head of this enormous host; and good women boast of the beauty of
their children, their clothes, their dog, their physician, or their native
town, but the only thing they dare not say is, “I am all that.” _Chi non
ha non è_—as they say in Italy.
286.
DOMESTIC ANIMALS, PETS AND THE LIKE.—Could there be anything more
repugnant than the sentimentality which is shown to plants and animals—and
this on the part of a creature who from the very beginning has made such
ravages among them as their most ferocious enemy,—and who ends by even
claiming affectionate feelings from his weakened and mutilated victims!
Before this kind of “nature” man must above all be serious, if he is any
sort of a thinking being.
287.
TWO FRIENDS.—They were friends once, but now they have ceased to be so,
and both of them broke off the friendship at the same time, the one
because he believed himself to be too greatly misunderstood, and the other
because he thought he was known too intimately—and both were wrong! For
neither of them knew himself well enough.
288.
THE COMEDY OF THE NOBLE SOULS.—Those who cannot succeed in exhibiting a
noble and cordial familiarity endeavour to let the nobleness of their
nature be seen by their exercise of reserve and strictness, and a certain
contempt for familiarity, as if their strong sense of confidence were
ashamed to show itself.
289.
WHERE WE MAY SAY NOTHING AGAINST VIRTUE.—Among cowards it is thought bad
form to say anything against bravery, for any expression of this kind
would give rise to some contempt; and unfeeling people are irritated when
anything is said against pity.(9)
290.
A WASTE.—We find that with irritable and abrupt people their first words
and actions generally afford no indication of their actual character—they
are prompted by circumstances, and are to some extent simply reproductions
of the spirit of these circumstances. Because, however, as the words have
been uttered and the deeds done, the subsequent words and deeds,
indicating the real nature of such people, have often to be used to
reconcile, amend, or extinguish the former.
291.
ARROGANCE.—Arrogance is an artificial and simulated pride; but it is
precisely the essential nature of pride to be incapable of artifice,
simulation, or hypocrisy—and thus arrogance is the hypocrisy of the
incapacity for hypocrisy, a very difficult thing, and one which is a
failure in most cases. But if we suppose that, as most frequently happens,
the presumptuous person betrays himself, then a treble annoyance falls to
his lot: people are angry with him because he has endeavoured to deceive
them, and because he wished to show himself superior to them, and finally
they laugh at him because he failed in both these endeavours. How
earnestly, therefore, should we dissuade our fellow-men from arrogance!
292.
A SPECIES OF MISCONCEPTION.—When we hear somebody speak it is often
sufficient for his pronunciation of a single consonant (the letter r, for
example) to fill us with doubts as to the honesty of his feelings: we are
not accustomed to this particular pronunciation, and should have to make
it ourselves as it were arbitrarily—it sounds “forced” to us. This is the
domain of the greatest possible misconception: and it is the same with the
style of a writer who has certain habits which are not the habits of
everybody. His “artlessness” is felt as such only by himself, and
precisely in regard to that which he himself feels to be “forced” (because
he has yielded in this matter to the prevailing fashion and to so called
“good taste”), he may perhaps give pleasure and inspire confidence.
293.
THANKFUL.—One superfluous grain of gratitude and piety makes one suffer as
from a vice—in spite of all one’s independence and honesty one begins to
have a bad conscience.
294.
SAINTS.—It is the most sensual men who find it necessary to avoid women
and to torture their bodies.
295.
THE SUBTLETY OF SERVING.—One of the most subtle tasks in the great art of
serving is that of serving a more than usually ambitious man, who, indeed,
is excessively egoistic in all things, but is entirely adverse to being
thought so (this is part of his ambition). He requires that everything
shall be according to his own will and humour, yet in such a way as to
give him the appearance of always having sacrificed himself, and of rarely
desiring anything for himself alone.
296.
DUELLING.—I think it a great advantage, said some one, to be able to fight
a duel—if, of course, it is absolutely necessary; for I have at all times
brave companions about me. The duel is the last means of thoroughly
honourable suicide left to us; but it is unfortunately a circuitous means,
and not even a certain one.
297.
PERNICIOUS.—A young man can be most surely corrupted when he is taught to
value the like-minded more highly than the differently minded.
298.
HERO-WORSHIP AND ITS FANATICS.—The fanatic of an ideal that possesses
flesh and blood is right as a rule so long as he assumes a negative
attitude, and he is terrible in his negation: he knows what he denies as
well as he knows himself, for the simple reason that he comes thence, that
he feels at home there, and that he has always the secret fear of being
forced to return there some day. He therefore wishes to make his return
impossible by the manner of his negation. As soon as he begins to affirm,
however, he partly shuts his eyes and begins to idealise (frequently
merely for the sake of annoying those who have stayed at home). We might
say that there was something artistic about this—agreed, but there is also
something dishonest about it.
The idealist of a person imagines this person to be so far from him that
he can no longer see him distinctly, and then he travesties that which he
can just perceive into something “beautiful”—that is to say, symmetrical,
vaguely outlined, uncertain. Since he wishes to worship from afar that
ideal which floats on high in the distance, he finds it essential to build
a temple for the object of his worship as a protection from the _profanum
vulgus_. He brings into this temple for the object of his worship all the
venerable and sanctified objects which he still possesses, so that his
ideal may benefit by their charm, and that, nourished in this way, it may
grow more and more divine. In the end he really succeeds in forming his
God, but, alas for him! there is some one who knows how all this has been
done, viz. his intellectual conscience; and there is also some one who,
quite unconsciously, begins to protest against these things, viz. the
deified one himself, who, in consequence of all this worship, praise, and
incense, now becomes completely unbearable and shows himself in the most
obvious and dreadful manner to be non-divine, and only too human.
In a case like this there is only one means of escape left for such a
fanatic; he patiently suffers himself and his fellows to be maltreated,
and interprets all this misery _in maiorem dei gloriam_ by a new kind of
self-deceit and noble falsehood. He takes up a stand against himself, and
in doing so experiences, as an interpreter and ill-treated person,
something like martyrdom—and in this way he climbs to the height of his
conceit. Men of this kind to be found, for example, in the entourage of
Napoleon: indeed, perhaps it may have been he who inspired the soul of his
century with that romantic prostration in the presence of the “genius” and
the “hero,” which was so foreign to the spirit of rationalism of the
nineteenth century—a man about whom even Byron was not ashamed to say that
he was a “worm compared with such a being.” (The formulæ of this
prostration have been discovered by Thomas Carlyle, that arrogant old
muddle-head and grumbler, who spent his long life in trying to romanticise
the common sense of his Englishmen: but in vain!)
299.
THE APPEARANCE OF HEROISM.—Throwing ourselves in the midst of our enemies
may be a sign of cowardice.
300.
CONDESCENDING TOWARDS THE FLATTERER.—It is the ultimate prudence of
insatiably ambitious men not only to conceal their contempt for man which
the sight of flatterers causes them: but also to appear even condescending
to them, like a God who can be nothing if not condescending.
301.
“STRENGTH OF CHARACTER.”—“What I have said once I will do”—This manner of
thinking is believed to indicate great strength of character. How many
actions are accomplished, not because they have been selected as being the
most rational, but because at the moment when we thought of them they
influenced our ambition and vanity by some means or another, so that we do
not stop until we have blindly carried them out. Thus they strengthen in
us our belief in our character and our good conscience, in short our
strength; whilst the choice of the most rational acts possible brings
about a certain amount of scepticism towards ourselves, and thus
encourages a sense of weakness in us.
302.
ONCE, TWICE, AND THRICE TRUE.—Men lie unspeakably and often, but they do
not think about it afterwards, and generally do not believe in it.
303.
THE PASTIME OF THE PSYCHOLOGIST.—He thinks he knows me, and fancies
himself to be subtle and important when he has any kind of relations with
me; and I take care not to undeceive him. For in such a case I should
suffer for it, while now he wishes me well because I arouse in him a
feeling of conscious superiority.—There is another, who fears that I think
I know him, and feels a sense of inferiority at this. As a result he
behaves in a timid and vacillating manner, in my presence, and endeavours
to mislead me in regard to himself so that he may regain an ascendancy
over me.
304.
THE DESTROYERS OF THE WORLD.—When some men fail to accomplish what they
desire to do they exclaim angrily, “May the whole world perish!” This
odious feeling is the height of envy which reasons thus: because I cannot
have one thing the whole world in general must have nothing! the whole
world shall not exist!
305.
GREED.—When we set out to buy something our greed increases with the
cheapness of the object—Why? Is it because the small differences in price
make up the little eye of greed?
306.
THE GREEK IDEAL.—What did the Greeks admire in Ulysses? Above all his
capacity for lying and for taking a shrewd and dreadful revenge, his being
equal to circumstances, his appearing to be nobler than the noblest when
necessary, his ability to be everything he desired, his heroic
pertinacity, having all means within his command, possessing genius—the
genius of Ulysses is an object of the admiration of the gods, they smile
when they think of it—all this is the Greek ideal! What is most remarkable
about it is that the contradiction between seeming and being was not felt
in any way, and that as a consequence it could not be morally estimated.
Were there ever such accomplished actors?
307.
FACTA! YES, FACTA FICTA!—The historian need not concern himself with
events which have actually happened, but only those which are supposed to
have happened; for none but the latter have produced an effect. The same
remark applies to the imaginary heroes. His theme—this so-called
world-history—what is it but opinions on imaginary actions and their
imaginary motives, which in their turn give rise to opinions and actions
the reality of which, however, is at once evaporated, and is only
effective as vapour,—a continual generating and impregnating of phantoms
above the dense mists of unfathomable reality. All historians record
things which have never existed, except in imagination.
308.
NOT TO UNDERSTAND TRADE IS NOBLE.—To sell one’s virtue only at the highest
price, or even to carry on usury with it as a teacher, a civil servant, or
an artist, for instance, brings genius and talent down to the level of the
common tradesman. We must be careful not to be clever with our wisdom!
309.
FEAR AND LOVE.—The general knowledge of mankind has been furthered to a
greater extent by fear than by love; for fear endeavours to find out who
the other is, what he can do, and what he wants: it would be dangerous and
prejudicial to be deceived on this point. On the other hand, love is
induced by its secret craving to discover as many beautiful qualities as
possible in the loved object, or to raise this loved object as high as
possible: it is a joy and an advantage to love to be deceived in this
way—and this is why it does it.
310.
GOOD-NATURED PEOPLE.—Good-natured people have acquired their character
from the continual fear of foreign attacks in which their ancestors
lived,—these ancestors, who were in the habit of mitigating and
tranquillising, humbling themselves, preventing, distracting, flattering,
and apologising, concealing their grief and anger, and preserving an
unruffled countenance,—and they ultimately bequeathed all this delicate
and well-formed mechanism to their children and grandchildren. These
latter, thanks to their more favourable lot, did not experience this
feeling of dread, but they nevertheless continue in the same groove.
311.
THE SO-CALLED SOUL.—The sum-total of those internal movements which come
naturally to men, and which they can consequently set in motion readily
and gracefully, is called the soul—men are looked upon as void of soul
when they let it be seen that their inward emotions are difficult and
painful to them.
312.
THE FORGETFUL ONES.—In outbursts of passion and the delusions of dreams
and madness, man rediscovers his own primitive history, and that of
humanity: animality and its savage grimaces. For once his memory stretches
back into the past, while his civilised condition is developed from the
forgetfulness of these primitive experiences, that is to say, from the
failing of this memory. He who, as a forgetful man of a higher nature, has
always remained aloof from these things, does not understand men—but it is
an advantage if from time to time there are individuals who do not
understand men, individuals who are, so to speak, created from the divine
seed and born of reason.
313.
THE FRIEND WHOM WE WANT NO LONGER.—That friend whose hopes we cannot
satisfy we should prefer to have as an enemy.
314.
IN THE SOCIETY OF THINKERS.—In the midst of the ocean of becoming we
adventurers and birds of passage wake up on an island no larger than a
small boat, and here we look round us for a moment with as much haste and
curiosity as possible; for how quickly may some gale blow us away or some
wave sweep over the little island and leave nothing of us remaining! Here,
however, upon this little piece of ground we meet with other birds of
passage and hear of still earlier ones,—and thus we live together for one
precious minute of recognition and divining, amid the cheerful fluttering
of wings and joyful chirping, and then adventure in spirit far out on the
ocean, feeling no less proud than the ocean itself.
315.
PARTING WITH SOMETHING.—To give up some of our property, or to waive a
right, gives pleasure when it denotes great wealth. Generosity may be
placed in this category.
316.
WEAK SECTS.—Those sects which feel that they will always remain weak hunt
up a few intelligent individual adherents, wishing to make up in quality
what they lack in quantity. This gives rise to no little danger for
intelligent minds.
317.
THE JUDGMENT OF THE EVENING.—The man who meditates upon his day’s and
life’s work when he has reached the end of his journey and feels weary,
generally arrives at a melancholy conclusion; but this is not the fault of
the day or his life, but of weariness.—In the midst of creative work we do
not take time, as a rule, to meditate upon life and existence, nor yet in
the midst of our pleasures: but if by a chance this did happen once we
should no longer believe him to be right who waited for the seventh day
and for repose to find everything that exists very beautiful.—He had
missed the right moment.
318.
BEWARE OF SYSTEMISERS!—There is a certain amount of comedy about
systemisers: in trying to complete a system and to round off its horizon
they have to try to let their weaker qualities appear in the same style as
their stronger ones.—They wish to represent complete and uniformly strong
natures.
319.
HOSPITALITY.—The object of hospitality is to paralyse all hostile feeling
in a stranger. When we cease to look upon strangers as enemies,
hospitality diminishes; it flourishes so long as its evil presupposition
does.
320.
THE WEATHER.—An exceptional and uncertain state of the weather makes men
suspicious even of one another: at the same time they come to like
innovations, for they must diverge from their accustomed habits. This is
why despots like those countries where the weather is moral.
321.
DANGER IN INNOCENCE.—Innocent people become easy victims in all
circumstances because their lack of knowledge prevents them from
distinguishing between moderation and excess, and from being betimes on
their guard against themselves. It is as a result of this that innocent,
that is, ignorant young women become accustomed to the frequent enjoyment
of sexual intercourse, and feel the want of it very much in later years
when their husbands fall ill or grow prematurely old. It is on account of
this harmless and orthodox conception, as if frequent sexual intercourse
were right and proper, that they come to experience a need which
afterwards exposes them to the severest tribulations, and even worse.
Considering the matter, however, from a higher and more general point of
view, whoever loves a man or a thing without knowing him or it, falls a
prey to something which he would not love if he could see it. In all cases
where experience, precautions, and prudent steps are required, it is the
innocent man who will be most thoroughly corrupted, for he has to drink
with closed eyes the dregs and most secret poison of everything put before
him. Let us consider the procedure of all princes, churches, sects,
parties, and corporations: Is not the innocent man always used as the
sweetest bait for the most dangerous and wicked traps?—just as Ulysses
availed himself of the services of the innocent Neoptolemos to cheat the
old and infirm anchorite and ogre of Lemnos out of his bow and arrows.
Christianity, with its contempt for the world, has made ignorance a
virtue—innocence, perhaps because the most frequent result of this
innocence is precisely, as I have indicated above, guilt, the sense of
guilt, and despair: In other words, a virtue which leads to Heaven by the
circuitous route of Hell; for only then can the gloomy propylæa of
Christian salvation be thrown open, and only then is the promise of a
posthumous second innocence effective. This is one of the finest
inventions of Christianity!
322.
LIVING WITHOUT A DOCTOR WHEN POSSIBLE.—It seems to me that a sick man
lives more carelessly when he is under medical observation than when he
attends to his own health. In the first case it suffices for him to obey
strictly all his Doctor’s prescriptions; but in the second case he gives
more attention to the ultimate object of these prescriptions, namely, his
health; he observes much more, and submits himself to a more severe
discipline than the directions of his physician would compel him to do.
All rules have this effect: they distract our attention from the
fundamental aim of the rule, and make us more thoughtless. But to what
heights of immoderation and destruction would men have risen if ever they
had completely and honestly left everything to the Godhead as to their
physician, and acted in accordance with the words “as God will”!
323.
THE DARKENING OF THE HEAVENS.—Do you know the vengeance of those timid
people who behave in society just as if they had stolen their limbs? The
vengeance of the humble, Christian-like souls who just manage to slink
quietly through the world? The vengeance of those who always judge
hastily, and are as hastily said to be in the wrong? The vengeance of all
classes of drunkards, for whom the morning is always the most miserable
part of the day? and also of all kinds of invalids and sick and depressed
people who have no longer the courage to become healthy?
The number of these petty vengeful people, and, even more, the number of
their petty acts of revenge, is incalculable. The air around us is
continually whizzing with the discharged arrows of their malignity, so
that the sun and the sky of their lives become darkened thereby,—and,
alas! not only theirs, but more often ours and other men’s: and this is
worse than the frequent wounds which they make on our skins and hearts. Do
we not occasionally deny the existence of the sun and sky merely because
we have not seen them for so long?—Well then, solitude! because of this,
solitude!
324.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE ACTOR.—It is the blissful illusion of all great
actors to imagine that the historical personages whom they are
representing were really in the same state of mind as they themselves are
when interpreting them—but in this they are very much mistaken. Their
powers of imitation and divination, which they would fain exhibit as a
clairvoyant faculty, penetrate only far enough to explain gestures,
accent, and looks, and in general anything exterior: that is, they can
grasp the shadow of the soul of a great hero, statesman, or warrior, or of
an ambitious, jealous, or desperate person—they penetrate fairly near to
the soul, but they never reach the inmost spirit of the man they are
imitating.
It would, indeed, be a fine thing to discover that instead of thinkers,
psychologists, or experts we required nothing but clairvoyant actors to
throw light upon the essence of any condition. Let us never forget,
whenever such pretensions are heard, that the actor is nothing but an
ideal ape—so much of an ape is he, indeed, that he is not capable of
believing in the “essence” or in the “essential”: everything becomes for
him merely performance, intonation, attitude, stage, scenery, and public.
325.
LIVING AND BELIEVING APART.—The means of becoming the prophet and
wonder-worker of one’s age are the same to-day as in former times: one
must live apart, with little knowledge, some ideas, and a great deal of
presumption—we then finish by believing that mankind cannot do without us,
because it is clear that we can do without it. When we are inspired with
this belief we find faith. Finally, a piece of advice to him who needs it
(it was given to Wesley by Boehler, his spiritual teacher): “Preach faith
until you have it; then you will preach it because you have it!”
326.
KNOWING OUR CIRCUMSTANCES.—We may estimate our powers, but not our power.
Not only do circumstances conceal it from us and show it to us time about,
but they even exaggerate or diminish it. We must consider ourselves as
variable quantities whose productive capacity may in favourable
circumstances reach the greatest possible heights: we must therefore
reflect upon these circumstances, and spare no pains in studying them.
327.
A FABLE.—The Don Juan of knowledge—no philosopher or poet has yet
succeeded in discovering him. He is wanting in love for the things he
recognises, but he possesses wit, a lust for the hunting after knowledge,
and the intrigues in connection with it, and he finds enjoyment in all
these, even up to the highest and most distant stars of knowledge—until at
last there is nothing left for him to pursue but the absolutely injurious
side of knowledge, just as the drunkard who ends by drinking absinthe and
aquafortis. That is why last of all he feels a longing for hell, for this
is the final knowledge which seduces him. Perhaps even this would
disappoint him, as all things do which one knows! and then he would have
to stand still for all eternity, a victim to eternal deception, and
transformed into his enemy, the Stony Guest, who longs for an evening meal
of knowledge which will never more fall to his share! for the whole world
of things will not have another mouthful left to offer to these hungry
men.
328.
WHAT IDEALISTIC THEORIES DISCLOSE.—We are most certain to find idealistic
theories among unscrupulously practical men; for such men stand in need of
the lustre of these theories for the sake of their reputation. They adopt
them instinctively without by any means feeling hypocritical in doing
so—no more hypocritical than Englishmen with their Christianity and their
Sabbath-keeping. On the other hand, contemplative natures who have to keep
themselves on the guard against all kinds of fantasies and who dread to be
reputed as enthusiasts, are only to be satisfied with hard realistic
theories: they take possession of them under the same instinctive
compulsion without thereby losing their honesty.
329.
THE CALUMNIATORS OF CHEERFULNESS.—People who have been deeply wounded by
the disappointments of life look with suspicion upon all cheerfulness as
if it were something childish and puerile, and revealed a lack of common
sense that moves them to pity and tenderness, such as one would experience
when seeing a dying child caressing his toys on his death-bed. Such men
appear to see hidden graves under every rose; rejoicings, tumult, and
cheerful music appear to them to be the voluntary illusions of a man who
is dangerously ill and yet wishes to take a momentary draught from the
intoxicating cup of life. But this judgment about cheerfulness is merely
the reflection of the latter on the dark background of weariness and
ill-health: in itself it is something touching, irrational, and pitiable,
even childlike and puerile, but connected with that second childhood which
follows in the train of old age, and is the harbinger of death.
330.
NOT YET ENOUGH!—It is not sufficient to prove a case, we must also tempt
or raise men to it: hence the wise man must learn to convey his wisdom;
and often in such a manner that it may sound like foolishness!
331.
RIGHT AND LIMITS.—Asceticism is the proper mode of thinking for those who
must extirpate their carnal instincts, because these are ferocious
beasts,—but only for such people!
332.
THE BOMBASTIC STYLE.—An artist who does not wish to put his elevated
feelings into a work and thus unburden himself, but who rather wishes to
impart these feelings of elevation to others, becomes pompous, and his
style becomes the bombastic style.
333.
“HUMANITY.”—We do not consider animals as moral beings. But do you think
that animals consider us as moral beings? An animal which had the power of
speech once said: “Humanity is a prejudice from which we animals at least
do not suffer.”
334.
THE CHARITABLE MAN.—The charitable man gratifies a need of his own inward
feelings when doing good. The stronger this need is the less does such a
man try to put himself in the place of those who serve the purpose of
gratifying his desire: he becomes indelicate and sometimes even offensive.
(This remark applies to the benevolence and charity of the Jews, which, as
is well known, is somewhat more effusive than that of other peoples.)(10)
335.
THAT LOVE MAY BE FELT AS LOVE.—We must be honest towards ourselves, and
must know ourselves very well indeed, to be able to practise upon others
that humane dissimulation known as love and kindness.
336.
WHAT ARE WE CAPABLE OF?—A man who had been tormented all day by his wicked
and malicious son slew him in the evening, and then with a sigh of relief
said to the other members of his family: “Well now we can sleep in peace.”
Who knows what circumstances might drive us to!
337.
“NATURAL.”—To be natural, at least in his deficiencies, is perhaps the
last praise that can be bestowed upon an artificial artist, who is in
other respects theatrical and half genuine. Such a man will for this very
reason boldly parade his deficiencies.
338.
CONSCIENCE-SUBSTITUTE.—One man is another’s conscience: and this is
especially important when the other has none else.
339.
THE TRANSFORMATION OF DUTIES.—When our duties cease to be difficult of
accomplishment, and after long practice become changed into agreeable
delights and needs, then the rights of others to whom our duties (though
now our inclinations) refer change into something else: that is, they
become the occasion of pleasant feelings for us. Henceforth the “other,”
by virtue of his rights, becomes an object of love to us instead of an
object of reverence and awe as formerly. It is our own pleasure we seek
when we recognise and maintain the extent of his power. When the Quietists
no longer felt their Christian faith as a burden, and experienced their
delight only in God, they took the motto: “Do all to the glory of God.”
Whatever they performed henceforth in this sense was no longer a
sacrifice, it was as much as to say, “Everything for the sake of our
pleasure.” To demand that duty should be always rather burdensome, as Kant
does, is to demand that it shall never develop into a habit or custom.
There is a small residue of ascetic cruelty in this demand.
340.
APPEARANCES ARE AGAINST THE HISTORIAN.—It is a sufficiently demonstrated
fact that human beings come from the womb; nevertheless when children grow
up and stand by the side of their mother this hypothesis appears very
absurd—all appearances are against it.
341.
THE ADVANTAGE OF IGNORANCE.—Some one has said that in his childhood he
experienced such a contempt for the caprices and whims of a melancholy
temperament that, until he had grown up and had become a middle-aged man,
he did not know what his own temperament was like: it was precisely a
melancholy temperament. He declared that this was the best of all possible
kinds of ignorance.
342.
DO NOT BE DECEIVED!—Yes, he examined the matter from every side and you
think him to be a man of profound knowledge. But he only wishes to lower
the price—he wants to buy it!
343.
A MORAL PRETENCE.—You refuse to be dissatisfied with yourselves or to
suffer from yourselves, and this you call your moral tendency! Very well;
another may perhaps call it your cowardice! One thing, however, is
certain, and that is that you will never take a trip round the world (and
you yourselves are this world), and you will always remain in yourselves
an accident and a clod on the face of the earth! Do you fancy that we who
hold different views from you are merely exposing ourselves out of pure
folly to the journey through our own deserts, swamps, and glaciers, and
that we are voluntarily choosing grief and disgust with ourselves, like
the Stylites?
344.
SUBTLETY IN MISTAKES.—If Homer, as they say, sometimes nodded, he was
wiser than all the artists of sleepless ambition. We must allow admirers
to stop for a time and take breath by letting them find fault now and
then; for nobody can bear an uninterruptedly brilliant and untiring
excellence—and instead of doing good such a master would merely become a
taskmaster, whom we hate while he precedes us.
345.
OUR HAPPINESS IS NOT AN ARGUMENT EITHER PRO OR CON.—Many men are only
capable of a small share of happiness: and it is not an argument against
their wisdom if this wisdom is unable to afford them a greater degree of
happiness, any more than it is an argument against medical skill that many
people are incurable, and others always ailing. May every one have the
good fortune to discover the conception of existence which will enable him
to realise _his_ greatest share of happiness! though this will not
necessarily prevent his life from being miserable and not worth envying.
346.
THE ENEMIES OF WOMEN.—“Woman is our enemy”—The man who speaks to men in
this way exhibits an unbridled lust which not only hates itself but also
its means.
347.
THE SCHOOL OF THE ORATOR.—When a man has kept silence for a whole year he
learns to stop chattering, and to discourse instead. The Pythagoreans were
the best statesmen of their age.
348.
THE FEELING OF POWER.—Note the distinction: the man who wishes to acquire
the feeling of power seizes upon any means, and looks upon nothing as too
petty which can foster this feeling. He who already possesses power,
however, has grown fastidious and refined in his tastes; few things can be
found to satisfy him.
349.
NOT SO VERY IMPORTANT.—When we are present at a death-bed there regularly
arises in us a thought that we immediately suppress from a false sense of
propriety: the thought that the act of dying is less important than the
customary veneration of it would wish us to believe, and that the dying
man has probably lost in his life things which were more important than he
is now about to lose by his death. In this case the end is certainly not
the goal.
350.
THE BEST WAY TO PROMISE.—When a man makes a promise it is not merely the
word that promises, but what lies unexpressed behind the word. Words
indeed weaken a promise by discharging and using up a power which forms
part of that power which promises. Therefore shake hands when making a
promise, but put your finger on your lips—in this way you will make the
safest promises.
351.
GENERALLY MISUNDERSTOOD.—In conversation we sometimes observe people
endeavouring to set a trap in which to catch others—not out of
evil-mindedness, as one might suppose, but from delight in their own
shrewdness. Others again prepare a joke so that some one else may utter
it, they tie the knot so that others may undo it: not out of goodwill, as
might be supposed, but from wickedness, and their contempt for coarse
intellects.
352.
CENTRE.—The feeling, “I am the centre of the world,” forcibly comes to us
when we are unexpectedly overtaken by disgrace: we then feel as if we were
standing dazed in the midst of a surge, and dazzled by the glance of one
enormous eye which gazes down upon us from all sides and looks us through
and through.
353.
FREEDOM OF SPEECH.—“The truth must be told, even if the world should be
shivered in fragments”—so cries the eminent and grandiloquent Fichte.—Yes,
certainly; but we must have it first.—What he really means, however, is
that each man should speak his mind, even if everything were to be turned
upside down. This point, however, is open to dispute.
354.
THE COURAGE FOR SUFFERING.—Such as we now are, we are capable of bearing a
tolerable amount of displeasure, and our stomach is suited to such
indigestible food. If we were deprived of it, indeed, we should perhaps
think the banquet of life insipid; and if it were not for our willingness
to suffer pain we should have to let too many pleasures escape us!
355.
ADMIRERS.—The man who admires up to the point that he would be ready to
crucify any one who did not admire, must be reckoned among the
executioners of his party—beware of shaking hands with him, even when he
belongs to your own side.
356.
THE EFFECT OF HAPPINESS.—The first effect of happiness is the feeling of
power, and this feeling longs to manifest itself, whether towards
ourselves or other men, or towards ideas and imaginary beings. Its most
common modes of manifestation are making presents, derision, and
destruction—all three being due to a common fundamental instinct.
357.
MORAL MOSQUITOES.—Those moralists who are lacking in the love of
knowledge, and who are only acquainted with the pleasure of giving pain,
have the spirit and tediousness of provincials. Their pastime, as cruel as
it is lamentable, is to observe their neighbour with the greatest possible
closeness, and, unperceived, to place a pin in such position that he
cannot help pricking himself with it. Such men have preserved something of
the wickedness of schoolboys, who cannot amuse themselves without hunting
and torturing either the living or the dead.
358.
REASONS AND THEIR UNREASON.—You feel a dislike for him, and adduce
innumerable reasons for this dislike, but I only believe in your dislike
and not in your reasons! You flatter yourself by adducing as a rational
conclusion, both to yourself and to me, that which happens to be merely a
matter of instinct.
359.
APPROVING OF SOMETHING.—We approve of marriage in the first place because
we are not yet acquainted with it, in the second place because we have
accustomed ourselves to it, and in the third place because we have
contracted it—that is to say, in most cases. And yet nothing has been
proved thereby in favour of the value of marriage in general.
360.
NO UTILITARIANS.—“Power which has greatly suffered both in deed and in
thought is better than powerlessness which only meets with kind
treatment”—such was the Greek way of thinking. In other words, the feeling
of power was prized more highly by them than any mere utility or fair
renown.
361.
UGLY IN APPEARANCE.—Moderation appears to itself to be quite beautiful: it
is unaware of the fact that in the eyes of the immoderate it seems coarse
and insipid, and consequently ugly.
362.
DIFFERENT IN THEIR HATRED.—There are men who do not begin to hate until
they feel weak and tired: in other respects they are fair-minded and
superior. Others only begin to hate when they see an opportunity for
revenge: in other respects they carefully avoid both secret and open
wrath, and overlook it whenever there is any occasion for it.
363.
MEN OF CHANCE.—It is pure hazard which plays the essential part in every
invention, but most men do not meet with this hazard.
364.
CHOICE OF ENVIRONMENT.—We should beware of living in an environment where
we are neither able to maintain a dignified silence nor to express our
loftier thoughts, so that only our complaints and needs and the whole
story of our misery are left to be told. We thus become dissatisfied with
ourselves and with our surroundings, and to the discomfort which brings
about our complaints we add the vexation which we feel at always being in
the position of grumblers. But we should, on the contrary, live in a place
where we should be ashamed to speak of ourselves and where it would not be
necessary to do so.—Who, however, thinks of such things, or of the choice
in such things? We talk about our “fate,” brace up our shoulders, and
sigh, “Unfortunate Atlas that I am!”
365.
VANITY.—Vanity is the dread of appearing to be original. Hence it is a
lack of pride, but not necessarily a lack of originality.
366.
THE CRIMINAL’S GRIEF.—The criminal who has been found out does not suffer
because of the crime he has committed, but because of the shame and
annoyance caused him either by some blunder which he has made or by being
deprived of his habitual element; and keen discernment is necessary to
distinguish such cases. Every one who has had much experience of prisons
and reformatories is astonished at the rare instances of really genuine
“remorse,” and still more so at the longing shown to return to the old
wicked and beloved crime.
367.
ALWAYS APPEARING HAPPY.—When, in the Greece of the third century,
philosophy had become a matter of public emulation, there were not a few
philosophers who became happy through the thought that others who lived
according to different principles, and suffered from them, could not but
feel envious of their happiness. They thought they could refute these
other people with their happiness better than anything else, and to
achieve this object they were content to appear to be always happy; but,
following this practice, they were obliged to become happy in the long
run! This, for example, was the case of the cynics.
368.
THE CAUSE OF MUCH MISUNDERSTANDING.—The morality of increasing nervous
force is joyful and restless; the morality of diminishing nervous force,
towards evening, or in invalids and old people, is passive, calm, patient,
and melancholy, and not rarely even gloomy. In accordance with what we may
possess of one or other of these moralities, we do not understand that
which we lack, and we often interpret it in others as immorality and
weakness.
369.
RAISING ONE’S SELF ABOVE ONE’S OWN LOWNESS.—“Proud” fellows they are
indeed, those who, in order to establish a sense of their own dignity and
importance, stand in need of other people whom they may tyrannise and
oppress—those whose powerlessness and cowardice permits some one to make
sublime and furious gestures in their presence with impunity, so that they
require the baseness of their surroundings to raise themselves for one
short moment above their own baseness!—For this purpose one man requires a
dog, another a friend, a third a wife, a fourth a party, a fifth, again,
one very rarely to be met with, a whole age.
370.
TO WHAT EXTENT THE THINKER LOVES HIS ENEMY.—Make it a rule never to
withhold or conceal from yourself anything that may be thought against
your own thoughts. Vow it! This is the essential requirement of honest
thinking. You must undertake such a campaign against yourself every day. A
victory and a conquered position are no longer your concern, but that of
truth—and your defeat also is no longer your concern!
371.
THE EVIL OF STRENGTH.—Violence as the outcome of passion, for example, of
rage, must be understood from the physiological point of view as an
attempt to avoid an imminent fit of suffocation. Innumerable acts arising
from animal spirits and vented upon others are simply outlets for getting
rid of sudden congestion by a violent muscular exertion: and perhaps the
entire “evil of strength” must be considered from this point of view.
(This evil of strength wounds others unintentionally—it must find an
outlet somewhere; while the evil of weakness wishes to wound and to see
signs of suffering.)
372.
TO THE CREDIT OF THE CONNOISSEUR.—As soon as some one who is no
connoisseur begins to pose as a judge we should remonstrate, whether it is
a male or female whipper-snapper. Enthusiasm or delight in a thing or a
human being is not an argument; neither is repugnance or hatred.
373.
TREACHEROUS BLAME.—“He has no knowledge of men” means in the mouth of some
“He does not know what baseness is”; and in the mouths of others, “He does
not know the exception and knows only too well what baseness means.”
374.
THE VALUE OF SACRIFICE.—The more the rights of states and princes are
questioned as to their right to sacrifice the individual (for example, in
the administration of justice, conscription, etc.), the more will the
value of self-sacrifice rise.
375.
SPEAKING TOO DISTINCTLY.—There are several reasons why we articulate our
words too distinctly: in the first place, from distrust of ourselves when
using a new and unpractised language; secondly, when we distrust others on
account of their stupidity or their slowness of comprehension. The same
remark applies to intellectual matters: our communications are sometimes
too distinct, too painful, because if it were otherwise those to whom we
communicate our ideas would not understand us. Consequently the perfect
and easy style is only permissible when addressing a perfect audience.
376.
PLENTY OF SLEEP.—What can we do to arouse ourselves when we are weary and
tired of our ego? Some recommend the gambling table, others Christianity,
and others again electricity. But the best remedy, my dear hypochondriac,
is, and always will be, plenty of sleep in both the literal and figurative
sense of the word. Thus another morning will at length dawn upon us. The
knack of worldly wisdom is to find the proper time for applying this
remedy in both its forms.
377.
WHAT WE MAY CONCLUDE FROM FANTASTIC IDEALS.—Where our deficiencies are,
there also is our enthusiasm. The enthusiastic principle “love your
enemies” had to be invented by the Jews, the best haters that ever
existed; and the finest glorifications of chastity have been written by
those who in their youth led dissolute and licentious lives.
378.
CLEAN HANDS AND CLEAN WALLS.—Do not paint the picture either of God or the
devil on your walls: for in so doing you will spoil your walls as well as
your surroundings.(11)
379.
PROBABLE AND IMPROBABLE.—A woman secretly loved a man, raised him far
above her, and said to herself hundreds of times in her inmost heart, “If
a man like that were to love me, I should look upon it as a condescension
before which I should have to humble myself in the dust.”—And the man
entertained the same feelings towards the woman, and in his inmost heart
he felt the very same thought. When at last both their tongues were
loosened, and they had communicated their most secret thoughts to one
another, a deep and meditative silence ensued. Then the woman said in a
cold voice: “The thing is quite clear! We are neither of us that which we
loved! If you are what you say you are, and nothing more, then I have
humbled myself in vain and loved you; the demon misled me as well as you.”
This very probable story never happens—and why doesn’t it?
380.
TESTED ADVICE.—Of all the means of consolation there is none so
efficacious for him who has need of it as the declaration that in his case
no consolation can be given. This implies such a distinction that the
afflicted person will at once raise his head again.
381.
KNOWING ONE’S “INDIVIDUALITY”.—We too often forget that in the eyes of
strangers who see us for the first time we are quite different beings from
what we consider ourselves to be—in most cases we exhibit nothing more
than one particular characteristic which catches the eye of the stranger,
and determines the impression we make on him. Thus the most peaceful and
fair-minded man, if only he has a big moustache, may, as it were, repose
in the shade of this moustache; for ordinary eyes will merely see in him
the accessory of a big moustache, that is to say, a military, irascible,
and occasionally violent character, and will act accordingly.
382.
GARDENERS AND GARDENS.—Wet dreary days, loneliness, and unkind words give
rise within us to conclusions like fungi; some morning we find that they
have grown up in front of us we know not whence, and there they scowl at
us, sullen and morose. Woe to the thinker who instead of being the
gardener of his plants, is merely the soil from which they spring.
383.
THE COMEDY OF PITY.—However much we may feel for an unhappy friend of
ours, we always act with a certain amount of insincerity in his presence:
we refrain from telling him everything we think, and how we think it, with
all the circumspection of a doctor standing by the bedside of a patient
who is seriously ill.
384.
CURIOUS SAINTS.—There are pusillanimous people who have a bad opinion of
everything that is best in their works, and who at the same time interpret
and comment upon them badly: but also, by a kind of revenge, they
entertain a bad opinion of the sympathy of others, and do not believe in
sympathy at all; they are ashamed to appear to be carried away from
themselves, and feel a defiant comfort in appearing or becoming
ridiculous.—States of soul like these are to be found in melancholy
artists.
385.
VAIN PEOPLE.—We are like shop-windows, where we ourselves are constantly
arranging, concealing, or setting in the foreground those supposed
qualities which others attribute to us—in order to deceive _ourselves_.
386.
PATHETIC AND NAÏVE.—It may be a very vulgar habit to let no opportunity
slip of assuming a pathetic air for the sake of the enjoyment to be
experienced in imagining the spectator striking his breast and feeling
himself to be small and miserable. Consequently it may also be the
indication of a noble mind to make fun of pathetic situations, and to
behave in an undignified manner in them. The old, warlike nobility of
France possessed that kind of distinction and delicacy.
387.
A REFLECTION BEFORE MARRIAGE.—Supposing she loved me, what a burden she
would be to me in the long run! and supposing that she did not love me,
what a much greater burden she would be to me in the long run! We have to
choose between two different kinds of burdens; therefore let us marry.
388.
RASCALITY WITH A GOOD CONSCIENCE.—It is exceedingly annoying to be cheated
in small bargains in certain countries,—in the Tyrol, for
example,—because, in addition to the bad bargain, we are compelled to
accept the evil countenance and coarse greediness of the man who has
cheated us, together with his bad conscience and his hostile feeling
against us. At Venice, on the other hand, the cheater is highly delighted
at his successful fraud, and is not in the least angry with the man he has
cheated—nay, he is even inclined to show him some kindness, and above all
to have a hearty laugh with him if he likes.—In short, one must possess
wit and a good conscience in order to be a knave, and this will almost
reconcile the cheated one with the cheat.(12)
389.
RATHER TOO AWKWARD.—Good people who are too awkward to be polite and
amiable promptly endeavour to return an act of politeness by an important
service, or by a contribution beyond their power. It is touching to see
them timidly producing their gold coins when others have offered them
their gilded coppers!
390.
HIDING ONE’S INTELLIGENCE.—When we surprise some one in the act of hiding
his intelligence from us we call him evil: the more so if we suspect that
it is his civility and benevolence which have induced him to do so.
391.
THE EVIL MOMENT.—Lively dispositions only lie for a moment: after this
they have deceived themselves, and are convinced and honest.
392.
THE CONDITION OF POLITENESS.—Politeness is a very good thing, and really
one of the four chief virtues (although the last), but in order that it
may not result in our becoming tiresome to one another the person with
whom I have to deal must be either one degree more or less polite than
I—otherwise we should never get on, and the ointment would not only anoint
us, but would cement us together.
393.
DANGEROUS VIRTUES.—“He forgets nothing, but forgives everything”—wherefore
he shall be doubly detested, for he causes us double shame by his memory
and his magnanimity.
394.
WITHOUT VANITY.—Passionate people think little of what others may think;
their state of mind raises them above vanity.
395.
CONTEMPLATION.—In some thinkers the contemplative state peculiar to a
thinker is always the consequence of a state of fear, in others always of
desire. In the former, contemplation thus seems allied to the feeling of
security, in the latter to the feeling of surfeit—in other words, the
former are spirited in their mood, the latter over-satiated and neutral.
396.
HUNTING.—The one is hunting for agreeable truths, the other for
disagreeable ones. But even the former takes greater pleasure in the hunt
than in the booty.
397.
EDUCATION.—Education is a continuation of procreation, and very often a
kind of supplementary varnishing of it.
398.
HOW TO RECOGNISE THE CHOLERIC.—Of two persons who are struggling together,
or who love and admire one another, the more choleric will always be at a
disadvantage. The same remark applies to two nations.
399.
SELF-EXCUSE.—Many men have the best possible right to act in this or that
way; but as soon as they begin to excuse their actions we no longer
believe that they are right—and we are mistaken.
400.
MORAL PAMPERING.—There are tender, moral natures who are ashamed of all
their successes and feel remorse after every failure.
401.
DANGEROUS UNLEARNING.—We begin by unlearning to love others, and end by
finding nothing lovable in ourselves.
402.
ANOTHER FORM OF TOLERATION.—“To remain a minute too long on red-hot coals
and to be burnt a little does no harm either to men or to chestnuts. The
slight bitterness and hardness makes the kernel all the sweeter.”—Yes,
this is your opinion, you who enjoy the taste! You sublime cannibals!
403.
DIFFERENT PRIDE.—Women turn pale at the thought that their lover may not
be worthy of them; Men turn pale at the thought that they may not be
worthy of the women they love. I speak of perfect women, perfect men. Such
men, who are self-reliant and conscious of power at ordinary times, grow
diffident and doubtful of themselves when under the influence of a strong
passion. Such women, on the other hand, though always looking upon
themselves as the weak and devoted sex, become proud and conscious of
their power in the great exception of passion,—they ask: “Who then is
worthy of me?”
404.
WHEN WE SELDOM DO JUSTICE.—Certain men are unable to feel enthusiasm for a
great and good cause without committing a great injustice in some other
quarter: this is _their_ kind of morality.
405.
LUXURY.—The love of luxury is rooted in the depths of a man’s heart: it
shows that the superfluous and immoderate is the sea wherein his soul
prefers to float.
406.
TO IMMORTALISE.—Let him who wishes to kill his opponent first consider
whether by doing so he will not immortalise him in himself.
407.
AGAINST OUR CHARACTER.—If the truth which we have to utter goes against
our character—as very often happens—we behave as if we had uttered a
clumsy falsehood, and thus rouse suspicion.
408.
WHERE A GREAT DEAL OF GENTLENESS IS NEEDED.—Many natures have only the
choice of being either public evil-doers or secret sorrow-bearers.
409.
ILLNESS.—Among illness are to be reckoned the premature approach of old
age, ugliness, and pessimistic opinions—three things that always go
together.
410.
TIMID PEOPLE.—It is the awkward and timid people who easily become
murderers: they do not understand slight but sufficient means of defence
or revenge, and their hatred, owing to their lack of intelligence and
presence of mind, can conceive of no other expedient than destruction.
411.
WITHOUT HATRED.—You wish to bid farewell to your passion? Very well, but
do so without hatred against it! Otherwise you have a second passion.—The
soul of the Christian who has freed himself from sin is generally ruined
afterwards by the hatred for sin. Just look at the faces of the great
Christians! they are the faces of great haters.
412.
INGENIOUS AND NARROW-MINDED.—He can appreciate nothing beyond himself, and
when he wishes to appreciate other people he must always begin by
transforming them into himself. In this, however, he is ingenious.
413.
PRIVATE AND PUBLIC ACCUSERS.—Watch closely the accuser and inquirer,—for
he reveals his true character; and it is not rare for this to be a worse
character than that of the victim whose crime he is investigating. The
accuser believes in all innocence that the opponent of a crime and
criminal must be by nature of good character, or at least must appear as
such—and this is why he lets himself go, that is to say, he drops his
mask.
414.
VOLUNTARY BLINDNESS.—There is a kind of enthusiastic and extreme devotion
to a person or a party which reveals that in our inmost hearts we feel
ourselves superior to this person or party, and for this reason we feel
indignant with ourselves. We blind ourselves, as it were, of our own free
will to punish our eyes for having seen too much.
415.
_REMEDIUM AMORIS._—That old radical remedy for love is now in most cases
as effective as it always was: love in return.
416.
WHERE IS OUR WORST ENEMY?—He who can look after his own affairs well, and
knows that he can do so, is as a rule conciliatory towards his adversary.
But to believe that we have right on our side, and to know that we are
incapable of defending it—this gives rise to a fierce and implacable
hatred against the opponent of our cause. Let every one judge accordingly
where his worst enemies are to be sought.
417.
THE LIMITS OF ALL HUMILITY.—Many men may certainly have attained that
humility which says _credo quia absurdum est_, and sacrifices its reason;
but, so far as I know, not one has attained to that humility which after
all is only one step further, and which says _creda quia absurdus sum_.
418.
ACTING THE TRUTH.—Many a man is truthful, not because he would be ashamed
to exhibit hypocritical feelings, but because he would not succeed very
well in inducing others to believe in his hypocrisy. In a word, he has no
confidence in his talent as an actor, and therefore prefers honestly to
act the truth.
419.
COURAGE IN A PARTY.—The poor sheep say to their bell-wether: “Only lead
us, and we shall never lack courage to follow you.” But the poor
bell-wether thinks in his heart: “Only follow me, and I shall never lack
courage to lead you.”
420.
CUNNING OF THE VICTIM.—What a sad cunning there is in the wish to deceive
ourselves with respect to the person for whom we have sacrificed
ourselves, when we give him an opportunity in which he must appear to us
as we should wish him to be!
421.
THROUGH OTHERS.—There are men who do not wish to be seen except through
the eyes of others: a wish which implies a great deal of wisdom.
422.
MAKING OTHERS HAPPY.—Why is the fact of our making others happy more
gratifying to us than all other pleasures?—Because in so doing we gratify
fifty cravings at one time. Taken separately they would, perhaps, be very
small pleasures; but when put into one hand, that hand will be fuller than
ever before—and the heart also.