Human, All Too Human; A Book For Free Spirits - free ebook by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

HUMAN,ALL TOO HUMAN

23 minute read

Read Chapter

1

It is often enough, and always with great surprise, intimated to me that there is something both ordinary and unusual in all my writings, from the "Birth of Tragedy" to the recently published "Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future": they all contain, I have been told, snares and nets for short sighted birds, and something that is almost a constant, subtle, incitement to an overturning of habitual opinions and of approved customs. What!? Everything is merely—human—all too human? With this exclama

2 minute read

Read Chapter

2

Thus, then, have I evolved for myself the "free spirits" to whom this discouraging-encouraging work, under the general title "Human, All Too Human," is dedicated. Such "free spirits" do not really exist and never did exist. But I stood in need of them, as I have pointed out, in order that some good might be mixed with my evils (illness, loneliness, strangeness, acedia , incapacity): to serve as gay spirits and comrades, with whom one may talk and laugh when one is disposed to talk and laugh, and

56 minute read

Read Chapter

3

It may be conjectured that a soul in which the type of "free spirit" can attain maturity and completeness had its decisive and deciding event in the form of a great emancipation or unbinding, and that prior to that event it seemed only the more firmly and forever chained to its place and pillar. What binds strongest? What cords seem almost unbreakable? In the case of mortals of a choice and lofty nature they will be those of duty: that reverence, which in youth is most typical, that timidity and

2 minute read

Read Chapter

4

From this morbid solitude, from the deserts of such trial years, the way is yet far to that great, overflowing certainty and healthiness which cannot dispense even with sickness as a means and a grappling hook of knowledge; to that matured freedom of the spirit which is, in an equal degree, self mastery and discipline of the heart, and gives access to the path of much and various reflection—to that inner comprehensiveness and self satisfaction of over-richness which precludes all danger that the

1 minute read

Read Chapter

5

A step further in recovery: and the free spirit draws near to life again, slowly indeed, almost refractorily, almost distrustfully. There is again warmth and mellowness: feeling and fellow feeling acquire depth, lambent airs stir all about him. He almost feels: it seems as if now for the first time his eyes are open to things near . He is in amaze and sits hushed: for where had he been? These near and immediate things: how changed they seem to him! He looks gratefully back—grateful for his wande

1 minute read

Read Chapter

6

About this time it becomes at last possible, amid the flash lights of a still unestablished, still precarious health, for the free, the ever freer spirit to begin to read the riddle of that great liberation, a riddle which has hitherto lingered, obscure, well worth questioning, almost impalpable, in his memory. If once he hardly dared to ask "why so apart? so alone? renouncing all I loved? renouncing respect itself? why this coldness, this suspicion, this hate for one's very virtues?"—now he dar

1 minute read

Read Chapter

7

Accordingly, the free spirit works out for itself an answer to that riddle of its liberation and concludes by generalizing upon its experience in the following fashion: "What I went through everyone must go through" in whom any problem is germinated and strives to body itself forth. The inner power and inevitability of this problem will assert themselves in due course, as in the case of any unsuspected pregnancy—long before the spirit has seen this problem in its true aspect and learned to call

1 minute read

Read Chapter

8

To what stage in the development just outlined the present book belongs (or is assigned) is something that will be hidden from no augur or psychologist for an instant. But where are there psychologists to-day? In France, certainly; in Russia, perhaps; certainly not in Germany. Grounds are not wanting, to be sure, upon which the Germans of to-day may adduce this fact to their credit: unhappily for one who in this matter is fashioned and mentored in an un-German school! This German book, which has

1 minute read

Read Chapter

1

Chemistry of the Notions and the Feelings. —Philosophical problems, in almost all their aspects, present themselves in the same interrogative formula now that they did two thousand years ago: how can a thing develop out of its antithesis? for example, the reasonable from the non-reasonable, the animate from the inanimate, the logical from the illogical, altruism from egoism, disinterestedness from greed, truth from error? The metaphysical philosophy formerly steered itself clear of this difficul

1 minute read

Read Chapter

2

The Traditional Error of Philosophers. —All philosophers make the common mistake of taking contemporary man as their starting point and of trying, through an analysis of him, to reach a conclusion. "Man" involuntarily presents himself to them as an aeterna veritas as a passive element in every hurly-burly, as a fixed standard of things. Yet everything uttered by the philosopher on the subject of man is, in the last resort, nothing more than a piece of testimony concerning man during a very limit

1 minute read

Read Chapter

3

Appreciation of Simple Truths. —It is the characteristic of an advanced civilization to set a higher value upon little, simple truths, ascertained by scientific method, than upon the pleasing and magnificent errors originating in metaphysical and æsthetical epochs and peoples. To begin with, the former are spoken of with contempt as if there could be no question of comparison respecting them, so rigid, homely, prosaic and even discouraging is the aspect of the first, while so beautiful, decorati

1 minute read

Read Chapter

4

Astrology and the Like. —It is presumable that the objects of the religious, moral, aesthetic and logical notions pertain simply to the superficialities of things, although man flatters himself with the thought that here at least he is getting to the heart of the cosmos. He deceives himself because these things have power to make him so happy and so wretched, and so he evinces, in this respect, the same conceit that characterises astrology. Astrology presupposes that the heavenly bodies are regu

31 minute read

Read Chapter

5

Misconception of Dreams. —In the dream, mankind, in epochs of crude primitive civilization, thought they were introduced to a second, substantial world: here we have the source of all metaphysic. Without the dream, men would never have been incited to an analysis of the world. Even the distinction between soul and body is wholly due to the primitive conception of the dream, as also the hypothesis of the embodied soul, whence the development of all superstition, and also, probably, the belief in

30 minute read

Read Chapter

6

The Scientific Spirit Prevails only Partially, not Wholly. —The specialized, minutest departments of science are dealt with purely objectively. But the general universal sciences, considered as a great, basic unity, posit the question—truly a very living question—: to what purpose? what is the use? Because of this reference to utility they are, as a whole, less impersonal than when looked at in their specialized aspects. Now in the case of philosophy, as forming the apex of the scientific pyrami

1 minute read

Read Chapter

7

The Discordant Element in Science. —Philosophy severed itself from science when it put the question: what is that knowledge of the world and of life through which mankind may be made happiest? This happened when the Socratic school arose: with the standpoint of happiness the arteries of investigating science were compressed too tightly to permit of any circulation of the blood—and are so compressed to-day....

18 minute read

Read Chapter

8

Pneumatic Explanation of Nature. 5 —Metaphysic reads the message of nature as if it were written purely pneumatically, as the church and its learned ones formerly did where the bible was concerned. It requires a great deal of expertness to apply to nature the same strict science of interpretation that the philologists have devised for all literature, and to apply it for the purpose of a simple, direct interpretation of the message, and at the same time, not bring out a double meaning. But, as in

42 minute read

Read Chapter

9

Metaphysical World. —It is true, there may be a metaphysical world; the absolute possibility of it can scarcely be disputed. We see all things through the medium of the human head and we cannot well cut off this head: although there remains the question what part of the world would be left after it had been cut off. But that is a purely abstract scientific problem and one not much calculated to give men uneasiness: yet everything that has heretofore made metaphysical assumptions valuable, fearfu

1 minute read

Read Chapter

10

The Harmlessness of Metaphysic in the Future. —As soon as religion, art and ethics are so understood that a full comprehension of them can be gained without taking refuge in the postulates of metaphysical claptrap at any point in the line of reasoning, there will be a complete cessation of interest in the purely theoretical problem of the "thing in itself" and the "phenomenon." For here, too, the same truth applies: in religion, art and ethics we are not concerned with the "essence of the cosmos

43 minute read

Read Chapter

11

Language as a Presumptive Science. —The importance of language in the development of civilization consists in the fact that by means of it man placed one world, his own, alongside another, a place of leverage that he thought so firm as to admit of his turning the rest of the cosmos on a pivot that he might master it. In so far as man for ages looked upon mere ideas and names of things as upon aeternae veritates, he evinced the very pride with which he raised himself above the brute. He really su

1 minute read

Read Chapter

12

Dream and Civilization. —The function of the brain which is most encroached upon in slumber is the memory; not that it is wholly suspended, but it is reduced to a state of imperfection as, in primitive ages of mankind, was probably the case with everyone, whether waking or sleeping. Uncontrolled and entangled as it is, it perpetually confuses things as a result of the most trifling similarities, yet in the same mental confusion and lack of control the nations invented their mythologies, while no

1 minute read

Read Chapter

13

Logic of the Dream. —During sleep the nervous system, through various inner provocatives, is in constant agitation. Almost all the organs act independently and vigorously. The blood circulates rapidly. The posture of the sleeper compresses some portions of the body. The coverlets influence the sensations in different ways. The stomach carries on the digestive process and acts upon other organs thereby. The intestines are in motion. The position of the head induces unaccustomed action. The feet,

4 minute read

Read Chapter

14

Association. 9 —All strong feelings are associated with a variety of allied sentiments and emotions. They stir up the memory at the same time. When we are under their influence we are reminded of similar states and we feel a renewal of them within us. Thus are formed habitual successions of feelings and notions, which, at last, when they follow one another with lightning rapidity are no longer felt as complexities but as unities. In this sense we hear of moral feelings, of religious feelings, as

35 minute read

Read Chapter

15

No Within and Without in the World. 10 —As Democritus transferred the notions above and below to limitless space, where they are destitute of meaning, so the philosophers do generally with the idea "within and without," as regards the form and substance (Wesen und Erscheinung) of the world. What they claim is that through the medium of profound feelings one can penetrate deep into the soul of things (Innre), draw close to the heart of nature. But these feelings are deep only in so far as with th

1 minute read

Read Chapter

16

Phenomenon and Thing-in-Itself. —The philosophers are in the habit of placing themselves in front of life and experience—that which they call the world of phenomena—as if they were standing before a picture that is unrolled before them in its final completeness. This panorama, they think, must be studied in every detail in order to reach some conclusion regarding the object represented by the picture. From effect, accordingly is deduced cause and from cause is deduced the unconditioned. This pro

2 minute read

Read Chapter

17

Metaphysical Explanation. —Man, when he is young, prizes metaphysical explanations, because they make him see matters of the highest import in things he found disagreeable or contemptible: and if he is not satisfied with himself, this feeling of dissatisfaction is soothed when he sees the most hidden world-problem or world-pain in that which he finds so displeasing in himself. To feel himself more unresponsible and at the same time to find things (Dinge) more interesting—that is to him the doubl

41 minute read

Read Chapter

18

The Fundamental Problems of Metaphysics. —If a history of the development of thought is ever written, the following proposition, advanced by a distinguished logician, will be illuminated with a new light: "The universal, primordial law of the apprehending subject consists in the inner necessity of cognizing every object by itself, as in its essence a thing unto itself, therefore as self-existing and unchanging, in short, as a substance." Even this law, which is here called "primordial," is an ev

2 minute read

Read Chapter

19

Number. —The invention of the laws of number has as its basis the primordial and prior-prevailing delusion that many like things exist (although in point of fact there is no such thing is a duplicate), or that, at least, there are things (but there is no "thing"). The assumption of plurality always presupposes that something exists which manifests itself repeatedly, but just here is where the delusion prevails; in this very matter we feign realities, unities, that have no existence. Our feelings

1 minute read

Read Chapter

20

Some Backward Steps. —One very forward step in education is taken when man emerges from his superstitious and religious ideas and fears and, for instance, no longer believes in the dear little angels or in original sin, and has stopped talking about the salvation of the soul: when he has taken this step to freedom he has, nevertheless, through the utmost exertion of his mental power, to overcome metaphysics. Then a backward movement is necessary: he must appreciate the historical justification,

1 minute read

Read Chapter

21

Presumable [Nature of the] Victory of Doubt. —Let us assume for a moment the validity of the skeptical standpoint: granted that there is no metaphysical world, and that all the metaphysical explanations of the only world we know are useless to us, how would we then contemplate men and things? [Menschen und Dinge]. This can be thought out and it is worth while doing so, even if the question whether anything metaphysical has ever been demonstrated by or through Kant and Schopenhauer, be put altoge

57 minute read

Read Chapter

22

Disbelief in the "monumentum aere perennius". 13 —A decided disadvantage, attending the termination of metaphysical modes of thought, is that the individual fixes his mind too attentively upon his own brief lifetime and feels no strong inducement to aid in the foundation of institutions capable of enduring for centuries: he wishes himself to gather the fruit from the tree that he plants and consequently he no longer plants those trees which require centuries of constant cultivation and are desti

1 minute read

Read Chapter

23

Age of Comparison. —The less men are bound by tradition, the greater is the inner activity of motives, the greater, correspondingly, the outer restlessness, the promiscuous flow of humanity, the polyphony of strivings. Who now feels any great impulse to establish himself and his posterity in a particular place? For whom, moreover, does there exist, at present, any strong tie? As all the methods of the arts were copied from one another, so were all the methods and advancements of moral codes, of

1 minute read

Read Chapter

24

Possibility of Progress. —When a master of the old civilization (den alten Cultur) vows to hold no more discussion with men who believe in progress, he is quite right. For the old civilization 14 has its greatness and its advantages behind it, and historic training forces one to acknowledge that it can never again acquire vigor: only intolerable stupidity or equally intolerable fanaticism could fail to perceive this fact. But men may consciously determine to evolve to a new civilization where fo

1 minute read

Read Chapter

25

Private Ethics and World Ethics. —Since the extinction of the belief that a god guides the general destiny of the world and, notwithstanding all the contortions and windings of the path of mankind, leads it gloriously forward, men must shape oecumenical, world-embracing ends for themselves. The older ethics, namely Kant's, required of the individual such a course of conduct as he wishes all men to follow. This evinces much simplicity—as if any individual could determine off hand what course of c

1 minute read

Read Chapter

26

Reaction as Progress. —Occasionally harsh, powerful, impetuous, yet nevertheless backward spirits, appear, who try to conjure back some past era in the history of mankind: they serve as evidence that the new tendencies which they oppose, are not yet potent enough, that there is something lacking in them: otherwise they [the tendencies] would better withstand the effects of this conjuring back process. Thus Luther's reformation shows that in his century all the impulses to freedom of the spirit w

1 minute read

Read Chapter

27

A Substitute for Religion. —It is supposed to be a recommendation for philosophy to say of it that it provides the people with a substitute for religion. And in fact, the training of the intellect does necessitate the convenient laying out of the track of thought, since the transition from religion by way of science entails a powerful, perilous leap,—something that should be advised against. With this qualification, the recommendation referred to is a just one. At the same time, it should be fur

1 minute read

Read Chapter

28

Discredited Words. —Away with the disgustingly over-used words optimism and pessimism! For the occasion for using them grows daily less; only drivelers now find them indispensably necessary. What earthly reason could anyone have for being an optimist unless he had a god to defend who must have created the best of all possible worlds, since he is himself all goodness and perfection?—but what thinking man has now any need for the hypothesis that there is a god?—There is also no occasion whatever f

1 minute read

Read Chapter

29

Intoxicated by the Perfume of Flowers. —The ship of humanity, it is thought, acquires an ever deeper draught the more it is laden. It is believed that the more profoundly man thinks, the more exquisitely he feels, the higher the standard he sets for himself, the greater his distance from the other animals—the more he appears as a genius (Genie) among animals—the nearer he gets to the true nature of the world and to comprehension thereof: this, indeed, he really does through science, but he think

1 minute read

Read Chapter

30

Evil Habits in Reaching Conclusions. —The most usual erroneous conclusions of men are these: a thing 17 exists, therefore it is right: Here from capacity to live is deduced fitness, from fitness, is deduced justification. So also: an opinion gives happiness, therefore it is the true one, its effect is good, therefore it is itself good and true. Here is predicated of the effect that it gives happiness, that it is good in the sense of utility, and there is likewise predicated of the cause that it

57 minute read

Read Chapter

31

The Illogical is Necessary. —Among the things which can bring a thinker to distraction is the knowledge that the illogical is necessary to mankind and that from the illogical springs much that is good. The illogical is so imbedded in the passions, in language, in art, in religion and, above all, in everything that imparts value to life that it cannot be taken away without irreparably injuring those beautiful things. Only men of the utmost simplicity can believe that the nature man knows can be c

36 minute read

Read Chapter

32

Being Unjust is Essential. —All judgments of the value of life are illogically developed and therefore unjust. The vice of the judgment consists, first, in the way in which the subject matter comes under observation, that is, very incompletely; secondly in the way in which the total is summed up; and, thirdly, in the fact that each single item in the totality of the subject matter is itself the result of defective perception, and this from absolute necessity. No practical knowledge of a man, for

1 minute read

Read Chapter

33

Error Respecting Living for the Sake of Living Essential. —Every belief in the value and worthiness of life rests upon defective thinking; it is for this reason alone possible that sympathy with the general life and suffering of mankind is so imperfectly developed in the individual. Even exceptional men, who can think beyond their own personalities, do not have this general life in view, but isolated portions of it. If one is capable of fixing his observation upon exceptional cases, I mean upon

2 minute read

Read Chapter

34

For Tranquility. —But will not our philosophy become thus a tragedy? Will not truth prove the enemy of life, of betterment? A question seems to weigh upon our tongue and yet will not put itself into words: whether one can knowingly remain in the domain of the untruthful? or, if one must , whether, then, death would not be preferable? For there is no longer any ought (Sollen), morality; so far as it is involved "ought," is, through our point of view, as utterly annihilated as religion. Our knowle

2 minute read

Read Chapter

35

Advantages of Psychological Observation. —That reflection regarding the human, all-too-human—or as the learned jargon is: psychological observation—is among the means whereby the burden of life can be made lighter, that practice in this art affords presence of mind in difficult situations and entertainment amid a wearisome environment, aye, that maxims may be culled in the thorniest and least pleasing paths of life and invigoration thereby obtained: this much was believed, was known—in former ce

1 minute read

Read Chapter

36

Objection. —Or is there a counter-proposition to the dictum that psychological observation is one of the means of consoling, lightening, charming existence? Have enough of the unpleasant effects of this art been experienced to justify the person striving for culture in turning his regard away from it? In all truth, a certain blind faith in the goodness of human nature, an implanted distaste for any disparagement of human concerns, a sort of shamefacedness at the nakedness of the soul, may be far

1 minute read

Read Chapter

37

Nevertheless. —The matter therefore, as regards pro and con, stands thus: in the present state of philosophy an awakening of the moral observation is essential. The repulsive aspect of psychological dissection, with the knife and tweezers entailed by the process, can no longer be spared humanity. Such is the imperative duty of any science that investigates the origin and history of the so-called moral feelings and which, in its progress, is called upon to posit and to solve advanced social probl

2 minute read

Read Chapter

38

To What Extent Useful. —Therefore, whether psychological observation is more an advantage than a disadvantage to mankind may always remain undetermined: but there is no doubt that it is necessary, because science can no longer dispense with it. Science, however, recognizes no considerations of ultimate goals or ends any more than nature does; but as the latter duly matures things of the highest fitness for certain ends without any intention of doing it, so will true science, doing with ideas wha

1 minute read

Read Chapter

39

The Fable of Discretionary Freedom. —The history of the feelings, on the basis of which we make everyone responsible, hence, the so-called moral feelings, is traceable in the following leading phases. At first single actions are termed good or bad without any reference to their motive, but solely because of the utilitarian or prejudicial consequences they have for the community. In time, however, the origin of these designations is forgotten [but] it is imagined that action in itself, without re

3 minute read

Read Chapter

40

Above Animal. —The beast in us must be wheedled: ethic is necessary, that we may not be torn to pieces. Without the errors involved in the assumptions of ethics, man would have remained an animal. Thus has he taken himself as something higher and imposed rigid laws upon himself. He feels hatred, consequently, for states approximating the animal: whence the former contempt for the slave as a not-yet-man, as a thing, is to be explained....

21 minute read

Read Chapter

41

Unalterable Character. —That character is unalterable is not, in the strict sense, true; rather is this favorite proposition valid only to the extent that during the brief life period of a man the potent new motives can not, usually, press down hard enough to obliterate the lines imprinted by ages. Could we conceive of a man eighty thousand years old, we should have in him an absolutely alterable character; so that the maturities of successive, varying individuals would develop in him. The short

26 minute read

Read Chapter

42

Classification of Enjoyments and Ethic. —The once accepted comparative classification of enjoyments, according to which an inferior, higher, highest egoism may crave one or another enjoyment, now decides as to ethical status or unethical status. A lower enjoyment (for example, sensual pleasure) preferred to a more highly esteemed one (for example, health) rates as unethical, as does welfare preferred to freedom. The comparative classification of enjoyments is not, however, alike or the same at a

48 minute read

Read Chapter

43

Inhuman Men as Survivals. —Men who are now inhuman must serve us as surviving specimens of earlier civilizations. The mountain height of humanity here reveals its lower formations, which might otherwise remain hidden from view. There are surviving specimens of humanity whose brains through the vicissitudes of heredity, have escaped proper development. They show us what we all were and thus appal us; but they are as little responsible on this account as is a piece of granite for being granite. In

35 minute read

Read Chapter

44

Gratitude and Revenge. —The reason the powerful man is grateful is this. His benefactor has, through his benefaction, invaded the domain of the powerful man and established himself on an equal footing: the powerful man in turn invades the domain of the benefactor and gets satisfaction through the act of gratitude. It is a mild form of revenge. By not obtaining the satisfaction of gratitude the powerful would have shown himself powerless and have ranked as such thenceforward. Hence every society

32 minute read

Read Chapter

45

Two-fold Historical Origin of Good and Evil. —The notion of good and bad has a two-fold historical origin: namely, first, in the spirit of ruling races and castes. Whoever has power to requite good with good and evil with evil and actually brings requital, (that is, is grateful and revengeful) acquires the name of being good; whoever is powerless and cannot requite is called bad. A man belongs, as a good individual, to the "good" of a community, who have a feeling in common, because all the indi

1 minute read

Read Chapter

46

Sympathy Greater than Suffering. —There are circumstances in which sympathy is stronger than the suffering itself. We feel more pain, for instance, when one of our friends becomes guilty of a reprehensible action than if we had done the deed ourselves. We once, that is, had more faith in the purity of his character than he had himself. Hence our love for him, (apparently because of this very faith) is stronger than is his own love for himself. If, indeed, his egoism really suffers more, as a res

38 minute read

Read Chapter

47

Hypochondria. —There are people who, from sympathy and anxiety for others become hypochondriacal. The resulting form of compassion is nothing else than sickness. So, also, is there a Christian hypochondria, from which those singular, religiously agitated people suffer who place always before their eyes the suffering and death of Christ....

14 minute read

Read Chapter

48

Economy of Blessings. —The advantageous and the pleasing, as the healthiest growths and powers in the intercourse of men, are such precious treasures that it is much to be wished the use made of these balsamic means were as economical as possible: but this is impossible. Economy in the use of blessings is the dream of the craziest of Utopians....

17 minute read

Read Chapter

49

Well-Wishing. —Among the small, but infinitely plentiful and therefore very potent things to which science must pay more attention than to the great, uncommon things, well-wishing 21 must be reckoned; I mean those manifestations of friendly disposition in intercourse, that laughter of the eye, every hand pressure, every courtesy from which, in general, every human act gets its quality. Every teacher, every functionary adds this element as a gratuity to whatever he does as a duty; it is the perpe

1 minute read

Read Chapter

50

The Desire to Inspire Compassion. —La Rochefoucauld, in the most notable part of his self portraiture (first printed 1658) reaches the vital spot of truth when he warns all those endowed with reason to be on their guard against compassion, when he advises that this sentiment be left to men of the masses who stand in need of the promptings of the emotions (since they are not guided by reason) to induce them to give aid to the suffering and to be of service in misfortune: whereas compassion, in hi

2 minute read

Read Chapter

51

How Appearance Becomes Reality. —The actor cannot, at last, refrain, even in moments of the deepest pain, from thinking of the effect produced by his deportment and by his surroundings—for example, even at the funeral of his own child: he will weep at his own sorrow and its manifestations as though he were his own audience. The hypocrite who always plays one and the same part, finally ceases to be a hypocrite; as in the case of priests who, when young men, are always, either consciously or uncon

1 minute read

Read Chapter

52

The Point of Honor in Deception. —In all great deceivers one characteristic is prominent, to which they owe their power. In the very act of deception, amid all the accompaniments, the agitation in the voice, the expression, the bearing, in the crisis of the scene, there comes over them a belief in themselves; this it is that acts so effectively and irresistibly upon the beholders. Founders of religions differ from such great deceivers in that they never come out of this state of self deception,

41 minute read

Read Chapter

53

Presumed Degrees of Truth. —One of the most usual errors of deduction is: because someone truly and openly is against us, therefore he speaks the truth. Hence the child has faith in the judgments of its elders, the Christian in the assertions of the founder of the church. So, too, it will not be admitted that all for which men sacrificed life and happiness in former centuries was nothing but delusion: perhaps it is alleged these things were degrees of truth. But what is really meant is that, if

45 minute read

Read Chapter

54

Falsehood. —Why do men, as a rule, speak the truth in the ordinary affairs of life? Certainly not for the reason that a god has forbidden lying. But because first: it is more convenient, as falsehood entails invention, make-believe and recollection (wherefore Swift says that whoever invents a lie seldom realises the heavy burden he takes up: he must, namely, for every lie that he tells, insert twenty more). Therefore, because in plain ordinary relations of life it is expedient to say without cir

45 minute read

Read Chapter

55

Ethic Discredited for Faith's Sake. —No power can sustain itself when it is represented by mere humbugs: the Catholic Church may possess ever so many "worldly" sources of strength, but its true might is comprised in those still numberless priestly natures who make their lives stern and strenuous and whose looks and emaciated bodies are eloquent of night vigils, fasts, ardent prayer, perhaps even of whip lashes: these things make men tremble and cause them anxiety: what, if it be really imperativ

1 minute read

Read Chapter

56

Victory of Knowledge over Radical Evil. —It proves a material gain to him who would attain knowledge to have had during a considerable period the idea that mankind is a radically bad and perverted thing: it is a false idea, as is its opposite, but it long held sway and its roots have reached down even to ourselves and our present world. In order to understand ourselves we must understand it ; but in order to attain a loftier height we must step above it. We then perceive that there is no such th

1 minute read

Read Chapter

57

Ethic as Man's Self-Analysis. —A good author, whose heart is really in his work, wishes that someone would arise and wholly refute him if only thereby his subject be wholly clarified and made plain. The maid in love wishes that she could attest the fidelity of her own passion through the faithlessness of her beloved. The soldier wishes to sacrifice his life on the field of his fatherland's victory: for in the victory of his fatherland his highest end is attained. The mother gives her child what

1 minute read

Read Chapter

58

What Can be Promised. —Actions can be promised, but not feelings, for these are involuntary. Whoever promises somebody to love him always, or to hate him always, or to be ever true to him, promises something that it is out of his power to bestow. But he really can promise such courses of conduct as are the ordinary accompaniments of love, of hate, of fidelity, but which may also have their source in motives quite different: for various ways and motives lead to the same conduct. The promise to lo

48 minute read

Read Chapter

59

Intellect and Ethic. —One must have a good memory to be able to keep the promises one makes. One must have a strong imagination in order to feel sympathy. So closely is ethics connected with intellectual capacity....

10 minute read

Read Chapter

60

Desire for Vengeance and Vengeance Itself. —To meditate revenge and attain it is tantamount to an attack of fever, that passes away: but to meditate revenge without possessing the strength or courage to attain it is tantamount to suffering from a chronic malady, or poisoning of body and soul. Ethics, which takes only the motive into account, rates both cases alike: people generally estimate the first case as the worst (because of the consequences which the deed of vengeance may entail). Both vie

24 minute read

Read Chapter

61

Ability to Wait. —Ability to wait is so hard to acquire that great poets have not disdained to make inability to wait the central motive of their poems. So Shakespeare in Othello, Sophocles in Ajax, whose suicide would not have seemed to him so imperative had he only been able to cool his ardor for a day, as the oracle foreboded: apparently he would then have repulsed somewhat the fearful whispers of distracted thought and have said to himself: Who has not already, in my situation, mistaken a sh

1 minute read

Read Chapter

62

Glutting Revenge. —Coarse men, who feel a sense of injury, are in the habit of rating the extent of their injury as high as possible and of stating the occasion of it in greatly exaggerated language, in order to be able to feast themselves on the sentiments of hatred and revenge thus aroused....

15 minute read

Read Chapter

63

Value of Disparagement. —Not a few, perhaps the majority of men, find it necessary, in order to retain their self esteem and a certain uprightness in conduct, to mentally disparage and belittle all the people they know. But as the inferior natures are in the majority and as a great deal depends upon whether they retain or lose this uprightness, so—...

17 minute read

Read Chapter

64

The Man in a Rage. —We should be on our guard against the man who is enraged against us, as against one who has attempted our life, for the fact that we still live consists solely in the inability to kill: were looks sufficient, it would have been all up with us long since. To reduce anyone to silence by physical manifestations of savagery or by a terrorizing process is a relic of under civilization. So, too, that cold look which great personages cast upon their servitors is a remnant of the cas

33 minute read

Read Chapter

65

Whither Honesty May Lead. —Someone once had the bad habit of expressing himself upon occasion, and with perfect honesty, on the subject of the motives of his conduct, which were as good or as bad as the motives of all men. He aroused first disfavor, then suspicion, became gradually of ill repute and was pronounced a person of whom society should beware, until at last the law took note of such a perverted being for reasons which usually have no weight with it or to which it closes its eyes. Lack

33 minute read

Read Chapter

66

Punishable, not Punished. —Our crime against criminals consists in the fact that we treat them as rascals....

5 minute read

Read Chapter

67

Sancta simplicitas of Virtue. —Every virtue has its privilege: for example, that of contributing its own little bundle of wood to the funeral pyre of one condemned....

7 minute read

Read Chapter

68

Morality and Consequence. —Not alone the beholders of an act generally estimate the ethical or unethical element in it by the result: no, the one who performed the act does the same. For the motives and the intentions are seldom sufficiently apparent, and amid them the memory itself seems to become clouded by the results of the act, so that a man often ascribes the wrong motives to his acts or regards the remote motives as the direct ones. Success often imparts to an action all the brilliance an

1 minute read

Read Chapter

69

Love and Justice. —Why is love so highly prized at the expense of justice and why are such beautiful things spoken of the former as if it were a far higher entity than the latter? Is the former not palpably a far more stupid thing than the latter?—Certainly, and on that very account so much the more agreeable to everybody: it is blind and has a rich horn of plenty out of which it distributes its gifts to everyone, even when they are unmerited, even when no thanks are returned. It is impartial li

34 minute read

Read Chapter

70

Execution. —How comes it that every execution causes us more pain than a murder? It is the coolness of the executioner, the painful preparation, the perception that here a man is being used as an instrument for the intimidation of others. For the guilt is not punished even if there be any: this is ascribable to the teachers, the parents, the environment, in ourselves, not in the murderer—I mean the predisposing circumstances....

20 minute read

Read Chapter

71

Hope. —Pandora brought the box containing evils and opened it. It was the gift of the gods to men, a gift of most enticing appearance externally and called the "box of happiness." Thereupon all the evils, (living, moving things) flew out: from that time to the present they fly about and do ill to men by day and night. One evil only did not fly out of the box: Pandora shut the lid at the behest of Zeus and it remained inside. Now man has this box of happiness perpetually in the house and congratu

54 minute read

Read Chapter

72

Degree of Moral Susceptibility Unknown. —The fact that one has or has not had certain profoundly moving impressions and insights into things—for example, an unjustly executed, slain or martyred father, a faithless wife, a shattering, serious accident,—is the factor upon which the excitation of our passions to white heat principally depends, as well as the course of our whole lives. No one knows to what lengths circumstances (sympathy, emotion) may lead him. He does not know the full extent of hi

33 minute read

Read Chapter

73

The Martyr Against His Will. —In a certain movement there was a man who was too cowardly and vacillating ever to contradict his comrades. He was made use of in each emergency, every sacrifice was demanded of him because he feared the disfavor of his comrades more than he feared death: he was a petty, abject spirit. They perceived this and upon the foundation of the qualities just mentioned they elevated him to the altitude of a hero, and finally even of a martyr. Although the cowardly creature a

42 minute read

Read Chapter

74

General Standard. —One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed to vanity, ordinary actions to habit and mean actions to fear....

6 minute read

Read Chapter

75

Misunderstanding of Virtue. —Whoever has obtained his experience of vice in connection with pleasure as in the case of one with a youth of wild oats behind him, comes to the conclusion that virtue must be connected with self denial. Whoever, on the other hand, has been very much plagued by his passions and vices, longs to find in virtue the rest and peace of the soul. That is why it is possible for two virtuous people to misunderstand one another wholly....

23 minute read

Read Chapter

76

The Ascetic. —The ascetic makes out of virtue a slavery....

3 minute read

Read Chapter

77

Honor Transferred from Persons to Things. —Actions prompted by love or by the spirit of self sacrifice for others are universally honored wherever they are manifest. Hence is magnified the value set upon whatever things may be loved or whatever things conduce to self sacrifice: although in themselves they may be worth nothing much. A valiant army is evidence of the value of the thing it fights for....

19 minute read

Read Chapter

78

Ambition a Substitute for Moral Feeling. —Moral feeling should never become extinct in natures that are destitute of ambition. The ambitious can get along without moral feeling just as well as with it.—Hence the sons of retired, ambitionless families, generally become by a series of rapid gradations, when they lose moral feeling, the most absolute lunkheads....

15 minute read

Read Chapter

79

Vanity Enriches. —How poor the human mind would be without vanity! As it is, it resembles a well stacked and ever renewed ware-emporium that attracts buyers of every class: they can find almost everything, have almost everything, provided they bring with them the right kind of money—admiration....

13 minute read

Read Chapter

80

Senility and Death. —Apart from the demands made by religion, it may well be asked why it is more honorable in an aged man, who feels the decline of his powers, to await slow extinction than to fix a term to his existence himself? Suicide in such a case is a quite natural and due proceeding that ought to command respect as a triumph of reason: and did in fact command respect during the times of the masters of Greek philosophy and the bravest Roman patriots, who usually died by their own hand. Ea

41 minute read

Read Chapter

81

Delusions Regarding Victim and Regarding Evil Doer. —When the rich man takes a possession away from the poor man (for example, a prince who deprives a plebeian of his beloved) there arises in the mind of the poor man a delusion: he thinks the rich man must be wholly perverted to take from him the little that he has. But the rich man appreciates the value of a single possession much less because he is accustomed to many possessions, so that he cannot put himself in the place of the poor man and d

1 minute read

Read Chapter

82

The Soul's Skin. —As the bones, flesh, entrails and blood vessels are enclosed by a skin that renders the aspect of men endurable, so the impulses and passions of the soul are enclosed by vanity: it is the skin of the soul....

12 minute read

Read Chapter

83

Sleep of Virtue. —If virtue goes to sleep, it will be more vigorous when it awakes....

4 minute read

Read Chapter

84

Subtlety of Shame. —Men are not ashamed of obscene thoughts, but they are ashamed when they suspect that obscene thoughts are attributed to them....

7 minute read

Read Chapter

85

Naughtiness Is Rare. —Most people are too much absorbed in themselves to be bad....

4 minute read

Read Chapter

86

The Mite in the Balance. —We are praised or blamed, as the one or the other may be expedient, for displaying to advantage our power of discernment....

7 minute read

Read Chapter

87

Luke 18:14 Improved. —He that humbleth himself wisheth to be exalted....

3 minute read

Read Chapter

88

Prevention of Suicide. —There is a justice according to which we may deprive a man of life, but none that permits us to deprive him of death: this is merely cruelty....

9 minute read

Read Chapter

89

Vanity. —We set store by the good opinion of men, first because it is of use to us and next because we wish to give them pleasure (children their parents, pupils their teacher, and well disposed persons all others generally). Only when the good opinion of men is important to somebody, apart from personal advantage or the desire to give pleasure, do we speak of vanity. In this last case, a man wants to give himself pleasure, but at the expense of his fellow creatures, inasmuch as he inspires them

1 minute read

Read Chapter

90

Limits of the Love of Mankind. —Every man who has declared that some other man is an ass or a scoundrel, gets angry when the other man conclusively shows that the assertion was erroneous....

9 minute read

Read Chapter

91

Weeping Morality. —How much delight morality occasions! Think of the ocean of pleasing tears that has flowed from the narration of noble, great-hearted deeds!—This charm of life would disappear if the belief in complete irresponsibility gained the upper hand....

11 minute read

Read Chapter

92

Origin of Justice. —Justice (reasonableness) has its origin among approximate equals in power, as Thucydides (in the dreadful conferences of the Athenian and Melian envoys) has rightly conceived. Thus, where there exists no demonstrable supremacy and a struggle leads but to mutual, useless damage, the reflection arises that an understanding would best be arrived at and some compromise entered into. The reciprocal nature is hence the first nature of justice. Each party makes the other content ina

1 minute read

Read Chapter

93

Concerning the Law of the Weaker. —Whenever any party, for instance, a besieged city, yields to a stronger party, under stipulated conditions, the counter stipulation is that there be a reduction to insignificance, a burning and destruction of the city and thus a great damage inflicted upon the stronger party. Thus arises a sort of equalization principle upon the basis of which a law can be established. The enemy has an advantage to gain by its maintenance.—To this extent there is also a law bet

45 minute read

Read Chapter

94

The Three Phases of Morality Hitherto. —It is the first evidence that the animal has become human when his conduct ceases to be based upon the immediately expedient, but upon the permanently useful; when he has, therefore, grown utilitarian, capable of purpose. Thus is manifested the first rule of reason. A still higher stage is attained when he regulates his conduct upon the basis of honor, by means of which he gains mastery of himself and surrenders his desires to principles; this lifts him fa

1 minute read

Read Chapter

95

Ethic of the Developed Individual. —Hitherto the altruistic has been looked upon as the distinctive characteristic of moral conduct, and it is manifest that it was the consideration of universal utility that prompted praise and recognition of altruistic conduct. Must not a radical departure from this point of view be imminent, now that it is being ever more clearly perceived that in the most personal considerations the most general welfare is attained: so that conduct inspired by the most person

1 minute read

Read Chapter

96

Usage and Ethic. —To be moral, virtuous, praiseworthy means to yield obedience to ancient law and hereditary usage. Whether this obedience be rendered readily or with difficulty is long immaterial. Enough that it be rendered. "Good" finally comes to mean him who acts in the traditional manner, as a result of heredity or natural disposition, that is to say does what is customary with scarcely an effort, whatever that may be (for example revenges injuries when revenge, as with the ancient Greeks,

1 minute read

Read Chapter

97

Delight in the Moral. —A potent species of joy (and thereby the source of morality) is custom. The customary is done more easily, better, therefore preferably. A pleasure is felt in it and experience thus shows that since this practice has held its own it must be good. A manner or moral that lives and lets live is thus demonstrated advantageous, necessary, in contradistinction to all new and not yet adopted practices. The custom is therefore the blending of the agreeable and the useful. Moreover

1 minute read

Read Chapter

98

Pleasure and Social Instinct. —Through his relations with other men, man derives a new species of delight in those pleasurable emotions which his own personality affords him; whereby the domain of pleasurable emotions is made infinitely more comprehensive. No doubt he has inherited many of these feelings from the brutes, which palpably feel delight when they sport with one another, as mothers with their young. So, too, the sexual relations must be taken into account: they make every young woman

57 minute read

Read Chapter

99

The Guiltless Nature of So-Called Bad Acts. —All "bad" acts are inspired by the impulse to self preservation or, more accurately, by the desire for pleasure and for the avoidance of pain in the individual. Thus are they occasioned, but they are not, therefore, bad. "Pain self prepared" does not exist, except in the brains of the philosophers, any more than "pleasure self prepared" (sympathy in the Schopenhauer sense). In the condition anterior to the state we kill the creature, be it man or ape,

1 minute read

Read Chapter

100

Shame. —Shame exists wherever a "mystery" exists: but this is a religious notion which in the earlier period of human civilization had great vogue. Everywhere there were circumscribed spots to which access was denied on account of some divine law, except in special circumstances. At first these spots were quite extensive, inasmuch as stipulated areas could not be trod by the uninitiated, who, when near them, felt tremors and anxieties. This sentiment was frequently transferred to other relations

1 minute read

Read Chapter

101

Judge Not. —Care must be taken, in the contemplation of earlier ages, that there be no falling into unjust scornfulness. The injustice in slavery, the cruelty in the subjugation of persons and peoples must not be estimated by our standard. For in that period the instinct of justice was not so highly developed. Who dare reproach the Genoese Calvin for burning the physician Servetus at the stake? It was a proceeding growing out of his convictions. And the Inquisition, too, had its justification. T

1 minute read

Read Chapter

102

" Man Always Does Right. "—We do not blame nature when she sends a thunder storm and makes us wet: why then do we term the man who inflicts injury immoral? Because in the latter case we assume a voluntary, ruling, free will, and in the former necessity. But this distinction is a delusion. Moreover, even the intentional infliction of injury is not, in all circumstances termed immoral. Thus, we kill a fly intentionally without thinking very much about it, simply because its buzzing about is disagr

1 minute read

Read Chapter

103

The Inoffensive in Badness. —Badness has not for its object the infliction of pain upon others but simply our own satisfaction as, for instance, in the case of thirst for vengeance or of nerve excitation. Every act of teasing shows what pleasure is caused by the display of our power over others and what feelings of delight are experienced in the sense of domination. Is there, then, anything immoral in feeling pleasure in the pain of others? Is malicious joy devilish, as Schopenhauer says? In the

1 minute read

Read Chapter

104

Self Defence. —If self defence is in general held a valid justification, then nearly every manifestation of so called immoral egoism must be justified, too. Pain is inflicted, robbery or killing done in order to maintain life or to protect oneself and ward off harm. A man lies when cunning and delusion are valid means of self preservation. To injure intentionally when our safety and our existence are involved, or the continuance of our well being, is conceded to be moral. The state itself injure

1 minute read

Read Chapter

105

Justice that Rewards. —Whoever has fully understood the doctrine of absolute irresponsibility can no longer include the so called rewarding and punishing justice in the idea of justice, if the latter be taken to mean that to each be given his due. For he who is punished does not deserve the punishment. He is used simply as a means to intimidate others from certain acts. Equally, he who is rewarded does not merit the reward. He could not act any differently than he did act. Hence the reward has o

1 minute read

Read Chapter

106

The Water Fall. —At the sight of a water fall we may opine that in the countless curves, spirations and dashes of the waves we behold freedom of the will and of the impulses. But everything is compulsory, everything can be mathematically calculated. Thus it is, too, with human acts. We would be able to calculate in advance every single action if we were all knowing, as well as every advance in knowledge, every delusion, every bad deed. The acting individual himself is held fast in the illusion o

46 minute read

Read Chapter

107

Non-Responsibility and Non-Guilt. —The absolute irresponsibility of man for his acts and his nature is the bitterest drop in the cup of him who has knowledge, if he be accustomed to behold in responsibility and duty the patent of nobility of his human nature. All his estimates, preferences, dislikes are thus made worthless and false. His deepest sentiment, with which he honored the sufferer, the hero, sprang from an error. He may no longer praise, no longer blame, for it is irrational to blame a

3 minute read

Read Chapter

108

The Double Contest Against Evil. —If an evil afflicts us we can either so deal with it as to remove its cause or else so deal with it that its effect upon our feeling is changed: hence look upon the evil as a benefit of which the uses will perhaps first become evident in some subsequent period. Religion and art (and also the metaphysical philosophy) strive to effect an alteration of the feeling, partly by an alteration of our judgment respecting the experience (for example, with the aid of the d

1 minute read

Read Chapter

109

Sorrow is Knowledge. —How willingly would not one exchange the false assertions of the homines religiosi that there is a god who commands us to be good, who is the sentinel and witness of every act, every moment, every thought, who loves us, who plans our welfare in every misfortune—how willingly would not one exchange these for truths as healing, beneficial and grateful as those delusions! But there are no such truths. Philosophy can at most set up in opposition to them other metaphysical plaus

1 minute read

Read Chapter

110

The Truth in Religion. —In the ages of enlightenment justice was not done to the importance of religion, of this there can be no doubt. It is also equally certain that in the ensuing reaction of enlightenment, the demands of justice were far exceeded inasmuch as religion was treated with love, even with infatuation and proclaimed as a profound, indeed the most profound knowledge of the world, which science had but to divest of its dogmatic garb in order to possess "truth" in its unmythical form.

3 minute read

Read Chapter

111

Origin of Religious Worship. —Let us transport ourselves back to the times in which religious life flourished most vigorously and we will find a fundamental conviction prevalent which we no longer share and which has resulted in the closing of the door to religious life once for all so far as we are concerned: this conviction has to do with nature and intercourse with her. In those times nothing is yet known of nature's laws. Neither for earth nor for heaven is there a must. A season, sunshine,

6 minute read

Read Chapter

112

At the Contemplation of Certain Ancient Sacrificial Proceedings. —How many sentiments are lost to us is manifest in the union of the farcical, even of the obscene, with the religious feeling. The feeling that this mixture is possible is becoming extinct. We realize the mixture only historically, in the mysteries of Demeter and Dionysos and in the Christian Easter festivals and religious mysteries. But we still perceive the sublime in connection with the ridiculous, and the like, the emotional wi

26 minute read

Read Chapter

113

Christianity as Antiquity. —When on a Sunday morning we hear the old bells ringing, we ask ourselves: Is it possible? All this for a Jew crucified two thousand years ago who said he was God's son? The proof of such an assertion is lacking.—Certainly, the Christian religion constitutes in our time a protruding bit of antiquity from very remote ages and that its assertions are still generally believed—although men have become so keen in the scrutiny of claims—constitutes the oldest relic of this i

1 minute read

Read Chapter

114

The Un-Greek in Christianity. —The Greeks did not look upon the Homeric gods above them as lords nor upon themselves beneath as servants, after the fashion of the Jews. They saw but the counterpart as in a mirror of the most perfect specimens of their own caste, hence an ideal, but no contradiction of their own nature. There was a feeling of mutual relationship, resulting in a mutual interest, a sort of alliance. Man thinks well of himself when he gives himself such gods and places himself in a

1 minute read

Read Chapter

115

Being Religious to Some Purpose. —There are certain insipid, traffic-virtuous people to whom religion is pinned like the hem of some garb of a higher humanity. These people do well to remain religious: it adorns them. All who are not versed in some professional weapon—including tongue and pen as weapons—are servile: to all such the Christian religion is very useful, for then their servility assumes the aspect of Christian virtue and is amazingly adorned.—People whose daily lives are empty and co

30 minute read

Read Chapter

116

The Everyday Christian. —If Christianity, with its allegations of an avenging God, universal sinfulness, choice of grace, and the danger of eternal damnation, were true, it would be an indication of weakness of mind and character not to be a priest or an apostle or a hermit, and toil for one's own salvation. It would be irrational to lose sight of one's eternal well being in comparison with temporary advantage: Assuming these dogmas to be generally believed, the every day Christian is a pitiable

33 minute read

Read Chapter

117

Concerning the Cleverness of Christianity. —It is a master stroke of Christianity to so emphasize the unworthiness, sinfulness and degradation of men in general that contempt of one's fellow creatures becomes impossible. "He may sin as much as he pleases, he is not by nature different from me. It is I who in every way am unworthy and contemptible." So says the Christian to himself. But even this feeling has lost its keenest sting for the Christian does not believe in his individual degradation.

29 minute read

Read Chapter

118

Personal Change. —As soon as a religion rules, it has for its opponents those who were its first disciples....

5 minute read

Read Chapter

119

Fate of Christianity. —Christianity arose to lighten the heart, but now it must first make the heart heavy in order to be able to lighten it afterwards. Christianity will consequently go down....

9 minute read

Read Chapter

120

The Testimony of Pleasure. —The agreeable opinion is accepted as true. This is the testimony of pleasure (or as the church says, the evidence of strength) of which all religions are so proud, although they should all be ashamed of it. If a belief did not make blessed it would not be believed. How little it would be worth, then!...

17 minute read

Read Chapter

121

Dangerous Play. —Whoever gives religious feeling room, must then also let it grow. He can do nothing else. Then his being gradually changes. The religious element brings with it affinities and kinships. The whole circle of his judgment and feeling is clouded and draped in religious shadows. Feeling cannot stand still. One should be on one's guard....

16 minute read

Read Chapter

122

The Blind Pupil. —As long as one knows very well the strength and the weakness of one's dogma, one's art, one's religion, its strength is still low. The pupil and apostle who has no eye for the weaknesses of a dogma, a religion and so on, dazzled by the aspect of the master and by his own reverence for him, has, on that very account, generally more power than the master. Without blind pupils the influence of a man and his work has never become great. To give victory to knowledge, often amounts t

32 minute read

Read Chapter

123

The Breaking off of Churches. —There is not sufficient religion in the world merely to put an end to the number of religions....

6 minute read

Read Chapter

124

Sinlessness of Men. —If one have understood how "Sin came into the world," namely through errors of the reason, through which men in their intercourse with one another and even individual men looked upon themselves as much blacker and wickeder than was really the case, one's whole feeling is much lightened and man and the world appear together in such a halo of harmlessness that a sentiment of well being is instilled into one's whole nature. Man in the midst of nature is as a child left to its o

31 minute read

Read Chapter

125

Irreligiousness of Artists. —Homer is so much at home among his gods and is as a poet so good natured to them that he must have been profoundly irreligious. That which was brought to him by the popular faith—a mean, crude and partially repulsive superstition—he dealt with as freely as the Sculptor with his clay, therefore with the same freedom that Æschylus and Aristophanes evinced and with which in later times the great artists of the renaissance, and also Shakespeare and Goethe, drew their pic

23 minute read

Read Chapter

126

Art and Strength of False Interpretation. —All the visions, fears, exhaustions and delights of the saint are well known symptoms of sickness, which in him, owing to deep rooted religious and psychological delusions, are explained quite differently, that is not as symptoms of sickness.—So, too, perhaps, the demon of Socrates was nothing but a malady of the ear that he explained, in view of his predominant moral theory, in a manner different from what would be thought rational to-day. Nor is the c

43 minute read

Read Chapter

127

Reverence for Madness. —Because it was perceived that an excitement of some kind often made the head clearer and occasioned fortunate inspirations, it was concluded that the utmost excitement would occasion the most fortunate inspirations. Hence the frenzied being was revered as a sage and an oracle giver. A false conclusion lies at the bottom of all this....

16 minute read

Read Chapter

128

Promises of Wisdom. —Modern science has as its object as little pain as possible, as long a life as possible—hence a sort of eternal blessedness, but of a very limited kind in comparison with the promises of religion....

10 minute read

Read Chapter

129

Forbidden Generosity. —There is not enough of love and goodness in the world to throw any of it away on conceited people....

6 minute read

Read Chapter

130

Survival of Religious Training in the Disposition. —The Catholic Church, and before it all ancient education, controlled the whole domain of means through which man was put into certain unordinary moods and withdrawn from the cold calculation of personal advantage and from calm, rational reflection. A church vibrating with deep tones; gloomy, regular, restraining exhortations from a priestly band, who involuntarily communicate their own tension to their congregation and lead them to listen almos

50 minute read

Read Chapter

131

Religious After-Pains. —Though one believe oneself absolutely weaned away from religion, the process has yet not been so thorough as to make impossible a feeling of joy at the presence of religious feelings and dispositions without intelligible content, as, for example, in music; and if a philosophy alleges to us the validity of metaphysical hopes, through the peace of soul therein attainable, and also speaks of "the whole true gospel in the look of Raphael's Madonna," we greet such declarations

1 minute read

Read Chapter

132

Of the Christian Need of Salvation. —Careful consideration must render it possible to propound some explanation of that process in the soul of a Christian which is termed need of salvation, and to propound an explanation, too, free from mythology: hence one purely psychological. Heretofore psychological explanations of religious conditions and processes have really been in disrepute, inasmuch as a theology calling itself free gave vent to its unprofitable nature in this domain; for its principal

2 minute read

Read Chapter

133

Before we consider this condition in its further effects, we would admit to ourselves that man is betrayed into this condition not through his "fault" and "sin" but through a series of delusions of the reason; that it was the fault of the mirror if his own self appeared to him in the highest degree dark and hateful, and that that mirror was his own work, the very imperfect work of human imagination and judgment. In the first place a being capable of absolutely unegoistic conduct is as fabulous a

3 minute read

Read Chapter

134

If now, as stated, the Christian, through certain delusive feelings, is betrayed into self contempt, that is by a false and unscientific view of his acts and feelings, he must, nevertheless, perceive with the utmost amazement that this state of self contempt, of conscience pangs, of despair in particular, does not last, that there are hours during which all these things are wafted away from the soul and he feels himself once more free and courageous. The truth is that joy in his own being, the f

1 minute read

Read Chapter

135

Therefore a certain false psychology, a certain kind of imaginativeness in the interpretation of motives and experiences is the essential preliminary to being a Christian and to experiencing the need of salvation. Upon gaining an insight into this wandering of the reason and the imagination, one ceases to be a Christian....

14 minute read

Read Chapter

136

Of Christian Asceticism and Sanctity. —Much as some thinkers have exerted themselves to impart an air of the miraculous to those singular phenomena known as asceticism and sanctity, to question which or to account for which upon a rational basis would be wickedness and sacrilege, the temptation to this wickedness is none the less great. A powerful impulse of nature has in every age led to protest against such phenomena. At any rate science, inasmuch as it is the imitation of nature, permits the

1 minute read

Read Chapter

137

There is an obstinacy against oneself, certain sublimated forms of which are included in asceticism. Certain kinds of men are under such a strong necessity of exercising their power and dominating impulses that, if other objects are lacking or if they have not succeeded with other objects they will actually tyrannize over some portions of their own nature or over sections and stages of their own personality. Thus do many thinkers bring themselves to views which are far from likely to increase or

1 minute read

Read Chapter

138

Man is Not at All Hours Equally Moral ; this is established. If one's morality be judged according to one's capacity for great, self sacrificing resolutions and abnegations (which when continual, and made a habit are known as sanctity) one is, in affection, or disposition, the most moral: while higher excitement supplies wholly new impulses which, were one calm and cool as ordinarily, one would not deem oneself even capable of. How comes this? Apparently from the propinquity of all great and lof

1 minute read

Read Chapter

139

Even the Ascetic Seeks to Make Life Easier , and generally by means of absolute subjection to another will or to an all inclusive rule and ritual, pretty much as the Brahmin leaves absolutely nothing to his own volition but is guided in every moment of his life by some holy injunction or other. This subjection is a potent means of acquiring dominion over oneself. One is occupied, hence time does not bang heavy and there is no incitement of the personal will and of the individual passion. The dee

1 minute read

Read Chapter

140

After having discovered in many of the less comprehensible actions mere manifestations of pleasure in emotion for its own sake, I fancy I can detect in the self contempt which characterises holy persons, and also in their acts of self torture (through hunger and scourgings, distortions and chaining of the limbs, acts of madness) simply a means whereby such natures may resist the general exhaustion of their will to live (their nerves). They employ the most painful expedients to escape if only for

30 minute read

Read Chapter

141

The Most Usual Means by which the ascetic and the sanctified individual seeks to make life more endurable comprises certain combats of an inner nature involving alternations of victory and prostration. For this purpose an enemy is necessary and he is found in the so called "inner enemy." That is, the holy individual makes use of his tendency to vanity, domineering and pride, and of his mental longings in order to contemplate his life as a sort of continuous battle and himself as a battlefield, i

5 minute read

Read Chapter

142

To Sum Up All That Has Been Said : that condition of soul at which the saint or expectant saint is rejoiced is a combination of elements which we are all familiar with, except that under other influences than those of mere religious ideation they customarily arouse the censure of men in the same way that when combined with religion itself and regarded as the supreme attainment of sanctity, they are object of admiration and even of prayer—at least in more simple times. Very soon the saint turns u

1 minute read

Read Chapter

143

Not What the Saint is but what he was in the eyes of the non-sanctified gives him his historical importance. Because there existed a delusion respecting the saint, his soul states being falsely viewed and his personality being sundered as much as possible from humanity as a something incomparable and supernatural, because of these things he attained the extraordinary with which he swayed the imaginations of whole nations and whole ages. Even he knew himself not for even he regarded his dispositi

1 minute read

Read Chapter

144

It stands to reason that this sketch of the saint, made upon the model of the whole species, can be confronted with many opposing sketches that would create a more agreeable impression. There are certain exceptions among the species who distinguish themselves either by especial gentleness or especial humanity, and perhaps by the strength of their own personality. Others are in the highest degree fascinating because certain of their delusions shed a particular glow over their whole being, as is t

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Translator's Introduction.

The publication of Human, all-too-Human extends over the period 1878-1880. Of the two divisions which constitute the Second Part, “Miscellaneous Maxims and Opinions” appeared in 1879, and “The Wanderer and his Shadow” in 1880, Nietzsche being then in his thirty-sixth year. The Preface was added in 1886. The whole book forms Nietzsche's first lengthy contribution to literature. His previous works comprise only the philological treatises, The Birth of Tragedy , and the essays on Strauss, Schopenha

30 minute read

Read Chapter

2.

The Miscellaneous Maxims and Opinions were in the first place, like The Wanderer and His Shadow , published separately as continuations and appendices to the above-mentioned human, all-too human Book for Free Spirits : and at the same time, as a continuation and confirmation of an intellectual cure, consisting in a course of anti-romantic self-treatment, such as my instinct, which had always remained [pg 004] healthy, had itself discovered and prescribed against a temporary attack of the most da

2 minute read

Read Chapter

3.

It was then, in fact, high time to bid farewell, and I soon received proof. Richard Wagner, who seemed all-conquering, but was in reality only a decayed and despairing romantic, suddenly collapsed, helpless and broken, before the Christian Cross.... Was there not a single German with eyes in his head and sympathy in his heart for this appalling spectacle? Was I the only one whom he caused—suffering? In any case, the unexpected event illumined for me in one lightning flash the place that I had ab

3 minute read

Read Chapter

4.

Lonely now and miserably self-distrustful, I took sides, not without resentment, against myself and for everything that hurt me and was hard to me. Thus I once more found the way to that courageous pessimism that is the antithesis of all romantic fraud, and, as it seems to me to-day, the way to “myself,” to my task. That hidden masterful Something, for which we long have no name until at last it shows itself as our task—that tyrant in us exacts a terrible price for every attempt that we make to

2 minute read

Read Chapter

5.

It was then that I learnt the hermitical habit of [pg 007] speech acquired only by the most silent and suffering. I spoke without witnesses, or rather indifferent to the presence of witnesses, so as not to suffer from silence, I spoke of various things that did not concern me in a style that gave the impression that they did. Then, too, I learnt the art of showing myself cheerful, objective, inquisitive in the presence of all that is healthy and evil—is this, in an invalid, as it seems to me, hi

5 minute read

Read Chapter

6.

Should my experience—the history of an illness and a convalescence, for it resulted in a convalescence—be only my personal experience? and merely just my “Human, All-too-human” ? To-day I would fain believe the reverse, for I am becoming more and more confident that my books of travel were not penned for my sole benefit, as appeared for a time to be the case. May I, after six years of growing assurance, send them once more on a journey for an experiment?—May I commend them particularly to the ea

2 minute read

Read Chapter

7.

To express finally in a single formula my opposition [pg 010] to the romantic pessimism of the abstinent, the unfortunate, the conquered: there is a will to the tragic and to pessimism, which is a sign as much of the severity as of the strength of the intellect (taste, emotion, conscience). With this will in our hearts we do not fear, but we investigate ourselves the terrible and the problematical elements characteristic of all existence. Behind such a will stand courage and pride and the desire

45 minute read

Read Chapter

3.

The Wooers of Reality. —He who realises at last how long and how thoroughly he has been befooled, embraces out of spite even the ugliest reality. So that in the long run of the world's history the best men have always been wooers of reality, for the best have always been longest and most thoroughly deceived....

32 minute read

Read Chapter

4.

Advance of Freethinking. —The difference between past and present freethinking cannot better be characterised than by that aphorism for the recognition and expression of which all the fearlessness of the eighteenth century was needed, and which even then, if measured by our modern view, sinks into an unconscious naïveté. I mean Voltaire's aphorism, “croyez-moi, mon ami, l'erreur aussi a son mérite.”...

39 minute read

Read Chapter

5.

A Hereditary Sin of Philosophers. —Philosophers have at all times appropriated and corrupted the maxims of censors of men (moralists), by taking them over without qualification and trying to prove as necessary what the moralists only meant as a rough indication or as a truth suited to their fellow-countrymen or fellow-townsmen for a single decade. Moreover, the philosophers thought that they were thereby raising themselves above the moralists! Thus it will be found that the celebrated teachings

2 minute read

Read Chapter

6.

Against Visionaries. —The visionary denies the truth to himself, the liar only to others....

11 minute read

Read Chapter

7.

Enmity to Light. —If we make it clear to any one that, strictly, he can never speak of truth, but only of probability and of its degrees, we generally discover, from the undisguised joy of our pupil, how greatly men prefer the uncertainty of their intellectual horizon, and how in their heart of hearts they hate truth because of its definiteness.—Is this due to a secret fear felt by all that the light of truth may at some time be turned too brightly upon themselves? To their wish to be of some co

1 minute read

Read Chapter

8.

Christian Scepticism. —Pilate, with his question, “What is Truth?” is now gleefully brought on the scene as an advocate of Christ, in order to cast suspicion on all that is known or knowable as being mere appearance, and to erect the Cross on the appalling background of the Impossibility of Knowledge....

30 minute read

Read Chapter

9.

“ Natural Law, ” a Phrase of Superstition. —When you talk so delightedly of Nature acting according to law, you must either assume that all things in Nature follow their law from a voluntary obedience imposed by themselves—in which case you admire the morality of Nature: or you are enchanted with the idea of a creative mechanician, who has made a most cunning watch with human beings as accessory ornaments.—Necessity, through the expression, “conformity to law,” then becomes more human and a coig

54 minute read

Read Chapter

10.

Fallen Forfeit to History. —All misty philosophers and obscurers of the world, in other words all metaphysicians of coarse or refined texture [pg 017] are seized with eyeache, earache, and toothache when they begin to suspect that there is truth in the saying: “All philosophy has from now fallen forfeit to history.” In view of their aches and pains we may pardon them for throwing stones and filth at him who talks like this, but this teaching may itself thereby become dirty and disreputable for a

57 minute read

Read Chapter

11.

The Pessimist of the Intellect. —He whose intellect is really free will think freely about the intellect itself, and will not shut his eyes to certain terrible aspects of its source and tendency. For this reason others will perhaps designate him the bitterest opponent of free thought and give him that dreadful, abusive name of “pessimist of the intellect” : accustomed as they are to typify a man not by his strong point, his pre-eminent virtue, but by the quality that is most foreign to his natur

52 minute read

Read Chapter

12.

The Metaphysicians' Knapsack. —To all who talk so boastfully of the scientific basis of their metaphysics it is best to make no reply. It is enough to tug at the bundle that they rather shyly keep hidden behind their backs. If one succeeds in lifting it, the results of that “scientific basis” come to light, to their great confusion: a dear little “God,” a genteel immortality, perhaps a little spiritualism, and in any case [pg 018] a complicated mass of poor-sinners'-misery and pharisee-arrogance

52 minute read

Read Chapter

13.

Occasional Harmfulness of Knowledge. —The utility involved in the unchecked investigation of knowledge is so constantly proved in a hundred different ways that one must remember to include in the bargain the subtler and rarer damage which individuals must suffer on that account. The chemist cannot avoid occasionally being poisoned or burnt at his experiments. What applies to the chemist, is true of the whole of our culture. This, it may be added, clearly shows that knowledge should provide itsel

56 minute read

Read Chapter

14.

The Craving of the Philistine. —The Philistine thinks that his most urgent need is a purple patch or turban of metaphysics, nor will he let it slip. Yet he would look less ridiculous without this adornment....

23 minute read

Read Chapter

15.

Enthusiasts. —With all that enthusiasts say in favour of their gospel or their master they are defending themselves, however much they comport themselves as the judges and not the accused: because they are involuntarily reminded almost at every moment that they are exceptions and have to assert their legitimacy....

30 minute read

Read Chapter

16.

The Good Seduces to Life. —All good things, even all good books that are written against life, are strong means of attraction to life....

16 minute read

Read Chapter

17.

The Happiness of the Historian. — “When we hear the hair-splitting metaphysicians and prophets of the after-world speak, we others feel indeed that we are the ‘poor in spirit,’ but that ours is the heavenly kingdom of change, with spring and autumn, summer and winter, and theirs the after-world, with its grey, everlasting frosts and shadows.” Thus soliloquised a man as he walked in the morning sunshine, a man who in his pursuit of history has constantly changed not only his mind but his heart. I

1 minute read

Read Chapter

18.

Three Varieties of Thinkers. —There are streaming, flowing, trickling mineral springs, and three corresponding varieties of thinkers. The layman values them by the volume of the water, the expert by the contents of the water—in other words, by the elements in them that are not water....

28 minute read

Read Chapter

19.

The Picture of Life. —The task of painting the picture of life, often as it has been attempted [pg 020] by poets and philosophers, is nevertheless irrational. Even in the hands of the greatest artist-thinkers, pictures and miniatures of one life only—their own—have come into being, and indeed no other result is possible. While in the process of developing, a thing that develops, cannot mirror itself as fixed and permanent, as a definite object ....

51 minute read

Read Chapter

20.

Truth will have no Gods before it. —The belief in truth begins with the doubt of all truths in which one has previously believed....

14 minute read

Read Chapter

21.

Where Silence is Required. —If we speak of freethinking as of a highly dangerous journey over glaciers and frozen seas, we find that those who do not care to travel on this track are offended, as if they had been reproached with cowardice and weak knees. The difficult, which we find to be beyond our powers, must not even be mentioned in our presence....

36 minute read

Read Chapter

22.

Historia in Nuce. —The most serious parody I ever heard was this: “In the beginning was the nonsense, and the nonsense was with God, and the nonsense was God.” 4...

19 minute read

Read Chapter

23.

Incurable. —The idealist is incorrigible: if he be thrown out of his Heaven, he makes himself a suitable ideal out of Hell. Disillusion him, and lo! he will embrace disillusionment with no less ardour than he recently embraced hope. In so far as his impulse belongs to the great incurable impulses of human nature, he can bring about tragic destinies and later become a subject for tragedy himself, for such tragedies as deal with the incurable, implacable, inevitable in the lot and character of man

48 minute read

Read Chapter

24.

Applause Itself as the Continuation of the Play. —Sparkling eyes and an amiable smile are the tributes of applause paid to all the great comedy of world and existence—but this applause is a comedy within a comedy, meant to tempt the other spectators to a plaudite amici ....

27 minute read

Read Chapter

25.

Courage for Tedium. —He who has not the courage to allow himself and his work to be considered tedious, is certainly no intellect of the first rank, whether in the arts or in the sciences.—A scoffer, who happened for once in a way to be a thinker, might add, with a glance at the world and at history: “God did not possess this courage, for he wanted to make and he made all things so interesting.”...

44 minute read

Read Chapter

26.

From the Most Intimate Experience of the Thinker. —Nothing is harder for a man than to conceive of an object impersonally, I mean to see in it an object and not a person. One may even ask whether it is possible for him to dispense for a single moment with the machinery of his instinct to create and construct a personality. After all, he associates with his thoughts, however abstract they may be, as with individuals, against whom he must fight or to whom he must attach himself, whom he must prote

10 minute read

Read Chapter

27.

The Obscurantists. —The essential feature of the black art of obscurantism is not its intention of clouding the brain, but its attempt to darken [pg 025] the picture of the world and cloud our idea of existence. It often employs the method of thwarting all illumination of the intellect, but at times it uses the very opposite means, seeking by the highest refinement of the intellect to induce a satiety of the intellect's fruits. Hair-splitting metaphysicians, who pave the way for scepticism and b

1 minute read

Read Chapter

28.

By what Kind of Philosophy Art is Corrupted. —When the mists of a metaphysical-mystical philosophy succeed in making all æsthetic phenomena opaque , it follows that these phenomena cannot be comparatively valued, inasmuch as each becomes individually inexplicable. But when once they cannot be compared for the sake of valuation, there arises an entire absence-of-criticism, a blind indulgence. From this source springs a continual diminution of the enjoyment of art (which is only distinguished from

1 minute read

Read Chapter

29.

On Gethsemane. —The most painful thing a thinker can say to artists is: “Could ye not watch with me one hour?”...

16 minute read

Read Chapter

30.

At the Loom. —There are many (artists and women, for instance) who work against the few that take a pleasure in untying the knot of things and unravelling their woof. The former always want to weave the woof together again and entangle it and so turn the conceived into the unconceived and if possible inconceivable. Whatever the result may be, the woof and knot always look rather untidy, because too many hands are working and tugging at them....

43 minute read

Read Chapter

31.

In the Desert of Science. —As the man of science proceeds on his modest and toilsome wanderings, which must often enough be journeys in the desert, he is confronted with those brilliant mirages known as “philosophic systems.” With magic powers of deception they show him that the solution of all riddles and the most refreshing draught of true water of life are close at hand. His weary heart rejoices, and he well-nigh touches with [pg 027] his lips the goal of all scientific endurance and hardship

1 minute read

Read Chapter

32.

The So-called “ Real Reality. ” —When the poet depicts the various callings—such as those of the warrior, the silk-weaver, the sailor—he feigns to know all these things thoroughly, to be an expert. Even in the exposition of human actions and destinies he behaves as if he had been present at the spinning of the whole web of existence. In so far he is an impostor. He practises his frauds on pure ignoramuses, and that is why he succeeds. They praise him for his deep, genuine knowledge, and lead him

2 minute read

Read Chapter

33.

The Wish to be Just and the Wish to be a Judge. —Schopenhauer, whose profound understanding of what is human and all-too-human and original sense for facts was not a little impaired by the bright leopard-skin of his metaphysic (the skin must first be pulled off him if one wants to find the real moralist genius beneath)—Schopenhauer makes this admirable distinction, wherein he comes far nearer the mark than he would himself dare to admit: “Insight into the stern necessity of human actions is the

6 minute read

Read Chapter

34.

Sacrifice. —You hold that sacrifice is the hallmark of moral action?—Just consider whether in every action that is done with deliberation, in the best as in the worst, there be not a sacrifice....

20 minute read

Read Chapter

35.

Against the “ Triers of the Reins ” of Morality. —One must know the best and the worst that a man is capable of in theory and in practice before one can judge how strong his moral nature is and can be. But this is an experiment that one can never carry out....

29 minute read

Read Chapter

36.

Serpent's Tooth. —Whether we have a serpent's tooth or not we cannot know before some one has set his heel upon our necks. A wife or a mother could say: until some one has put his heel upon the neck of our darling, our child.—Our character is determined more by the absence of certain experiences than by the experiences we have undergone....

36 minute read

Read Chapter

37.

Deception in Love. —We forget and purposely banish from our minds a good deal of our past. In other words, we wish our picture, that beams at us from the past, to belie us, to flatter our vanity—we are constantly engaged in this self-deception. And you who talk and boast so much of “self-oblivion in love,” of the “absorption of the ego in the other person” —you hold that this is something different? So you break the mirror, throw yourselves into another personality that you admire, and enjoy the

1 minute read

Read Chapter

38.

To the Denier of his Vanity. —He who denies his own vanity usually possesses it in so brutal a form that he instinctively shuts his eyes to avoid the necessity of despising himself. Why the Stupid so often Become Malignant. —To those arguments of our adversary against which our head feels too weak our heart replies by throwing suspicion on the motives of his arguments. The Art of Moral Exceptions. —An art that points out and glorifies the exceptional cases of morality—where the good becomes bad

36 minute read

Read Chapter

41.

Enjoyment and Non-enjoyment of Poisons. —The only decisive argument that has always deterred men from drinking a poison is not that it is deadly, but that it has an unpleasant taste....

18 minute read

Read Chapter

42.

The World without Consciousness of Sin. —If men only committed such deeds as do not give rise to a bad conscience, the human world would still look bad and rascally enough, but not so sickly and pitiable as at present.—Enough wicked men without conscience have existed at all times, and many good honest folk lack the feeling of pleasure in a good conscience....

36 minute read

Read Chapter

43.

The Conscientious. —It is more convenient to follow one's conscience than one's intelligence, for at every failure conscience finds an excuse and an encouragement in itself. That is why there are so many conscientious and so few intelligent people....

24 minute read

Read Chapter

44.

Opposite Means of Avoiding Bitterness. —One temperament finds it useful to be able to give vent to its disgust in words, being made sweeter by speech. Another reaches its full bitterness only by speaking out: it is more advisable for it to have to gulp down something—the restraint that men of this [pg 034] stamp place upon themselves in the presence of enemies and superiors improves their character and prevents it from becoming too acrid and sour....

44 minute read

Read Chapter

45.

Not to be Too Dejected. —To get bed-sores is unpleasant, but no proof against the merits of the cure that prescribes that you should take to your bed. Men who have long lived outside themselves, and have at last devoted themselves to the inward philosophic life, know that one can also get sores of character and intellect. This, again, is on the whole no argument against the chosen way of life, but necessitates a few small exceptions and apparent relapses....

47 minute read

Read Chapter

46.

The Human “ Thing in Itself. ” —The most vulnerable and yet most unconquerable of things is human vanity: nay, through being wounded its strength increases and can grow to giant proportions....

22 minute read

Read Chapter

47.

The Farce of Many Industrious Persons. —By an excess of effort they win leisure for themselves, and then they can do nothing with it but count the hours until the tale is ended....

19 minute read

Read Chapter

48.

The Possession of Joy Abounding. —He that has joy abounding must be a good man, but perhaps [pg 035] he is not the cleverest of men, although he has reached the very goal towards which the cleverest man is striving with all his cleverness....

31 minute read

Read Chapter

49.

In the Mirror of Nature. —Is not a man fairly well described, when we are told that he likes to walk between tall fields of golden corn: that he prefers the forest and flower colours of sere and chilly autumn to all others, because they point to something more beautiful than Nature has ever attained: that he feels as much at home under big broad-leaved walnut trees as among his nearest kinsfolk: that in the mountains his greatest joy is to come across those tiny distant lakes from which the very

2 minute read

Read Chapter

50.

Power without Victory. —The strongest cognition (that of the complete non-freedom of the human will) is yet the poorest in results, for it has always had the mightiest of opponents—human vanity....

21 minute read

Read Chapter

51.

Pleasure and Error. —A beneficial influence on friends is exerted by one man unconsciously, through his nature; by another consciously, through isolated actions. Although the former nature is held to be the higher, the latter alone is allied to good conscience and pleasure—the pleasure in justification by good works, which rests upon a belief in the volitional character of our good and evil doing—that is to say, upon a mistake....

41 minute read

Read Chapter

52.

The Folly of Committing Injustice. —The injustice we have inflicted ourselves is far harder to bear than the injustice inflicted upon us by others (not always from moral grounds, be it observed). After all, the doer is always the sufferer—that is, if he be capable of feeling the sting of conscience or of perceiving that by his action he has armed society against himself and cut himself off. For this reason we should beware still more of doing than of suffering injustice, for the sake of our own

1 minute read

Read Chapter

53.

Envy with or without a Mouthpiece. —Ordinary envy is wont to cackle when the envied hen has laid an egg, thereby relieving itself and becoming milder. But there is a yet deeper envy that in such a case becomes dead silent, desiring that every mouth should be sealed and always more and more angry because this desire is not gratified. Silent envy grows in silence....

37 minute read

Read Chapter

54.

Anger as a Spy. —Anger exhausts the soul and brings its very dregs to light. Hence, if we know no other means of gaining certainty, we must understand how to arouse anger in our dependents and adversaries, in order to learn what is really done and thought to our detriment....

30 minute read

Read Chapter

55.

Defence Morally more Difficult than Attack. —The true heroic deed and masterpiece of [pg 038] the good man does not lie in attacking opinions and continuing to love their propounders, but in the far harder task of defending his own position without causing or intending to cause bitter heartburns to his opponent. The sword of attack is honest and broad, the sword of defence usually runs out to a needle point....

45 minute read

Read Chapter

56.

Honest towards Honesty. —One who is openly honest towards himself ends by being rather conceited about this honesty. He knows only too well why he is honest—for the same reason that another man prefers outward show and hypocrisy....

23 minute read

Read Chapter

57.

Coals of Fire. —The heaping of coals of fire on another's head is generally misunderstood and falls flat, because the other knows himself to be just as much in the right, and on his side too has thought of collecting coals....

24 minute read

Read Chapter

58.

Dangerous Books. —A man says: “Judging from my own case, I find that this book is harmful.” Let him but wait, and perhaps one day he will confess that the book did him a great service by thrusting forward and bringing to light the hidden disease of his soul.—Altered opinions alter not at all (or very little) the character of a man: but they illuminate individual facets of his personality, which hitherto, in another constellation of opinions, had remained dark and unrecognisable....

48 minute read

Read Chapter

59.

Simulated Pity. —We simulate pity when we wish to show ourselves superior to the feeling of animosity, but generally in vain. This point is not noticed without a considerable enhancement of that feeling of animosity....

22 minute read

Read Chapter

60.

Open Contradiction often Conciliatory. —At the moment when a man openly makes known his difference of opinion from a well-known party leader, the whole world thinks that he must be angry with the latter. Sometimes, however, he is just on the point of ceasing to be angry with him. He ventures to put himself on the same plane as his opponent, and is free from the tortures of suppressed envy....

41 minute read

Read Chapter

61.

Seeing our Light Shining. —In the darkest hour of depression, sickness, and guilt, we are still glad to see others taking a light from us and making use of us as of the disk of the moon. By this roundabout route we derive some light from our own illuminating faculty....

30 minute read

Read Chapter

62.

Fellowship in Joy. 5 —The snake that stings us means to hurt us and rejoices in so doing: the lowest animal can picture to itself the pain of others. [pg 040] But to picture to oneself the joy of others and to rejoice thereat is the highest privilege of the highest animals, and again, amongst them, is the property only of the most select specimens—accordingly a rare “human thing.” Hence there have been philosophers who denied fellowship in joy....

57 minute read

Read Chapter

63.

Supplementary Pregnancy. —Those who have arrived at works and deeds are in an obscure way, they know not how, all the more pregnant with them, as if to prove supplementarily that these are their children and not those of chance....

24 minute read

Read Chapter

64.

Hard-hearted from Vanity. —Just as justice is so often a cloak for weakness, so men who are fairly intelligent, but weak, sometimes attempt dissimulation from ambitious motives and purposely show themselves unjust and hard, in order to leave behind them the impression of strength....

28 minute read

Read Chapter

65.

Humiliation. —If in a large sack of profit we find a single grain of humiliation we still make a wry face even at our good luck....

14 minute read

Read Chapter

66.

Extreme Herostratism. 6 —There might be [pg 041] Herostratuses who set fire to their own temple, in which their images are honoured....

22 minute read

Read Chapter

67.

A World of Diminutives. —The fact that all that is weak and in need of help appeals to the heart induces in us the habit of designating by diminutive and softening terms all that appeals to our hearts—and accordingly making such things weak and clinging to our imaginations....

30 minute read

Read Chapter

68.

The Bad Characteristic of Sympathy. —Sympathy has a peculiar impudence for its companion. For, wishing to help at all costs, sympathy is in no perplexity either as to the means of assistance or as to the nature and cause of the disease, and goes on courageously administering all its quack medicines to restore the health and reputation of the patient....

35 minute read

Read Chapter

69.

Importunacy. —There is even an importunacy in relation to works, and the act of associating oneself from early youth on an intimate footing with the illustrious works of all times evinces an entire absence of shame.—Others are only importunate from ignorance, not knowing with whom they have to do—for instance classical scholars young and old in relation to the works of the Greeks....

37 minute read

Read Chapter

70.

The Will is Ashamed of the Intellect. —In all coolness we make reasonable plans against our passions. But we make the most serious mistake in this connection in being often ashamed, when the design has to be carried out, of the coolness and calculation with which we conceived it. So we do just the unreasonable thing, from that sort of defiant magnanimity that every passion involves....

37 minute read

Read Chapter

71.

Why the Sceptics Offend Morality. —He who takes his morality solemnly and seriously is enraged against the sceptics in the domain of morals. For where he lavishes all his force, he wishes others to marvel but not to investigate and doubt. Then there are natures whose last shred of morality is just the belief in morals. They behave in the same way towards sceptics, if possible still more passionately....

41 minute read

Read Chapter

72.

Shyness. —All moralists are shy, because they know they are confounded with spies and traitors, so soon as their penchant is noticed. Besides, they are generally conscious of being impotent in action, for in the midst of work the motives of their activity almost withdraw their attention from the work....

30 minute read

Read Chapter

73.

A Danger to Universal Morality. —People who are at the same time noble and honest come [pg 043] to deify every devilry that brings out their honesty, and to suspend for a time the balance of their moral judgment....

27 minute read

Read Chapter

74.

The Saddest Error. —It is an unpardonable offence when one discovers that where one was convinced of being loved, one is only regarded as a household utensil and decoration, whereby the master of the house can find an outlet for his vanity before his guests....

28 minute read

Read Chapter

75.

Love and Duality. —What else is love but understanding and rejoicing that another lives, works, and feels in a different and opposite way to ourselves? That love may be able to bridge over the contrasts by joys, we must not remove or deny those contrasts. Even self-love presupposes an irreconcileable duality (or plurality) in one person....

34 minute read

Read Chapter

76.

Signs from Dreams. —What one sometimes does not know and feel accurately in waking hours—whether one has a good or a bad conscience as regards some person—is revealed completely and unambiguously by dreams....

22 minute read

Read Chapter

77.

Debauchery. —Not joy but joylessness is the mother of debauchery....

7 minute read

Read Chapter

78.

Reward and Punishment. —No one accuses without an underlying notion of punishment and revenge, even when he accuses his fate or himself. All complaint is accusation, all self-congratulation is praise. Whether we do one or the other, we always make some one responsible....

27 minute read

Read Chapter

79.

Doubly Unjust. —We sometimes advance truth by a twofold injustice: when we see and represent consecutively the two sides of a case which we are not in a position to see together, but in such a way that every time we mistake or deny the other side, fancying that what we see is the whole truth....

31 minute read

Read Chapter

80.

Mistrust. —Self-mistrust does not always proceed uncertainly and shyly, but sometimes in a furious rage, having worked itself into a frenzy in order not to tremble....

17 minute read

Read Chapter

81.

Philosophy of Parvenus. —If you want to be a personality you must even hold your shadow in honour....

12 minute read

Read Chapter

82.

Knowing how to Wash Oneself Clean. —We must know how to emerge cleaner from unclean conditions, and, if necessary, how to wash ourselves even with dirty water....

18 minute read

Read Chapter

83.

Letting Yourself Go. —The more you let yourself go, the less others let you go....

11 minute read

Read Chapter

84.

The Innocent Rogue. —There is a slow, gradual path to vice and rascality of every description. In the end, the traveller is quite abandoned by the insect-swarms of a bad conscience, and although a thorough scoundrel he walks in innocence....

24 minute read

Read Chapter

85.

Making Plans. —Making plans and conceiving projects involves many agreeable sentiments. He that had the strength to be nothing but a contriver of plans all his life would be a happy man. But one must occasionally have a rest from this activity by carrying a plan into execution, and then comes anger and sobriety....

31 minute read

Read Chapter

86.

Wherewith We See the Ideal. —Every efficient man is blocked by his efficiency and cannot look out freely from its prison. Had he not also a goodly share of imperfection, he could, by reason of his virtue, never arrive at an intellectual or moral freedom. Our shortcomings are the eyes with which we see the ideal....

31 minute read

Read Chapter

87.

Dishonest Praise. —Dishonest praise causes many more twinges of conscience than dishonest [pg 046] blame, probably only because we have exposed our capacity for judgment far more completely through excessive praise than through excessive and unjust blame....

29 minute read

Read Chapter

88.

How One Dies is Indifferent. —The whole way in which a man thinks of death during the prime of his life and strength is very expressive and significant for what we call his character. But the hour of death itself, his behaviour on the death-bed, is almost indifferent. The exhaustion of waning life, especially when old people die, the irregular or insufficient nourishment of the brain during this last period, the occasionally violent pain, the novel and untried nature of the whole position, and o

1 minute read

Read Chapter

89.

Morality and its Sacrifice. —The origin of morality may be traced to two ideas: “The community [pg 047] is of more value than the individual,” and “The permanent interest is to be preferred to the temporary.” The conclusion drawn is that the permanent interest of the community is unconditionally to be set above the temporary interest of the individual, especially his momentary well-being, but also his permanent interest and even the prolongation of his existence. Even if the individual suffers b

2 minute read

Read Chapter

90.

The Good and the Good Conscience. —You hold that all good things have at all times had a [pg 048] good conscience? Science, which is certainly a very good thing, has come into the world without such a conscience and quite free from all pathos, rather clandestinely, by roundabout ways, walking with shrouded or masked face like a sinner, and always with the feeling at least of being a smuggler. Good conscience has bad conscience for its stepping-stone, not for its opposite. For all that is good ha

1 minute read

Read Chapter

91.

Success Sanctifies the Intentions. —We should not shrink from treading the road to a virtue, even when we see clearly that nothing but egotism, and accordingly utility, personal comfort, fear, considerations of health, reputation, or glory, are the impelling motives. These motives are styled ignoble and selfish. Very well, but if they stimulate us to some virtue—for example, self-denial, dutifulness, order, thrift, measure, and moderation—let us listen to them, whatever their epithets may be! Fo

1 minute read

Read Chapter

92.

Dabblers in Christianity, not Christians. —So that is your Christianity!—To annoy humanity you praise “God and His Saints,” and again when you want to praise humanity you go so far that God and His Saints must be annoyed.—I wish you would at least learn Christian manners, as you are so deficient in the civility of the Christian heart....

33 minute read

Read Chapter

93.

The Religious and Irreligious Impression of Nature. —A true believer must be to us an object of veneration, but the same holds good of a true, sincere, convinced unbeliever. With men of the latter stamp we are near to the high mountains where mighty rivers have their source, and with believers we are under vigorous, shady, restful trees....

35 minute read

Read Chapter

94.

Judicial Murder. —The two greatest judicial murders 8 in the world's history are, to speak without exaggeration, concealed and well-concealed suicide. In both cases a man willed to die, and in both cases he let his breast be pierced by the sword in the hand of human injustice. “ Love. ” —The finest artistic conception wherein Christianity had the advantage over other religious [pg 050] systems lay in one word—Love. Hence it became the lyric religion (whereas in its two other creations Semitism b

47 minute read

Read Chapter

96.

The Fulfilment of Christianity. —In Christianity there is also an Epicurean trend of thought, starting from the idea that God can only demand of man, his creation and his image, what it is possible for man to fulfil, and accordingly that Christian virtue and perfection are attainable and often attained. Now, for instance, the belief in loving one's enemies—even if it is only a belief or fancy, and by no means a psychological reality (a real love)—gives unalloyed happiness, so long as it is genui

1 minute read

Read Chapter

97.

Of the Future of Christianity. —We may be allowed to form a conjecture as to the disappearance of Christianity and as to the places where it will be the slowest to retreat, if we consider where and for what reasons Protestantism spread with such startling rapidity. As is well known, Protestantism promised to do far more cheaply all that the old Church did, without costly masses, pilgrimages, and priestly pomp and circumstance. It spread particularly among the Northern nations, which were not so

2 minute read

Read Chapter

98.

Theatricality and Honesty of Unbelievers. —There is no book that contains in such abundance or expresses so faithfully all that man occasionally finds salutary—ecstatic inward happiness, ready for sacrifice or death in the belief in and contemplation of his truth—as the book that tells of Christ. From that book a clever man may learn all the means whereby a book can be made into a world-book, a vade-mecum for all, and especially that master-means of representing everything as discovered, nothing

7 minute read

Read Chapter

99.

The Poet as Guide to the Future. —All the surplus poetical force that still exists in modern humanity, but is not used under our conditions of life, should (without any deduction) be devoted to [pg 055] a definite goal—not to depicting the present nor to reviving and summarising the past, but to pointing the way to the future. Nor should this be so done as if the poet, like an imaginative political economist, had to anticipate a more favourable national and social state of things and picture the

3 minute read

Read Chapter

100.

The Muse as Penthesilea. 9 — “Better to rot than to be a woman without charm.” When once the Muse thinks thus, the end of her art is again at hand. But it can be a tragic and also a comic finale....

25 minute read

Read Chapter

101.

The Circuitous Path to the Beautiful. —If the beautiful is to be identified with that which gives pleasure—and thus sang the Muses once—the useful is often the necessary circuitous path to the beautiful, and has a perfect right to spurn the short-sighted censure of men who live for the moment, who will not wait, and who think that they can reach all good things without ever taking a circuitous path....

41 minute read

Read Chapter

102.

An Excuse for many a Transgression. —The ceaseless desire to create, the eternal looking outward [pg 057] of the artist, hinders him from becoming better and more beautiful as a personality: unless his craving for glory be great enough to compel him to exhibit in his relations with other men a growth corresponding to the growing beauty and greatness of his works. In any case he has but a limited measure of strength, and how could the proportion of strength that he spends on himself be of any ben

55 minute read

Read Chapter

103.

Satisfying the Best People. —If we have satisfied the best people of our time with our art, it is a sign that we shall not satisfy the best people of the succeeding period. We have indeed “lived for all time,” and the applause of the best people ensures our fame. 10...

28 minute read

Read Chapter

104.

Of One Substance. —If we are of one substance with a book or a work of art, we think in our heart of hearts that it must be excellent, and are offended if others find it ugly, over-spiced, or pretentious....

24 minute read

Read Chapter

105.

Speech and Emotion. —That speech is not given to us to communicate our emotions may be seen from the fact that all simple men are ashamed to seek for words to express their deeper feelings. These [pg 058] feelings are expressed only in actions, and even here such men blush if others seem to divine their motives. After all, among poets, to whom God generally denies this shame, the more noble are more monosyllabic in the language of emotion, and evince a certain constraint: whereas the real poets

58 minute read

Read Chapter

106.

A Mistake about a Privation. —He that has not for a long time been completely weaned from an art, and is still always at home in it, has no idea how small a privation it is to live without that art....

24 minute read

Read Chapter

107.

Three-quarter Strength. —A work that is meant to give an impression of health should be produced with three-quarters, at the most, of the strength of its creator. If he has gone to his farthest limit, the work excites the observer and disconcerts him by its tension. All good things have something lazy about them and lie like cows in the meadow....

36 minute read

Read Chapter

108.

Refusing to have Hunger as a Guest. —As refined fare serves a hungry man as well as and no better than coarser food, the more pretentious artist will not dream of inviting the hungry man to his meal....

23 minute read

Read Chapter

109.

Living without Art and Wine. —It is with works of art as with wine—it is better if one can do [pg 059] without both and keep to water, and if from the inner fire and inner sweetness of the soul the water spontaneously changes again into wine....

32 minute read

Read Chapter

110.

The Pirate-Genius. —The pirate-genius in art, who even knows how to deceive subtle minds, arises when some one unscrupulously and from youth upwards regards all good things, that are not protected by law, as the property of a particular person, as his legitimate spoil. Now all the good things of past ages and masters lie free around us, hedged about and protected by the reverential awe of the few who know them. To these few our robber-genius, by the force of his impudence, bids defiance and accu

58 minute read

Read Chapter

111.

To the Poets of Great Towns. —In the gardens of modern poetry it will clearly be observed that the sewers of great towns are too near. With the fragrance of flowers is mingled something that betrays abomination and putrescence. With pain I ask: “Must you poets always request wit and dirt to stand godfather, when an innocent and beautiful sensation has to be christened by you? Are you obliged to dress your noble goddess in a hood of devilry and caricature? But whence this necessity, this obligati

55 minute read

Read Chapter

112.

Of the Salt of Speech. —No one has ever explained why the Greek writers, having at command such an unparalleled wealth and power of language, made so sparing a use of their resources that every post-classical Greek book appears by comparison crude, over-coloured, and extravagant. It is said that towards the North Polar ice and in the hottest countries salt is becoming less and less used, whereas on the other hand the dwellers on the plains and by the coast in the more temperate zones use salt in

1 minute read

Read Chapter

113.

The Freest Writer. —In a book for free spirits one cannot avoid mention of Laurence Sterne, the man whom Goethe honoured as the freest spirit of his century. May he be satisfied with the honour of being called the freest writer of all times, in comparison with whom all others appear stiff, square-toed, intolerant, and downright boorish! In his case we should not speak of the clear and rounded but of “the endless melody” —if by this phrase we arrive at a name for an artistic style in which the de

6 minute read

Read Chapter

114.

A Choice Reality. —Just as the good prose writer only takes words that belong to the language of daily intercourse, though not by a long way all [pg 063] its words—whence arises a choice style—so the good poet of the future will only represent the real and turn his eyes away from all fantastic, superstitious, half-voiced, forgotten stories, to which earlier poets devoted their powers. Only reality, though by a long way not every reality—but a choice reality....

49 minute read

Read Chapter

115.

Degenerate Species of Art. —Side by side with the genuine species of art, those of great repose and great movement, there are degenerate species—weary, blasé art and excited art. Both would have their weakness taken for strength and wish to be confounded with the genuine species....

28 minute read

Read Chapter

116.

A Hero Impossible from Lack of Colour. —The typical poets and artists of our age like to compose their pictures upon a background of shimmering red, green, grey, and gold, on the background of nervous sensuality—a condition well understood by the children of this century. The drawback comes when we do not look at these pictures with the eyes of our century. Then we see that the great figures painted by these artists have something flickering, tremulous, and dizzy about them, and accordingly we d

58 minute read

Read Chapter

117.

Overladen Style. —The overladen style is a consequence of the impoverishment of the organising [pg 064] force together with a lavish stock of expedients and intentions. At the beginnings of art the very reverse conditions sometimes appear....

24 minute read

Read Chapter

118.

Pulchrum est paucorum hominum. —History and experience tell us that the significant grotesqueness that mysteriously excites the imagination and carries one beyond everyday reality, is older and grows more luxuriantly than the beautiful and reverence for the beautiful in art: and that it begins to flourish exceedingly when the sense for beauty is on the wane. For the vast majority of mankind this grotesque seems to be a higher need than the beautiful, presumably because it contains a coarser narc

47 minute read

Read Chapter

119.

Origins of Taste in Works of Art. —If we consider the primary germs of the artistic sense, and ask ourselves what are the various kinds of joy produced by the firstlings of art—as, for example, among savage tribes—we find first of all the joy of understanding what another means. Art in this case is a sort of conundrum, which causes its solver pleasure in his own quick and keen perceptions.—Then the roughest works of art remind us of the pleasant things we have actually experienced, and so give j

3 minute read

Read Chapter

120.

Not too Near. —It is a disadvantage for good thoughts when they follow too closely on one another, for they hide the view from each other. [pg 066] That is why great artists and writers have made an abundant use of the mediocre....

31 minute read

Read Chapter

121.

Roughness and Weakness. —Artists of all periods have made the discovery that in roughness lies a certain strength, and that not every one can be rough who wants to be: also that many varieties of weakness have a powerful effect on the emotions. From this source are derived many artistic substitutes, which not even the greatest and most conscientious artists can abstain from using....

36 minute read

Read Chapter

122.

Good Memory. —Many a man fails to become a thinker for the sole reason that his memory is too good....

12 minute read

Read Chapter

123.

Arousing instead of Appeasing Hunger. —Great artists fancy that they have taken full possession of a soul. In reality, and often to their painful disappointment, that soul has only been made more capacious and insatiable, so that a dozen greater artists could plunge into its depths without filling it up....

30 minute read

Read Chapter

124.

Artists' Anxiety. —The anxiety lest people may not believe that their figures are alive can mislead many artists of declining taste to portray these figures so that they appear as if mad. From the [pg 067] same anxiety, on the other hand, Greek artists of the earliest ages gave even dead and sorely wounded men that smile which they knew as the most vivid sign of life—careless of the actual forms bestowed by nature on life at its last gasp....

51 minute read

Read Chapter

125.

The Circle must be Completed. —He who follows a philosophy or a genre of art to the end of its career and beyond, understands from inner experience why the masters and disciples who come after have so often turned, with a depreciatory gesture, into a new groove. The circle must be described—but the individual, even the greatest, sits firm on his point of the circumference, with an inexorable look of obstinacy, as if the circle ought never to be completed....

47 minute read

Read Chapter

126.

The Older Art and the Soul of the Present. —Since every art becomes more and more adapted to the expression of spiritual states, of the more lively, delicate, energetic, and passionate states, the later masters, spoilt by these means of expression, do not feel at their ease in the presence of the old-time works of art. They feel as if the ancients had merely been lacking in the means of making their souls speak clearly, also perhaps in some necessary technical preliminaries. They think that they

3 minute read

Read Chapter

127.

Against the Disparagers of Brevity. —A brief dictum may be the fruit and harvest of long [pg 069] reflection. The reader, however, who is a novice in this field and has never considered the case in point, sees something embryonic in all brief dicta, not without a reproachful hint to the author, requesting him not to serve up such raw and ill-prepared food....

39 minute read

Read Chapter

128.

Against the Short-Sighted. —Do you think it is piece-work because it is (and must be) offered you in pieces?...

12 minute read

Read Chapter

129.

Readers of Aphorisms. —The worst readers of aphorisms are the friends of the author, if they make a point of referring the general to the particular instance to which the aphorism owes its origin. This namby-pamby attitude brings all the author's trouble to naught, and instead of a philosophic lesson and a philosophic frame of mind, they deservedly gain nothing but the satisfaction of a vulgar curiosity....

40 minute read

Read Chapter

130.

Readers' Insults. —The reader offers a two-fold insult to the author by praising his second book at the expense of his first (or vice versa ) and by expecting the author to be grateful to him on that account. The Exciting Element in the History of Art. —We fall into a state of terrible tension when we follow the history of an art—as, for example, that [pg 070] of Greek oratory—and, passing from master to master, observe their increasing precautions to obey the old and the new laws and all these

47 minute read

Read Chapter

132.

To the Great in Art. —That enthusiasm for some object which you, O great man, introduce into this world causes the intelligence of the many to be stunted. The knowledge of this fact spells humiliation. But the enthusiast wears his hump with pride and pleasure, and you have the consolation of feeling that you have increased the world's happiness....

35 minute read

Read Chapter

133.

Conscienceless Æsthetes. —The real fanatics of an artistic school are perhaps those utterly inartistic natures that are not even grounded in the elements of artistic study and creation, but are impressed with the strongest of all the elementary influences of an art. For them there is no æsthetic conscience—hence nothing to hold them back from fanaticism....

34 minute read

Read Chapter

134.

How the Soul should be Moved by the New Music. —The artistic purpose followed by the new music, in what is now forcibly but none too [pg 071] lucidly termed “endless melody,” can be understood by going into the sea, gradually losing one's firm tread on the bottom, and finally surrendering unconditionally to the fluid element. One has to swim . In the previous, older music one was forced, with delicate or stately or impassioned movement, to dance . The measure necessary for dancing, the observanc

3 minute read

Read Chapter

135.

Poet and Reality. —The Muse of the poet who is not in love with reality will not be reality, and will bear him children with hollow eyes and all too tender bones....

19 minute read

Read Chapter

136.

Means and End. —In art the end does not justify the means, but holy means can justify the end....

12 minute read

Read Chapter

137.

The Worst Readers. —The worst readers are those who act like plundering soldiers. They take out some things that they might use, cover the rest with filth and confusion, and blaspheme about the whole....

22 minute read

Read Chapter

138.

Signs of a Good Writer. —Good writers have two things in common: they prefer being understood to being admired, and they do not write for the critical and over-shrewd reader....

18 minute read

Read Chapter

139.

The Mixed Species. —The mixed species in art bear witness to their authors' distrust of their own [pg 073] strength. They seek auxiliary powers, advocates, hiding-places—such is the case with the poet who calls in philosophy, the musician who calls in the drama, and the thinker who calls in rhetoric to his aid....

31 minute read

Read Chapter

140.

Shutting One's Mouth. —When his book opens its mouth, the author must shut his....

11 minute read

Read Chapter

141.

Badges of Rank. —All poets and men of letters who are in love with the superlative want to do more than they can....

13 minute read

Read Chapter

142.

Cold Books. —The deep thinker reckons on readers who feel with him the happiness that lies in deep thinking. Hence a book that looks cold and sober, if seen in the right light, may seem bathed in the sunshine of spiritual cheerfulness and become a genuine soul-comforter....

29 minute read

Read Chapter

143.

A Knack of the Slow-Witted. —The slow-witted thinker generally allies himself with loquacity and ceremoniousness. By the former he thinks he is gaining mobility and fluency, by the latter he gives his peculiarity the appearance of being a result of free will and artistic purpose, with a view to dignity, which needs slow movement....

34 minute read

Read Chapter

144.

Le Style Baroque. 11 —He who as thinker and writer is not born or trained to dialectic and the consecutive arrangement of ideas, will unconsciously turn to the rhetoric and dramatic forms. For, after all, his object is to make himself understood and to carry the day by force, and he is indifferent whether, as shepherd, he honestly guides to himself the hearts of his fellow-men, or, as robber, he captures them by surprise. This is true of the plastic arts as of music: where the feeling of insuffi

4 minute read

Read Chapter

145.

The Value of Honest Books. —Honest books make the reader honest, at least by exciting his hatred and aversion, which otherwise cunning cleverness [pg 076] knows so well how to conceal. Against a book, however, we let ourselves go, however restrained we may be in our relations with men....

35 minute read

Read Chapter

146.

How Art makes Partisans. —Individual fine passages, an exciting general tenor, a moving and absorbing finale—so much of a work of art is accessible even to most laymen. In an art period when it is desired to win over the great majority of the laymen to the side of the artists and to make a party perhaps for the very preservation of art, the creative artist will do well to offer nothing more than the above. Then he will not be a squanderer of his strength, in spheres where no one is grateful to h

1 minute read

Read Chapter

147.

Becoming Great to the Detriment of History. —Every later master who leads the taste of art-lovers into his channel unconsciously gives rise to a selection and revaluation of the older masters and their works. Whatever in them is conformable and akin to him, and anticipates and foreshadows him, appears henceforth as the only important element in them and their works—a fruit in which a great error usually lies hidden like a worm....

42 minute read

Read Chapter

148.

How an Epoch becomes Lured to Art. —If we teach people by all the enchantments of artists [pg 077] and thinkers to feel reverence for their defects, their intellectual poverty, their absurd infatuations and passions (as it is quite possible to do); if we show them only the lofty side of crime and folly, only the touching and appealing element in weakness and flabbiness and blind devotion (that too has often enough been done):—we have employed the means for inspiring even an unphilosophical and i

1 minute read

Read Chapter

149.

Criticism and Joy. —Criticism, one-sided and unjust as well as intelligent criticism, gives so much pleasure to him who exercises it that the world is indebted to every work and every action that inspires much criticism and many critics. For criticism draws after it a glittering train of joyousness, wit, self-admiration, pride, instruction, designs of improvement.—The God of joy created the bad and the mediocre for the same reason that he created the good....

42 minute read

Read Chapter

150.

Beyond his Limits. —When an artist wants to be more than an artist—for example, the moral awakener of his people—he at last falls in love, as a punishment, with a monster of moral substance. The Muse laughs, for, though a kind-hearted Goddess, she can also be malignant from jealousy. Milton and Klopstock are cases in point....

35 minute read

Read Chapter

151.

A Glass Eye. —The tendency of a talent towards moral subjects, characters, motives, towards the “beautiful soul” of the work of art, is often only a glass eye put on by the artist who lacks a beautiful soul. It may result, though rarely, that his eye finally becomes living Nature, if indeed it be Nature with a somewhat troubled look. But the ordinary result is that the whole world thinks it sees Nature where there is only cold glass....

47 minute read

Read Chapter

152.

Writing and Desire for Victory. —Writing should always indicate a victory, indeed a conquest of oneself which must be communicated to others for their behoof. There are, however, dyspeptic authors who only write when they cannot digest something, or when something has remained stuck in their teeth. Through their anger they try unconsciously to disgust the reader too, and to exercise violence upon him—that is, they desire victory, but victory over others....

42 minute read

Read Chapter

153.

A Good Book Needs Time. —Every good book tastes bitter when it first comes out, for it has the defect of newness. Moreover, it suffers damage from its living author, if he is well known and much talked about. For all the world is accustomed to confuse the author with his work. Whatever of profundity, sweetness, and brilliance the work may contain must be developed as the years go by, [pg 079] under the care of growing, then old, and lastly traditional reverence. Many hours must pass, many a spid

1 minute read

Read Chapter

154.

Extravagance as an Artistic Means. —Artists well understand the idea of using extravagance as an artistic means in order to convey an impression of wealth. This is one of those innocent wiles of soul-seduction that the artist must know, for in his world, which has only appearance in view, the means to appearance need not necessarily be genuine....

35 minute read

Read Chapter

155.

The Hidden Barrel-Organ. —Genius, by virtue of its more ample drapery, knows better than talent how to hide its barrel-organ. Yet after all it too can only play its seven old pieces over and over again....

23 minute read

Read Chapter

156.

The Name on the Title-Page. —It is now a matter of custom and almost of duty for the author's name to appear on the book, and this is a main cause of the fact that books have so little influence. If they are good, they are worth more than the personalities of their authors, of which they are the quintessences. But as soon as the author makes himself known on the title-page, the quintessence, from the reader's point of view, becomes [pg 080] diluted with the personal, the most personal element, a

59 minute read

Read Chapter

157.

The Most Cutting Criticism. —We make the most cutting criticism of a man or a book when we indicate his or its ideal....

13 minute read

Read Chapter

158.

Little or no Love. —Every good book is written for a particular reader and men of his stamp, and for that very reason is looked upon unfavourably by all other readers, by the vast majority. Its reputation accordingly rests on a narrow basis and must be built up by degrees.—The mediocre and bad book is mediocre and bad because it seeks to please, and does please, a great number....

38 minute read

Read Chapter

159.

Music and Disease. —The danger of the new music lies in the fact that it puts the cup of rapture and exaltation to the lips so invitingly, and with such a show of moral ecstasy, that even the noble and temperate man always drinks a drop too much. This minimum of intemperance, constantly repeated, can in the end bring about a deeper convulsion and destruction of mental health than any coarse excess could do. Hence nothing remains but some day to fly from the grotto of the nymph, and through peril

1 minute read

Read Chapter

160.

Advantage for Opponents. —A book full of intellect communicates something thereof even to its opponents....

11 minute read

Read Chapter

161.

Youth and Criticism. —To criticise a book means, for the young, not to let oneself be touched by a single productive thought therefrom, and to protect one's skin with hands and feet. The youngster lives in opposition to all novelty that he cannot love in the lump, in a position of self-defence, and in this connection he commits, as often as he can, a superfluous sin....

37 minute read

Read Chapter

162.

Effect of Quantity. —The greatest paradox in the history of poetic art lies in this: that in all that constitutes the greatness of the old poets a man may be a barbarian, faulty and deformed from top to toe, and still remain the greatest of poets. This is the case with Shakespeare, who, as compared with Sophocles, is like a mine of immeasurable wealth in gold, lead, and rubble, whereas Sophocles is not merely gold, but gold in its noblest form, one that almost makes us forget the money-value of

1 minute read

Read Chapter

163.

All Beginning is Dangerous. —The Poet can choose whether to raise emotion from one grade to another, and so finally to exalt it to a great height—or to try a surprise attack, and from the start to pull the bell-rope with might and main. Both processes have their danger—in the first case his hearer may run away from him through boredom, in the second through terror....

37 minute read

Read Chapter

164.

In Favour of Critics. —Insects sting, not from malice, but because they too want to live. It is the same with our critics—they desire our blood, not our pain....

18 minute read

Read Chapter

165.

Success of Aphorisms. —The inexperienced, when an aphorism at once illuminates their minds with its naked truth, always think that it is old and well known. They look askance at the author, as if he had wanted to steal the common property of all, whereas they enjoy highly spiced half-truths, and give the author to understand as much. He knows how to appreciate the hint, and easily guesses thereby where he has succeeded and failed....

42 minute read

Read Chapter

166.

The Desire for Victory. —An artist who exceeds the limit of his strength in all that he undertakes will end by carrying the multitude along with him through the spectacle of violent [pg 083] wrestling that he affords. Success is not always the accompaniment only of victory, but also of the desire for victory....

34 minute read

Read Chapter

167.

Sibi Scribere. —The sensible author writes for no other posterity than his own—that is, for his age—so as to be able even then to take pleasure in himself....

18 minute read

Read Chapter

168.

Praise of the Aphorism. —A good aphorism is too hard for the tooth of time, and is not worn away by all the centuries, although it serves as food for every epoch. Hence it is the greatest paradox in literature, the imperishable in the midst of change, the nourishment which always remains highly valued, as salt does, and never becomes stupid like salt....

36 minute read

Read Chapter

169.

The Art-Need of the Second Order. —The people may have something of what can be called art-need, but it is small, and can be cheaply satisfied. On the whole, the remnant of art (it must be honestly confessed) suffices for this need. Let us consider, for example, the kind of melodies and songs in which the most vigorous, unspoiled, and true-hearted classes of the population find genuine delight; let us live among shepherds, cowherds, peasants, huntsmen, soldiers, and sailors, and give ourselves t

4 minute read

Read Chapter

170.

The Germans in the Theatre. —The real theatrical talent of the Germans was Kotzebue. He and his Germans, those of higher as well as those of middle-class society, were necessarily associated, and his contemporaries should have said of him in all seriousness, “in him we live and move and have our being.” Here was nothing—no constraint, pretence, or half-enjoyment: what he could and would do was understood. Yes, until now the honest theatrical success on the German stage has been in the hands of t

5 minute read

Read Chapter

171.

Music as a Late-Comer in every Culture. —Among all the arts that are accustomed to grow on a definite culture-soil and under definite social and political conditions, music is the last plant to come up, arising in the autumn and fading-season of the culture to which it belongs. At the same time, the first signs and harbingers of a new spring are usually already noticeable, and sometimes music, like the language of a forgotten age, rings out into a new, astonished world, and comes too late. In th

50 minute read

Read Chapter

174.

Against the Art of Works of Art. —Art is above all and first of all meant to embellish life, to make us ourselves endurable and if possible agreeable in the eyes of others. With this task in view, [pg 092] art moderates us and holds us in restraint, creates forms of intercourse, binds over the uneducated to laws of decency, cleanliness, politeness, well-timed speech and silence. Hence art must conceal or transfigure everything that is ugly—the painful, terrible, and disgusting elements which in

2 minute read

Read Chapter

175.

Continued Existence of Art. —Why, really, does a creative art nowadays continue to exist? Because the majority who have hours of leisure (and such an art is for them only) think that they cannot [pg 093] fill up their time without music, theatres and picture-galleries, novels and poetry. Granted that one could keep them from this indulgence, either they would strive less eagerly for leisure, and the invidious sight of the rich would be less common (a great gain for the stability of society), or

1 minute read

Read Chapter

176.

The Mouthpiece of the Gods. —The poet expresses the universal higher opinions of the nation, he is its mouthpiece and flute; but by virtue of metre and all other artistic means he so expresses them that the nation regards them as something quite new and wonderful, and believes in all seriousness that he is the mouthpiece of the Gods. Yes, under the clouds of creation the poet himself forgets whence he derives all his intellectual wisdom—from father and mother, from teachers and books of all kind

1 minute read

Read Chapter

177.

What all Art wants to Do and Cannot. —The last and hardest task of the artist is the presentment of what remains the same, reposes in itself, is lofty and simple and free from the bizarre. Hence the noblest forms of moral perfection are rejected as inartistic by weaker artists, because the sight of these fruits is too painful for their ambition. The fruit gleams at them from the topmost branches of art, but they lack the ladder, the courage, the grip to venture so high. In himself a Phidias is q

1 minute read

Read Chapter

178.

Art and Restoration. —The retrograde movements in history, the so-called periods of restoration, which try to revive intellectual and social [pg 095] conditions that existed before those immediately preceding,—and seem really to succeed in giving them a brief resurrection,—have the charm of sentimental recollection, ardent longing for what is almost lost, hasty embracing of a transitory happiness. It is on account of this strange trend towards seriousness that in such transient and almost dreamy

1 minute read

Read Chapter

179.

Happiness of the Age. —In two respects our age is to be accounted happy. With respect to the past , we enjoy all cultures and their productions, and nurture ourselves on the noblest blood of all periods. We stand sufficiently near to the magic of the forces from whose womb these periods are born to be able in passing to submit to their spell with pleasure and terror; whereas earlier cultures could only enjoy themselves, and never looked beyond themselves, but were rather overarched by a bell of

2 minute read

Read Chapter

180.

A Vision. —Hours of instruction and meditation for adults, even the most mature, and such institutions visited without compulsion but in accordance with the moral injunction of the whole community; the churches as the meeting-places most worthy and rich in memories for the purpose; at the same time daily festivals in honour of the reason that is attained and attainable by man; a newer and fuller budding and blooming of the ideal of the teacher, in which the clergyman, the artist and the physicia

1 minute read

Read Chapter

181.

Education a Distortion. —The extraordinary haphazardness of the whole system of education, which leads every adult to say nowadays that his sole educator was chance, and the weathercock-nature of educational methods and aims, may be explained as follows. The oldest and the newest culture-powers, as in a turbulent mass-meeting, would rather be heard than understood, and wish to prove at all costs by their outcries and clamourings that they still exist or already exist. The poor teachers and educa

1 minute read

Read Chapter

182.

Philosophers and Artists of the Age. —Rhapsody and frigidity, burning desires and waning of the heart's glow—this wretched medley is to be found in the picture of the highest European society of the present day. There the artist thinks [pg 098] that he is achieving a great deal when through his art he lights the torch of the heart as well as the torch of desire. The philosopher has the same notion, when in the chilliness of his heart, which he has in common with his age, he cools hot desires in

56 minute read

Read Chapter

183.

Not To Be a Soldier of Culture Without Necessity. —At last people are learning what it costs us so dear not to know in our youth—that we must first do superior actions and secondly seek the superior wherever and under whatever names it is to be found; that we must at once go out of the way of all badness and mediocrity without fighting it ; and that even doubt as to the excellence of a thing (such as quickly arises in one of practised taste) should rank as an argument against it and a reason for

1 minute read

Read Chapter

184.

How Natural History Should Be Expounded. —Natural history, like the history of the [pg 099] war and victory of moral and intellectual forces in the campaign against anxiety, self-delusion, laziness, superstition, folly, should be so expounded that every reader or listener may be continually aroused to strive after mental and physical health and soundness, after the feeling of joy, and be awakened to the desire to be the heir and continuator of mankind, to an ever nobler adventurous impulse. Hith

1 minute read

Read Chapter

185.

Genius in Humanity. —If genius, according to Schopenhauer's observation, lies in the coherent and vivid recollection of our own experience, a striving towards genius in humanity collectively might be deduced from the striving towards knowledge of the whole historic past—which is beginning to mark off the modern age more and more as compared with earlier ages and has for the first time broken down the barriers between nature and spirit, men and animals, morality and physics. A perfectly conceived

51 minute read

Read Chapter

186.

The Cult of Culture. —On great minds is bestowed the terrifying all-too-human of their natures, their blindnesses, deformities, and extravagances, so that their more powerful, easily all-too-powerful influence may be continually held within bounds through the distrust aroused by such qualities. For the sum-total of all that humanity needs for its continued existence is so comprehensive, and demands powers so diverse and so numerous, that for every one-sided predilection, whether in science or po

2 minute read

Read Chapter

187.

The Antique World and Pleasure. —The man of the antique world understood better how to rejoice, we understand better how to grieve less. They continually found new motives for feeling happy, for celebrating festivals, being inventive with all their wealth of shrewdness and reflection. We, on the other hand, concentrate our intellect rather on the solving of problems which have in view painlessness and the removal of sources of discomfort. With regard to suffering existence, the ancients sought t

1 minute read

Read Chapter

188.

The Muses as Liars. — “We know how to tell many lies,” so sang the Muses once, when they revealed themselves to Hesiod.—The conception of the artist as deceiver, once grasped, leads to important discoveries....

23 minute read

Read Chapter

189.

How Paradoxical Homer can be. —Is there anything more desperate, more horrible, more incredible, shining over human destiny like a winter sun, than that idea of Homer's: “So the decree of the Gods willed it, and doomed man to perish, that it might be a matter for song even to distant generations” ? In other words, we suffer and perish so that poets may not lack material, and this is the dispensation of those very Gods of Homer who seem much concerned about the joyousness of generations to come,

1 minute read

Read Chapter

190.

Supplementary Justification of Existence. —Many ideas have come into the world as errors and fancies but have turned out truths, because men have afterwards given them a genuine basis to rest upon....

19 minute read

Read Chapter

191.

Pro and Con Necessary. —He who has not realised that every great man must not only be encouraged but also, for the sake of the common welfare, opposed, is certainly still a great child—or himself a great man....

23 minute read

Read Chapter

192.

Injustice of Genius. —Genius is most unjust towards geniuses, if they be contemporary. Either it thinks it has no need of them and considers them superfluous (for it can do without them), or their influence crosses the path of its electric current, in which case it even calls them pernicious....

30 minute read

Read Chapter

193.

The Saddest Destiny of a Prophet. —He has worked twenty years to convince his contemporaries, and succeeds at last, but in the meantime his adversaries have also succeeded—he is no longer convinced of himself....

22 minute read

Read Chapter

194.

Three Thinkers like one Spider. —In every philosophical school three thinkers follow one another in this relation: the first produces from himself sap and seed, the second draws it out in threads and spins a cunning web, the third waits in this web for the victims who are caught in it—and tries to live upon this philosophy....

32 minute read

Read Chapter

195.

From Association with Authors. —It is as bad a habit to go about with an author grasping him by the nose as grasping him by the horn (and every author has his horn)....

19 minute read

Read Chapter

196.

A Team of Two. —Vagueness of thought and outbursts of sentimentality are as often wedded to the reckless desire to have one's own way by hook or by crook, to make oneself alone of any consequence, as a genuinely helpful, gracious, and kindly spirit is wedded to the impulse towards clearness [pg 104] and purity of thought and towards emotional moderation and self-restraint....

37 minute read

Read Chapter

197.

Binding and Separating Forces. —Surely it is in the heads of men that there arises the force that binds them—an understanding of their common interest or the reverse; and in their hearts the force that separates them—a blind choosing and groping in love and hate, a devotion to one at the expense of all, and a consequent contempt for the common utility....

36 minute read

Read Chapter

198.

Marksmen and Thinkers. —There are curious marksmen who miss their mark, but leave the shooting-gallery with secret pride in the fact that their bullet at any rate flew very far (beyond the mark, it is true), or that it did not hit the mark but hit something else. There are thinkers of the same stamp....

31 minute read

Read Chapter

199.

Attack from Two Sides. —We act as enemies towards an intellectual tendency or movement when we are superior to it and disapprove of its aim, or when its aim is too high and unrecognisable to our eye—in other words, when it is superior to us. So the same party may be attacked from two sides, from above and from below. Not infrequently the assailants, from common hatred, form an alliance which is more repulsive than all that they hate....

44 minute read

Read Chapter

200.

Original. —Original minds are distinguished not by being the first to see a new thing, but by seeing the old, well-known thing, which is seen and overlooked by every one, as something new. The first discoverer is usually that quite ordinary and unintellectual visionary—chance....

25 minute read

Read Chapter

201.

Error of Philosophers. —The philosopher believes that the value of his philosophy lies in the whole, in the structure. Posterity finds it in the stone with which he built and with which, from that time forth, men will build oftener and better—in other words, in the fact that the structure may be destroyed and yet have value as material....

35 minute read

Read Chapter

202.

Wit. —Wit is the epitaph of an emotion....

6 minute read

Read Chapter

203.

The Moment before Solution. —In science it occurs every day and every hour that a man, immediately before the solution, remains stuck, being convinced that his efforts have been entirely in vain—like one who, in untying a noose, hesitates at the moment when it is nearest to coming loose, because at that very moment it looks most like a knot....

35 minute read

Read Chapter

204.

Among the Visionaries. —The thoughtful man, and he who is sure of his intelligence, may [pg 106] profitably consort with visionaries for a decade and abandon himself in their torrid zone to a moderate insanity. He will thus have travelled a good part of the road towards that cosmopolitanism of the intellect which can say without presumption, “Nothing intellectual is alien to me.”...

40 minute read

Read Chapter

205.

Keen Air. —The best and healthiest element in science as amid the mountains is the keen air that plays about it.—Intellectual molly-coddles (such as artists) dread and abuse science on account of this atmosphere....

22 minute read

Read Chapter

206.

Why Savants are Nobler than Artists. —Science requires nobler natures than does poetry; natures that are more simple, less ambitious, more restrained, calmer, that think less of posthumous fame and can bury themselves in studies which, in the eye of the many, scarcely seem worthy of such a sacrifice of personality. There is another loss of which they are conscious. The nature of their occupation, its continual exaction of the greatest sobriety, weakens their will; the fire is not kept up so vigo

1 minute read

Read Chapter

207.

How Far Piety Obscures. —In later centuries the great man is credited with all the great qualities and virtues of his century. Thus all that is best is continually obscured by piety, which treats the picture as a sacred one, to be surrounded with all manner of votive offerings. In the end the picture is completely veiled and covered by the offerings, and thenceforth is more an object of faith than of contemplation....

42 minute read

Read Chapter

208.

Standing on One's Head. —If we make truth stand on its head, we generally fail to notice that our own head, too, is not in its right position....

18 minute read

Read Chapter

209.

Origin and Utility of Fashion. —The obvious satisfaction of the individual with his own form excites imitation and gradually creates the form of the many—that is, fashion. The many desire, and indeed attain, that same comforting satisfaction with their own form. Consider how many reasons every man has for anxiety and shy self-concealment, and how, on this account, three-fourths of his energy and goodwill is crippled and may become unproductive! So we must be very grateful to fashion for unfetter

1 minute read

Read Chapter

210.

Looseners of Tongues. —The value of many men and books rests solely on their faculty for compelling all to speak out the most hidden and intimate things. They are looseners of tongues and crowbars to open the most stubborn teeth. Many events and misdeeds which are apparently only sent as a curse to mankind possess this value and utility....

35 minute read

Read Chapter

211.

Intellectual Freedom of Domicile. 12 —Who of us could dare to call himself a “free spirit” if he could not render homage after his fashion, by taking on his own shoulders a portion of that burden of public dislike and abuse, to men to whom this name is attached as a reproach? We might as well call ourselves in all seriousness “spirits free of domicile” ( Freizügig ) (and without that arrogant or high-spirited defiance) because we feel the impulse to freedom ( Zug zur Freiheit ) as the strongest

1 minute read

Read Chapter

212.

Yes, the Favour of the Muses! —What Homer says on this point goes right to our heart, so true, so terrible is it: “The Muse loved him with all her heart and gave him good and evil, for she took away his eyes and vouchsafed him sweet song.” This is an endless text for thinking men: she gives good and evil, that is her manner of loving with all her heart and soul! And each man will interpret specially for himself why we poets and thinkers have to give up our eyes in her service. 13...

55 minute read

Read Chapter

213.

Against the Cultivation of Music. —The artistic training of the eye from childhood upwards by means of drawing, painting, landscape-sketching, figures, scenes, involves an estimable gain in life, making the eyesight keen, calm, and enduring in the observation of men and circumstances. No similar secondary advantage arises from the artistic cultivation of the ear, whence public schools will generally do well to give the art of the eye a preference over that of the ear. The Discoverers of Triviali

48 minute read

Read Chapter

216.

Reasons for Sterility. —There are highly gifted minds which are always sterile only because, from temperamental weakness, they are too impatient to wait for their pregnancy....

17 minute read

Read Chapter

217.

The Perverted World of Tears. —The manifold discomforts which the demands of higher culture cause to man finally pervert his nature to such an extent that he usually keeps himself stoical and unbending. Thus he has tears in reserve only for rare occasions of happiness, so that many must weep even at the enjoyment of painlessness—only when happy does his heart still beat....

37 minute read

Read Chapter

218.

The Greeks as Interpreters. —When we speak of the Greeks we unwittingly speak of to-day and yesterday; their universally known history is a blank mirror, always reflecting something that is not in the mirror itself. We enjoy the freedom of speaking about them in order to have the right of being silent about others—so that these Greeks themselves may whisper something in the ear of the reflective reader. Thus the Greeks facilitate to modern men the communication of much that is debatable and hard

51 minute read

Read Chapter

219.

Of the Acquired Character of the Greeks. —We are easily led astray by the renowned Greek clearness, transparency, simplicity, and order, by their crystal-like naturalness and crystal-like art, into believing that all these gifts were bestowed on the Greeks—for instance, that they could not but write well, as Lichtenberg expressed it on one occasion. Yet no statement could be more hasty and more untenable. The history of prose from Gorgias to Demosthenes shows a course of toiling and wrestling to

3 minute read

Read Chapter

220.

The Pagan Characteristic. —Perhaps there is nothing more astonishing to the observer of the Greek world than to discover that the Greeks from time to time held festivals, as it were, for all their passions and evil tendencies alike, and in fact even established a kind of series of festivals, by order of the State, for their “all-too-human.” This is the pagan characteristic of their world, which Christianity has never understood and never can understand, and has always combated and despised.—They

3 minute read

Read Chapter

221.

Exceptional Greeks. —In Greece, deep, thorough, serious minds were the exception. The national instinct tended rather to regard the serious and thorough as a kind of grimace. To borrow forms from a foreign source, not to create but to transform into the fairest shapes—that is Greek. To imitate, not for utility but for artistic illusion, ever and anon to gain the mastery over forced seriousness, to arrange, beautify, simplify—that is the continual task from Homer to the Sophists of the third and

1 minute read

Read Chapter

222.

Simplicity not the First nor the Last Thing in Point of Time. —In the history of religious ideas many errors about development and false gradations are made in matters which in reality are not consecutive outgrowths but contemporary yet separate phenomena. In particular, simplicity has still far too much the reputation of being the oldest, the initial thing. Much that is human arises by subtraction and division, and not merely by doubling, addition, and unification.—For instance, men still belie

6 minute read

Read Chapter

223.

Whither We must Travel. —Immediate self-observation is not enough, by a long way, to enable us to learn to know ourselves. We need history, for the past continues to flow through us in a hundred channels. We ourselves are, after all, nothing but our own sensation at every moment of this continued flow. Even here, when we wish to step down into the stream of our apparently most peculiar and personal development, Heraclitus' aphorism, “You cannot step twice into the same river,” holds good.—This i

4 minute read

Read Chapter

224.

Balm and Poison. —We cannot ponder too deeply on this fact: Christianity is the religion of antiquity grown old; it presupposes degenerate old culture-stocks, and on them it had, and still has, power to work like balm. There are periods when ears and eyes are full of slime, so that they can no longer hear the voice of reason and philosophy or see the wisdom that walks in bodily shape, whether it bears the name of Epictetus or of Epicurus. Then, perhaps, the erection of the martyr's cross and the

4 minute read

Read Chapter

225.

Faith makes Holy and Condemns. —A Christian who happened upon forbidden paths of thought might well ask himself on some occasion whether it is really necessary that there should be a God, side by side with a representative Lamb, if faith in the existence of these beings suffices to produce the same influences? If they do exist after all, are they not superfluous beings? For all that is given by the Christian religion to the human soul, all that is beneficent, consoling, and edifying, just as muc

1 minute read

Read Chapter

226.

The Tragi-Comedy of Regensburg. —Here and there we see with terrible clearness the harlequinade of Fortune, how she fastens the rope, on [pg 122] which she wills that succeeding centuries should dance, on to a few days, one place, the condition and opinions of one brain. Thus the fate of modern German history lies in the days of that disputation at Regensburg: the peaceful settlement of ecclesiastical and moral affairs, without religious wars or a counter-reformation, and also the unity of the G

3 minute read

Read Chapter

227.

Goethe's Errors. —Goethe is a signal exception among great artists in that he did not live within the limited confines of his real capacity, as if that must be the essential, the distinctive, the unconditional, and the last thing in him and for all the world. Twice he intended to possess something higher than he really possessed—and went astray in the second half of his life, where he seems quite convinced that he is one of the great scientific discoverers and illuminators. So too in the first h

4 minute read

Read Chapter

228.

Travellers and their Grades. —Among travellers we may distinguish five grades. The first and lowest grade is of those who travel and are seen—they become really travelled and are, as it were, blind. Next come those who really see the world. The third class experience the results of their seeing. The fourth weave their experience into their life and carry it with them henceforth. Lastly, there are some men of the highest strength who, as soon as they have returned home, must finally and necessari

1 minute read

Read Chapter

229.

In Climbing Higher. —So soon as we climb higher than those who hitherto admired us, we appear to them as sunken and fallen. For they imagined that under all circumstances they were on the heights in our company (maybe also through our agency)....

25 minute read

Read Chapter

230.

Measure and Moderation. —Of two quite lofty things, measure and moderation, it is best never to speak. A few know their force and significance, [pg 126] from the mysterious paths of inner experiences and conversions: they honour in them something quite godlike, and are afraid to speak aloud. All the rest hardly listen when they are spoken about, and think the subjects under discussion are tedium and mediocrity. We must perhaps except those who have once heard a warning note from that realm but h

1 minute read

Read Chapter

231.

Humanity of Friendship and Comradeship. — “If thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right,” 16 that feeling is the hall-mark of humanity in intimate intercourse, and without that feeling every friendship, every band of apostles or disciples, sooner or later becomes a fraud....

30 minute read

Read Chapter

232.

The Profound. —Men of profound thought appear to themselves in intercourse with others like comedians, for in order to be understood they must always simulate superficiality....

17 minute read

Read Chapter

233.

For the Scorners of “ Herd-Humanity. ” —He who regards human beings as a herd, and flies from them as fast as he can, will certainly be caught up by them and gored upon their horns....

21 minute read

Read Chapter

234.

The Main Transgression against the Vain. —In society, he who gives another an opportunity of favourably setting forth his knowledge, sentiments, and experience sets himself above him. Unless he is felt by the other to be a superior being without limitation, he is guilty of an attack upon his vanity, while what he aimed at was the gratification of the other man's vanity....

36 minute read

Read Chapter

235.

Disappointment. —When a long life of action distinguished by speeches and writings gives publicity to a man's personality, personal intercourse with him is generally disappointing on two grounds. Firstly, one expects too much from a brief period of intercourse (namely, all that the thousand and one opportunities of life can alone bring out). Secondly, no recognised person gives himself the trouble to woo recognition in individual cases. He is too careless, and we are at too high a tension....

46 minute read

Read Chapter

236.

Two Sources of Kindness. —To treat all men with equal good-humour, and to be kind without distinction of persons, may arise as much from a profound contempt for mankind as from an ingrained love of humanity....

23 minute read

Read Chapter

237.

The Wanderer in the Mountains to Himself. —There are certain signs that you have gone [pg 128] farther and higher. There is a freer, wider prospect before you, the air blows cooler yet milder in your face (you have unlearned the folly of confounding mildness with warmth), your gait is more firm and vigorous, courage and discretion have waxed together. On all these grounds your journey may now be more lonely and in any case more perilous than heretofore, if indeed not to the extent believed by th

1 minute read

Read Chapter

238.

With the Exception of Our Neighbour. —I admit that my head is set wrong on my neck only, for every other man, as is well known, knows better than I what I should do or leave alone. The only one who cannot help me is myself, poor beggar! Are we not all like statues on which false heads have been placed? Eh, dear neighbour?—Ah no; you, just you, are the exception!...

39 minute read

Read Chapter

239.

Caution. —We must either not go about at all with people who are lacking in the reverence for personalities, or inexorably fetter them beforehand with the manacles of convention....

18 minute read

Read Chapter

240.

The Wish to Appear Vain. —In conversation with strangers or little-known acquaintances, to express only selected thoughts, to speak of one's famous acquaintances, and important experiences [pg 129] and travels, is a sign that one is not proud, or at least would not like to appear proud. Vanity is the polite mask of pride....

34 minute read

Read Chapter

241.

Good Friendship. —A good friendship arises when the one man deeply respects the other, more even than himself; loves him also, though not so much as himself; and finally, to facilitate intercourse, knows how to add the delicate bloom and veneer of intimacy, but at the same time wisely refrains from a true, real intimacy, from the confounding of meum and tuum ....

37 minute read

Read Chapter

242.

Friends as Ghosts. —If we change ourselves vitally, our friends, who have not changed, become ghosts of our own past: their voice sounds shadowy and dreadful to us, as if we heard our own voice speaking, but younger, harder, less mellow....

24 minute read

Read Chapter

243.

One Eye and Two Glances. —The same people whose eyes naturally plead for favours and indulgences are accustomed, from their frequent humiliations and cravings for revenge, to assume a shameless glance as well....

22 minute read

Read Chapter

244.

The Haze of Distance. —A child throughout life—that sounds very touching, but is only the verdict from the distance. Seen and known close at hand, he is always called “puerile throughout life.”...

22 minute read

Read Chapter

245.

Advantage and Disadvantage in the Same Misunderstanding. —The mute perplexity of the subtle brain is usually understood by the non-subtle as a silent superiority, and is much dreaded whereas the perception of perplexity would produce good will. The Sage giving Himself out to be a Fool. —The philanthropy of the sage sometimes makes him decide to pretend to be excited, enraged, or delighted, so that he may not hurt his surroundings by the coldness and rationality of his true nature. Forcing Onesel

36 minute read

Read Chapter

248.

The Way to a Christian Virtue. —Learning from one's enemies is the best way to love them, for it inspires us with a grateful mood towards them....

17 minute read

Read Chapter

249.

Stratagem of the Importunate. —The importunate man gives us gold coins as change for our convention coins, and thereby tries to force us afterwards to treat our convention as an oversight and him as an exception....

23 minute read

Read Chapter

250.

Reason for Dislike. —We become hostile to many an artist or writer, not because we notice in the end that he has duped us, but because he did not find more subtle means necessary to entrap us....

23 minute read

Read Chapter

251.

In Parting. —Not by the way one soul approaches another, but by the way it separates, do I recognise its relationship and homogeneity with the other....

17 minute read

Read Chapter

252.

Silentium. —We must not speak about our friends, or we renounce the sentiment of friendship....

11 minute read

Read Chapter

253.

Impoliteness. —Impoliteness is often the sign of a clumsy modesty, which when taken by surprise loses its head and would fain hide the fact by means of rudeness....

18 minute read

Read Chapter

254.

Honesty's Miscalculation. —Our newest acquaintances are sometimes the first to learn what we have hitherto kept dark. We have the foolish notion that our proof of confidence is the strongest fetter wherewith to hold them fast. But they do not know enough about us to feel so strongly the sacrifice involved in our speaking out, and betray our secrets to others without any idea of betrayal. Hereby we possibly lose our old friends....

43 minute read

Read Chapter

255.

In the Ante-Chamber of Favour. —All men whom we let stand long in the ante-chamber of our favour get into a state of fermentation or become bitter....

17 minute read

Read Chapter

256.

Warning to the Despised. —When we have sunk unmistakably in the estimation of mankind we should cling tooth and nail to modesty in intercourse, or we shall betray to others that we have sunk in our own estimation as well. Cynicism in intercourse is a sign that a man, when alone, treats himself too as a dog....

32 minute read

Read Chapter

257.

Ignorance often Ennobles. —With regard to the respect of those who pay respect, it is an advantage ostensibly not to understand certain things. Ignorance, too, confers privileges....

17 minute read

Read Chapter

258.

The Opponent of Grace. —The impatient and arrogant man does not care for grace, feeling it to be a corporeal, visible reproach against himself. For grace is heartfelt toleration in movement and gesture....

22 minute read

Read Chapter

259.

On Seeing Again. —When old friends see each other again after a long separation, it often happens that they affect an interest in matters to which they [pg 133] have long since become indifferent. Sometimes both remark this, but dare not raise the veil—from a mournful doubt. Hence arise conversations as in the realm of the dead....

38 minute read

Read Chapter

260.

Making Friends only with the Industrious. —The man of leisure is dangerous to his friends, for, having nothing to do, he talks of what his friends are doing or not doing, interferes, and finally makes himself a nuisance. The clever man will only make friends with the industrious....

29 minute read

Read Chapter

261.

One Weapon twice as Much as Two. —It is an unequal combat when one man defends his cause with head and heart, the other with head alone. The first has sun and wind against him, as it were, and his two weapons interfere with each other: he loses the prize—in the eyes of truth. True, the victory of the second, with his one weapon, is seldom a victory after the hearts of all the other spectators, and makes him unpopular....

44 minute read

Read Chapter

262.

Depth and Troubled Waters. —The public easily confounds him who fishes in troubled waters with him who pumps up from the depths....

16 minute read

Read Chapter

263.

Demonstrating One's Vanity to Friend and Foe. —Many a man, from vanity, maltreats [pg 134] even his friends, when in the presence of witnesses to whom he wishes to make his own preponderance clear. Others exaggerate the merits of their enemies, in order to point proudly to the fact that they are worthy of such foes....

37 minute read

Read Chapter

264.

Cooling Off. —The over-heating of the heart is generally allied with illness of the head and judgment. He who is concerned for a time with the health of his head must know what he has to cool, careless of the future of his heart. For if we are capable at all of giving warmth, we are sure to become warm again and then have our summer....

37 minute read

Read Chapter

265.

Mingled Feelings. —Towards science women and self-seeking artists entertain a feeling that is composed of envy and sentimentality....

15 minute read

Read Chapter

266.

Where Danger is Greatest. —We seldom break our leg so long as life continues a toilsome upward climb. The danger comes when we begin to take things easily and choose the convenient paths....

19 minute read

Read Chapter

267.

Not too Early. —We must beware of becoming sharp too early, or we shall also become thin too early....

12 minute read

Read Chapter

268.

Joy in Refractoriness. —The good teacher knows cases where he is proud that his pupil remains [pg 135] true to himself in opposition to him—at times when the youth must not understand the man or would be harmed by understanding him....

25 minute read

Read Chapter

269.

The Experiment of Honesty. —Young men, who wish to be more honest than they have been, seek as victim some one acknowledged to be honest, attacking him first with an attempt to reach his height by abuse—with the underlying notion that this first experiment at any rate is void of danger. For just such a one has no right to chastise the impudence of the honest man....

37 minute read

Read Chapter

270.

The Eternal Child. —We think, short-sighted that we are, that fairy-tales and games belong to childhood. As if at any age we should care to live without fairy-tales and games! Our words and sentiments are indeed different, but the essential fact remains the same, as is proved by the child himself looking on games as his work and fairy-tales as his truth. The shortness of life ought to preserve us from a pedantic distinction between the different ages—as if every age brought something new—and a p

59 minute read

Read Chapter

271.

Every Philosophy is the Philosophy of a Period of Life. —The period of life in which a philosopher finds his teaching is manifested by his [pg 136] teaching; he cannot avoid that, however elevated above time and hour he may feel himself. Thus, Schopenhauer's philosophy remains a mirror of his hot and melancholy youth—it is no mode of thought for older men. Plato's philosophy reminds one of the middle thirties, when a warm and a cold current generally rush together, so that spray and delicate clo

1 minute read

Read Chapter

272.

Of the Intellect of Women. —The intellectual strength of a woman is best proved by the fact that she offers her own intellect as a sacrifice out of love for a man and his intellect, and that nevertheless in the new domain, which was previously foreign to her nature, a second intellect at once arises as an aftergrowth, to which the man's mind impels her....

37 minute read

Read Chapter

273.

Raising and Lowering in the Sexual Domain. —The storm of desire will sometimes carry a man up to a height where all desire is silenced, where he really loves and lives in a better state of being rather than in a better state of choice. On the other hand, a good woman, from true love, often climbs down to desire, and lowers herself in her own eyes. The latter action in particular is one of the most pathetic sensations which the idea of a good marriage can involve....

50 minute read

Read Chapter

274.

Man Promises, Woman Fulfils. —By woman Nature shows how far she has hitherto achieved her task of fashioning humanity, by man she shows what she has had to overcome and what she still proposes to do for humanity.—The most perfect woman of every age is the holiday-task of the Creator on every seventh day of culture, the recreation of the artist from his work....

36 minute read

Read Chapter

275.

Transplanting. —If we have spent our intellect in order to gain mastery over the intemperance of the passions, the sad result often follows that we transfer the intemperance to the intellect, and from that time forth are extravagant in thought and desire of knowledge....

25 minute read

Read Chapter

276.

Laughter as Treachery. —How and when a woman laughs is a sign of her culture, but in the ring of laughter her nature reveals itself, and in highly cultured women perhaps even the last insoluble residue of their nature. Hence the psychologist will say with Horace, though from different reasons: “Ridete puellae.”...

30 minute read

Read Chapter

277.

From the Youthful Soul. —Youths varyingly show devotion and impudence towards the same person, because at bottom they only despise or admire themselves in that other person, and between [pg 138] the two feelings but stagger to and fro in themselves, so long as they have not found in experience the measure of their will and ability....

35 minute read

Read Chapter

278.

For the Amelioration of the World. —If we forbade the discontented, the sullen, and the atrabilious to propagate, we might transform the world into a garden of happiness.—This aphorism belongs to a practical philosophy for the female sex....

23 minute read

Read Chapter

279.

Not to Distrust your Emotions. —The feminine phrase “Do not distrust your emotions” does not mean much more than “Eat what tastes good to you.” This may also, especially for moderate natures, be a good everyday rule. But other natures must live according to another maxim: “You must eat not only with your mouth but also with your brain, in order that the greediness of your mouth may not prove your undoing.”...

43 minute read

Read Chapter

280.

A Cruel Fancy of Love. —Every great love involves the cruel thought of killing the object of love, so that it may be removed once for all from the mischievous play of change. For love is more afraid of change than of destruction....

25 minute read

Read Chapter

281.

Doors. —In everything that is learnt or experienced, the child, just like the man, sees doors; [pg 139] but for the former they are places to go to , for the latter to go through ....

24 minute read

Read Chapter

282.

Sympathetic Women. —The sympathy of women, which is talkative, takes the sick-bed to market....

11 minute read

Read Chapter

283.

Early Merit. —He who acquires merit early in life tends to forget all reverence for age and old people, and accordingly, greatly to his disadvantage, excludes himself from the society of the mature, those who confer maturity. Thus in spite of his early merit he remains green, importunate, and boyish longer than others....

33 minute read

Read Chapter

284.

Souls All of a Piece. —Women and artists think that where we do not contradict them we cannot. Reverence on ten counts and silent disapproval on ten others appears to them an impossible combination, because their souls are all of a piece....

24 minute read

Read Chapter

285.

Young Talents. —With respect to young talents we must strictly follow Goethe's maxim, that we should often avoid harming error in order to avoid harming truth. Their condition is like the diseases of pregnancy, and involves strange appetites. These appetites should be satisfied and humoured as far as possible, for the sake of the fruit they may be expected to produce. It is true that, as nurse of these [pg 140] remarkable invalids, one must learn the difficult art of voluntary self-abasement....

53 minute read

Read Chapter

286.

Disgust with Truth. —Women are so constituted that all truth (in relation to men, love, children, society, aim of life) disgusts them—and that they try to be revenged on every one who opens their eyes....

22 minute read

Read Chapter

287.

The Source of Great Love. —Whence arises the sudden passion of a man for a woman, a passion so deep, so vital? Least of all from sensuality only: but when a man finds weakness, need of help, and high spirits united in the same creature, he suffers a sort of overflowing of soul, and is touched and offended at the same moment. At this point arises the source of great love....

39 minute read

Read Chapter

288.

Cleanliness. —In the child, the sense for cleanliness should be fanned into a passion, and then later on he will raise himself, in ever new phases, to almost every virtue, and will finally appear, in compensation for all talent, as a shining cloud of purity, temperance, gentleness, and character, happy in himself and spreading happiness around....

31 minute read

Read Chapter

289.

Of Vain Old Men. —Profundity of thought belongs to youth, clarity of thought to old age. [pg 141] When, in spite of this, old men sometimes speak and write in the manner of the profound, they do so from vanity, imagining that they thereby assume the charm of juvenility, enthusiasm, growth, apprehensiveness, hopefulness....

36 minute read

Read Chapter

290.

Enjoyment of Novelty. —Men use a new lesson or experience later on as a ploughshare or perhaps also as a weapon, women at once make it into an ornament....

18 minute read

Read Chapter

291.

How both Sexes behave when in the Right. —If it is conceded to a woman that she is right, she cannot deny herself the triumph of setting her heel on the neck of the vanquished; she must taste her victory to the full. On the other hand, man towards man in such a case is ashamed of being right. But then man is accustomed to victory; with woman it is an exception....

39 minute read

Read Chapter

292.

Abnegation in the Will to Beauty. —In order to become beautiful, a woman must not desire to be considered pretty. That is to say, in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases where she could please she must scorn and put aside all thoughts of pleasing. Only then can she ever reap the delight of him whose soul's portal is wide enough to admit the great....

37 minute read

Read Chapter

293.

Unintelligible, Unendurable. —A youth cannot understand that an old man has also had [pg 142] his delights, his dawns of feeling, his changings and soarings of thought. It offends him to think that such things have existed before. But it makes him very bitter to hear that, to become fruitful, he must lose those buds and dispense with their fragrance....

41 minute read

Read Chapter

294.

The Party with the Air of Martyrdom. —Every party that can assume an air of martyrdom wins good-natured souls over to its side and thereby itself acquires an air of good nature—greatly to its advantage....

22 minute read

Read Chapter

295.

Assertions surer than Arguments. —An assertion has, with the majority of men at any rate, more effect than an argument, for arguments provoke mistrust. Hence demagogues seek to strengthen the arguments of their party by assertions....

23 minute read

Read Chapter

296.

The Best Concealers. —All regularly successful men are profoundly cunning in making their faults and weaknesses look like manifestations of strength. This proves that they must know their defects uncommonly well....

21 minute read

Read Chapter

297.

From Time to Time. —He sat in the city gateway and said to one who passed through that this was the city gate. The latter replied that this was true, but that one must not be too much in the [pg 143] right if one expected to be thanked for it. “Oh,” answered the other, “I don't want thanks, but from time to time it is very pleasant not merely to be in the right but to remain in the right.”...

48 minute read

Read Chapter

298.

Virtue was not Invented by the Germans. —Goethe's nobleness and freedom from envy, Beethoven's fine hermitical resignation, Mozart's cheerfulness and grace of heart, Handel's unbending manliness and freedom under the law, Bach's confident and luminous inner life, such as does not even need to renounce glamour and success—are these qualities peculiarly German?—If they are not, they at least prove to what goal Germans should strive and to what they can attain....

44 minute read

Read Chapter

299.

Pia Fraus or Something Else. —I hope I am mistaken, but I think that in Germany of to-day a twofold sort of hypocrisy is set up as the duty of the moment for every one. From imperial-political misgivings Germanism is demanded, and from social apprehensions Christianity—but both only in words and gestures, and particularly in ability to keep silent. It is the veneer that nowadays costs so much and is paid for so highly; and for the benefit of the spectators the face of the nation assumes German a

56 minute read

Read Chapter

300.

How far even in the Good the Half may be More than the Whole. —In all things that [pg 144] are constructed to last and demand the service of many hands, much that is less good must be made a rule, although the organiser knows what is better and harder very well. He will calculate that there will never be a lack of persons who can correspond to the rule, and he knows that the middling good is the rule.—The youth seldom sees this point, and as an innovator thinks how marvellously he is in the righ

1 minute read

Read Chapter

301.

The Partisan. —The true partisan learns nothing more, he only experiences and judges. It is significant that Solon, who was never a partisan but pursued his aims above and apart from parties or even against them, was the father of that simple phrase wherein lies the secret of the health and vitality of Athens: “I grow old, but I am always learning.”...

33 minute read

Read Chapter

302.

What is German according to Goethe. —They are really intolerable people of whom one cannot even accept the good, who have freedom of disposition but do not remark that they are lacking in freedom of taste and spirit. Yet just this, according to Goethe's well-weighed judgment, is German.—His voice and his example indicate that the German should be more than a German if he wishes to be useful or even endurable to other nations—and which direction his striving should take, in order that he may rise

53 minute read

Read Chapter

303.

When it is Necessary to Remain Stationary. —When the masses begin to rage, and reason is under a cloud, it is a good thing, if the health of one's soul is not quite assured, to go under a doorway and look out to see what the weather is like....

27 minute read

Read Chapter

304.

The Revolution-Spirit and the Possession-Spirit. —The only remedy against Socialism that still lies in your power is to avoid provoking Socialism—in other words, to live in moderation and contentment, to prevent as far as possible all lavish display, and to aid the State as far as possible in its taxing of all superfluities and luxuries. You do not like this remedy? Then, you rich bourgeois who call yourselves “Liberals,” confess that it is your own inclination that you find so terrible and mena

2 minute read

Read Chapter

305.

Party Tactics. —When a party observes that a previous member has changed from an unqualified to a qualified adherent, it endures it so ill that it irritates and mortifies him in every possible way with the object of forcing him to a decisive break and making him an opponent. For the party suspects that the intention of finding a relative value in its faith, a value which admits of pro and con, of weighing and discarding, is more dangerous than downright opposition....

47 minute read

Read Chapter

306.

For the Strengthening of Parties. —Whoever wishes to strengthen a party internally should give it an opportunity of being forcibly treated with obvious injustice. The party thus acquires a capital of good conscience, which hitherto it perhaps lacked....

27 minute read

Read Chapter

307.

To Provide for One's Past. —As men after all only respect the old-established and slowly developed, he who would survive after his death must not only provide for posterity but still more for the past. Hence tyrants of every sort (including tyrannical artists and politicians) like to do violence to history, so that history may seem a preparation and a ladder up to them. Party Writers. —The beating of drums, which delights young writers who serve a party, sounds to him who does not belong to the

41 minute read

Read Chapter

310.

Danger in Wealth. —Only a man of intellect should hold property: otherwise property is dangerous to the community. For the owner, not knowing how to make use of the leisure which his possessions might secure to him, will continue to strive after more property. This strife will be his occupation, his strategy in the war with ennui. So in the end [pg 148] real wealth is produced from the moderate property that would be enough for an intellectual man. Such wealth, then, is the glittering outcrop of

1 minute read

Read Chapter

311.

Joy in Commanding and Obeying. —Commanding is a joy, like obeying; the former when it has not yet become a habit, the latter just when it has become a habit. Old servants under new masters advance each other mutually in giving pleasure....

24 minute read

Read Chapter

312.

Ambition for a Forlorn Hope. —There is an ambition for a forlorn hope which forces a party to place itself at the post of extreme danger....

17 minute read

Read Chapter

313.

When Asses are Needed. —We shall not move the crowd to cry “Hosanna!” until we have ridden into the city upon an ass....

17 minute read

Read Chapter

314.

Party Usage. —Every party attempts to represent the important elements that have sprung up outside it as unimportant, and if it does not succeed, it attacks those elements the more bitterly, the more excellent they are....

23 minute read

Read Chapter

315.

Becoming Empty. —Of him who abandons himself to the course of events, a smaller and smaller residue is continually left. Great politicians may therefore become quite empty men, although they were once full and rich....

22 minute read

Read Chapter

316.

Welcome Enemies. —The Socialistic movements are nowadays becoming more and more agreeable rather than terrifying to the dynastic governments, because by these movements they are provided with a right and a weapon for making exceptional rules, and can thus attack their real bogies, democrats and anti-dynasts.—Towards all that such governments professedly detest they feel a secret cordiality and inclination. But they are compelled to draw the veil over their soul....

44 minute read

Read Chapter

317.

Possession Possesses. —Only up to a certain point does possession make men feel freer and more independent; one step farther, and possession becomes lord, the possessor a slave. The latter must [pg 150] sacrifice his time, his thoughts to the former, and feels himself compelled to an intercourse, nailed to a spot, incorporated with the State—perhaps quite in conflict with his real and essential needs....

40 minute read

Read Chapter

318.

Of the Mastery of Them that Know. —It is easy, ridiculously easy, to set up a model for the choice of a legislative body. First of all the honest and reliable men of the nation, who at the same time are masters and experts in some one branch, have to become prominent by mutual scenting-out and recognition. From these, by a narrower process of selection, the learned and expert of the first rank in each individual branch must again be chosen, also by mutual recognition and guarantee. If the legisl

2 minute read

Read Chapter

319.

Of the “ Nation of Thinkers ” (or of Bad Thinking ).—The vague, vacillating, premonitory, elementary, intuitive elements—to choose obscure names for obscure things—that are attributed to the German nature would be, if they really still existed, a proof that our culture has remained several stages behind and is still surrounded by the spell and atmosphere of the Middle Ages.—It is true that in this backwardness there are certain advantages: by these qualities the Germans (if, as has been said bef

1 minute read

Read Chapter

320.

Carrying Coals to Newcastle. —The governments of the great States have two instruments for keeping the people dependent, in fear and obedience: a coarser, the army, and a more refined, the school. With the aid of the former they win over to their side the ambition of the higher strata and the strength of the lower, so far as both are characteristic of active and energetic men of moderate or inferior gifts. With the aid of the latter they win over gifted poverty, especially the intellectually pre

5 minute read

Read Chapter

321.

The Press. —If we consider how even to-day all great political transactions glide upon the stage secretly and stealthily; how they are hidden by unimportant events, and seem small when close at hand; how they only show their far-reaching effect, and leave the soil still quaking, long after they have taken place;—what significance can we attach to the Press in its present position, with its daily expenditure of lung-power in order to bawl, to deafen, to excite, to terrify? Is it anything more tha

58 minute read

Read Chapter

322.

After a Great Event. —A nation and a man whose soul has come to light through some great event generally feel the immediate need of some act of childishness or coarseness, as much from shame as for purposes of recreation....

24 minute read

Read Chapter

323.

To be a Good German means to de-Germanise Oneself. —National differences consist, [pg 155] far more than has hitherto been observed, only in the differences of various grades of culture, and are only to a very small extent permanent (nor even that in a strict sense). For this reason all arguments based on national character are so little binding on one who aims at the alteration of convictions—in other words, at culture. If, for instance, we consider all that has already been German, we shall im

2 minute read

Read Chapter

324.

Foreignisms. —A foreigner who travelled in Germany found favour or the reverse by certain assertions of his, according to the districts in which he stayed. All intelligent Suabians, he used to say, [pg 156] are coquettish.—The other Suabians still believed that Uhland was a poet and Goethe immoral.—The best about German novels now in vogue was that one need not read them, for one knew already what they contained.—The native of Berlin seemed more good-humoured than the South German, for he was al

4 minute read

Read Chapter

325.

Opinions. —Most men are nothing and count for nothing until they have arrayed themselves in [pg 158] universal convictions and public opinions. This is in accordance with the tailors' philosophy, “The apparel makes the man.” Of exceptional men, however, it must be said, “The wearer primarily makes the apparel.” Here opinions cease to be public, and become something else than masks, ornament, and disguise....

44 minute read

Read Chapter

326.

Two Kinds of Sobriety. —In order not to confound the sobriety arising from mental exhaustion with that arising from moderation, one must remark that the former is peevish, the latter cheerful....

21 minute read

Read Chapter

327.

Debasement of Joy. —To call a thing good not a day longer than it appears to us good, and above all not a day earlier—that is the only way to keep joy pure. Otherwise, joy all too easily becomes insipid and rotten to the taste, and counts, for whole strata of the people, among the adulterated foodstuffs....

32 minute read

Read Chapter

328.

The Scapegoat of Virtue. —When a man does his very best, those who mean well towards him, but are not capable of appreciating him, speedily seek a scapegoat to immolate, thinking it is the scapegoat of sin—but it is the scapegoat of virtue....

25 minute read

Read Chapter

329.

Sovereignty. —To honour and acknowledge even the bad, when it pleases one, and to have no [pg 159] conception of how one could be ashamed of being pleased thereat, is the mark of sovereignty in things great and small....

27 minute read

Read Chapter

330.

Influence a Phantom, not a Reality. —The man of mark gradually learns that so far as he has influence he is a phantom in other brains, and perhaps he falls into a state of subtle vexation of soul, in which he asks himself whether he must not maintain this phantom of himself for the benefit of his fellow-men....

32 minute read

Read Chapter

331.

Giving and Taking. —When one takes away (or anticipates) the smallest thing that another possesses, the latter is blind to the fact that he has been given something greater, nay, even the greatest thing....

22 minute read

Read Chapter

332.

Good Ploughland. —All rejection and negation betoken a deficiency in fertility. If we were good ploughland, we should allow nothing to be unused or lost, and in every thing, event, or person we should welcome manure, rain, or sunshine....

24 minute read

Read Chapter

333.

Intercourse as an Enjoyment. —If a man renounces the world and intentionally lives in solitude, he may come to regard intercourse with others, which he enjoys but seldom, as a special delicacy....

19 minute read

Read Chapter

334.

To Know how to Suffer in Public. —We must advertise our misfortunes and from time to time heave audible sighs and show visible marks of impatience. For if we could let others see how assured and happy we are in spite of pain and privation, how envious and ill-tempered they would become at the sight!—But we must take care not to corrupt our fellow-men; besides, if they knew the truth, they would levy a heavy toll upon us. At any rate our public misfortune is our private advantage....

49 minute read

Read Chapter

335.

Warmth on the Heights. —On the heights it is warmer than people in the valleys suppose, especially in winter. The thinker recognises the full import of this simile....

18 minute read

Read Chapter

336.

To Will the Good and be Capable of the Beautiful. —It is not enough to practise the good one must have willed it, and, as the poet says, include the Godhead in our will. But the beautiful we must not will, we must be capable of it, in innocence and blindness, without any psychical curiosity. He that lights his lantern to find perfect men should remember the token by which to know them. They are the men who always act for the sake of the good and in so doing always attain to the beautiful without

1 minute read

Read Chapter

337.

Danger of Renunciation. —We must beware of basing our lives on too narrow a foundation of appetite. For if we renounce all the joys involved in positions, honours, associations, revels, creature comforts, and arts, a day may come when we perceive that this repudiation has led us not to wisdom but to satiety of life....

31 minute read

Read Chapter

338.

Final Opinion on Opinions. —Either we should hide our opinions or hide ourselves behind our opinions. Whoever does otherwise, does not know the way of the world, or belongs to the order of pious fire-eaters....

22 minute read

Read Chapter

339.

“ Gaudeamus Igitur. ” —Joy must contain edifying and healing forces for the moral nature of man. Otherwise, how comes it that our soul, as soon as it basks in the sunshine of joy, unconsciously vows to itself, “I will be good!” “I will become perfect!” and is at once seized by a premonition of perfection that is like a shudder of religious awe?...

40 minute read

Read Chapter

340.

To One who is Praised. —So long as you are praised, believe that you are not yet on your own course but on that of another....

15 minute read

Read Chapter

341.

Loving the Master. —The apprentice and the master love the master in different ways....

11 minute read

Read Chapter

342.

All-too-Beautiful and Human. — “Nature is too beautiful for thee, poor mortal,” one often feels. But now and then, at a profound contemplation of all that is human, in its fulness, vigour, tenderness, and complexity, I have felt as if I must say, in all humility, “Man also is too beautiful for the contemplation of man!” Nor did I mean the moral man alone, but every one....

41 minute read

Read Chapter

343.

Real and Personal Estate. —When life has treated us in true robber fashion, and has taken away all that it could of honour, joys, connections, health, and property of every kind, we perhaps discover in the end, after the first shock, that we are richer than before. For now we know for the first time what is so peculiarly ours that no robber hand can touch it, and perhaps, after all the plunder and devastation, we come forward with the airs of a mighty real estate owner....

49 minute read

Read Chapter

344.

Involuntarily Idealised. —The most painful feeling that exists is finding out that we are always taken for something higher than we really are. For we must thereby confess to ourselves, “There is in [pg 163] you some element of fraud—your speech, your expression, your bearing, your eye, your dealings; and this deceitful something is as necessary as your usual honesty, but constantly destroys its effect and its value.”...

44 minute read

Read Chapter

345.

Idealist and Liar. —We must not let ourselves be tyrannised even by that finest faculty of idealising things: otherwise, truth will one day part company from us with the insulting remark: “Thou arch-liar, what have I to do with thee?”...

24 minute read

Read Chapter

346.

Being Misunderstood. —When one is misunderstood generally, it is impossible to remove a particular misunderstanding. This point must be recognised, to save superfluous expenditure of energy in self-defence....

20 minute read

Read Chapter

347.

The Water-Drinker Speaks. —Go on drinking your wine, which has refreshed you all your life—what affair is it of yours if I have to be a water-drinker? Are not wine and water peaceable, brotherly elements, that can live side by side without mutual recriminations?...

28 minute read

Read Chapter

348.

From Cannibal Country. —In solitude the lonely man is eaten up by himself, among crowds by the many. Choose which you prefer....

14 minute read

Read Chapter

349.

The Freezing-Point of the Will. — “Some time the hour will come at last, the hour that will envelop you in the golden cloud of painlessness; when the soul enjoys its own weariness and, happy in patient playing with patience, resembles the waves of a lake, which on a quiet summer day, in the reflection of a many-hued evening sky, sip and sip at the shore and again are hushed—without end, without purpose, without satiety, without need—all calm rejoicing in change, all ebb and flow of Nature's puls

1 minute read

Read Chapter

350.

The Disclaimed Ideal. —It happens sometimes by an exception that a man only reaches the highest when he disclaims his ideal. For this ideal previously drove him onward too violently, so that in the middle of the track he regularly got out of breath and had to rest....

29 minute read

Read Chapter

351.

A Treacherous Inclination. —It should be regarded as a sign of an envious but aspiring man, when he feels himself attracted by the thought that with regard to the eminent there is but one salvation—love....

23 minute read

Read Chapter

352.

Staircase Happiness. —Just as the wit of many men does not keep pace with opportunity (so that opportunity has already passed through the door while wit still waits on the staircase outside), so others have a kind of staircase happiness, which walks too slowly to keep pace with swift-footed Time. The best that it can enjoy of an experience, of a whole span of life, falls to its share long afterwards, often only as a weak, spicy fragrance, giving rise to longing and sadness—as if “it might have b

1 minute read

Read Chapter

353.

Worms. —The fact that an intellect contains a few worms does not detract from its ripeness....

11 minute read

Read Chapter

354.

The Seat of Victory. —A good seat on horseback robs an opponent of his courage, the spectator of his heart—why attack such a man? Sit like one who has been victorious!...

18 minute read

Read Chapter

355.

Danger in Admiration. —From excessive admiration for the virtues of others one can lose the sense of one's own, and finally, through lack of practice, lose these virtues themselves, without retaining the alien virtues as compensation. Uses of Sickliness. —He who is often ill not only has a far greater pleasure in health, on account of his so often getting well, but acquires a very keen sense of what is healthy or sickly in actions and achievements, both his own and others'. Thus, for example, it

25 minute read

Read Chapter

358.

Never in Vain. —In the mountains of truth you never climb in vain. Either you already reach a higher point to-day, or you exercise your strength in order to be able to climb higher to-morrow....

22 minute read

Read Chapter

359.

Through Grey Window-Panes. —Is what you see through this window of the world so beautiful that you do not wish to look through any other [pg 167] window—ay, and even try to prevent others from so doing?...

24 minute read

Read Chapter

360.

A Sign of Radical Changes. —When we dream of persons long forgotten or dead, it is a sign that we have suffered radical changes, and that the soil on which we live has been completely undermined. The dead rise again, and our antiquity becomes modernity....

28 minute read

Read Chapter

361.

Medicine of the Soul. —To lie still and think little is the cheapest medicine for all diseases of the soul, and, with the aid of good-will, becomes pleasanter every hour that it is used....

19 minute read

Read Chapter

362.

Intellectual Order of Precedence. —You rank far below others when you try to establish the exception and they the rule....

12 minute read

Read Chapter

363.

The Fatalist. —You must believe in fate—science can compel you thereto. All that develops in you out of that belief—cowardice, devotion or loftiness, and uprightness—bears witness to the soil in which the grain was sown, but not to the grain itself, for from that seed anything and everything can grow....

30 minute read

Read Chapter

364.

The Reason for Much Fretfulness. —He that prefers the beautiful to the useful in life will [pg 168] undoubtedly, like children who prefer sweetmeats to bread, destroy his digestion and acquire a very fretful outlook on the world....

27 minute read

Read Chapter

365.

Excess as a Remedy. —We can make our own talent once more acceptable to ourselves by honouring and enjoying the opposite talent for some time to excess.—Using excess as a remedy is one of the more refined devices in the art of life....

25 minute read

Read Chapter

366.

“ Will a Self. ” —Active, successful natures act, not according to the maxim, “Know thyself,” but as if always confronted with the command, “Will a self, so you will become a self.” —Fate seems always to have left them a choice. Inactive, contemplative natures, on the other hand, reflect on how they have chosen their self “once for all” at their entry into life....

44 minute read

Read Chapter

367.

To Live as Far as Possible without a Following. —How small is the importance of followers we first grasp when we have ceased to be the followers of our followers....

18 minute read

Read Chapter

368.

Obscuring Oneself. —We must understand how to obscure ourselves in order to get rid of the gnat-swarms of pestering admirers....

13 minute read

Read Chapter

369.

Ennui. —There is an ennui of the most subtle and cultured brains, to which the best that the world can offer has become stale. Accustomed to eat ever more and more recherché fare and to feel disgust at coarser diet, they are in danger of dying of hunger. For the very best exists but in small quantities, and has sometimes become inaccessible or hard as stone, so that even good teeth can no longer bite it....

40 minute read

Read Chapter

370.

The Danger in Admiration. —The admiration of a quality or of an art may be so strong as to deter us from aspiring to possess that quality or art....

18 minute read

Read Chapter

371.

What is Required of Art. —One man wants to enjoy himself by means of art, another for a time to get out of or above himself.—To meet both requirements there exists a twofold species of artists....

23 minute read

Read Chapter

372.

Secessions. —Whoever secedes from us offends not us, perhaps, but certainly our adherents....

10 minute read

Read Chapter

373.

After Death. —It is only long after the death of a man that we find it inconceivable that he should be missed—in the case of really great men, only after decades. Those who are honest usually think when [pg 170] any one dies that he is not much missed, and that the pompous funeral oration is a piece of hypocrisy. Necessity first teaches the necessariness of an individual, and the proper epitaph is a belated sigh....

49 minute read

Read Chapter

374.

Leaving in Hades. —We must leave many things in the Hades of half-conscious feeling, and not try to release them from their shadow-existence, or else they will become, as thoughts and words, our demoniacal tyrants, with cruel lust after our blood....

24 minute read

Read Chapter

375.

Near to Beggary. —Even the richest intellect sometimes mislays the key to the room in which his hoarded treasures repose. He is then like the poorest of the poor, who must beg to get a living....

23 minute read

Read Chapter

376.

Chain-Thinkers. —To him who has thought a great deal, every new thought that he hears or reads at once assumes the form of a chain....

14 minute read

Read Chapter

377.

Pity. —In the gilded sheath of pity is sometimes hidden the dagger of envy....

8 minute read

Read Chapter

378.

What is Genius? —To aspire to a lofty aim and to will the means to that aim....

12 minute read

Read Chapter

379.

Vanity of Combatants. —He who has no hope of victory in a combat, or who is obviously worsted, is all the more desirous that his style of fighting should be admired....

18 minute read

Read Chapter

380.

The Philosophic Life Misinterpreted. —At the moment when one is beginning to take philosophy seriously, the whole world fancies that one is doing the reverse....

17 minute read

Read Chapter

381.

Imitation. —By imitation, the bad gains, the good loses credit—especially in art....

7 minute read

Read Chapter

382.

Final Teaching of History. — “Oh that I had but lived in those times!” is the exclamation of foolish and frivolous men. At every period of history that we seriously review, even if it be the most belauded era of the past, we shall rather cry out at the end, “Anything but a return to that! The spirit of that age would oppress you with the weight of a hundred atmospheres, the good and beautiful in it you would not enjoy, its evil you could not digest.” Depend upon it, posterity will pass the same

1 minute read

Read Chapter

383.

Greatness as a Mask. —By greatness in our comportment we embitter our foes; by envy that we do not conceal we almost reconcile them to us. For envy levels and makes equal; it is an unconscious, plaintive variety of modesty.—It may be indeed that here and there, for the sake of the above-named advantage, envy has been assumed as a mask by those who are not envious. Certainly, however, greatness in comportment is often used as the mask of envy by ambitious men who would rather suffer drawbacks and

1 minute read

Read Chapter

384.

Unpardonable. —You gave him an opportunity of displaying the greatness of his character, and he did not make use of the opportunity. He will never forgive you for that....

18 minute read

Read Chapter

385.

Contrasts. —The most senile thought ever conceived about men lies in the famous saying, “The ego is always hateful,” the most childish in the still more famous saying, “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” —With the one knowledge of men has ceased, with the other it has not yet begun....

31 minute read

Read Chapter

386.

A Defective Ear. — “We still belong to the mob so long as we always shift the blame on to others; we are on the track of wisdom when we always make ourselves alone responsible; but the wise man finds no one to blame, neither himself nor others.” —Who said that? Epictetus, eighteen hundred years ago.—The world has heard but forgotten the saying.—No, the world has not heard and not forgotten it: everything is not forgotten. But we had not the necessary ear, the ear of Epictetus.—So he whispered it

1 minute read

Read Chapter

387.

A Defect of Standpoint, not of Vision. —We always stand a few paces too near ourselves and a few paces too far from our neighbour. Hence we judge him too much in the lump, and ourselves too much by individual, occasional, insignificant features and circumstances....

28 minute read

Read Chapter

388.

Ignorance about Weapons. —How little we care whether another knows a subject or not!—whereas he perhaps sweats blood at the bare idea that he may be considered ignorant on the point. Yes, there are exquisite fools, who always go about with a quiverful of mighty, excommunicatory utterances, ready to shoot down any one who shows freely that there are matters in which their judgment is not taken into account....

41 minute read

Read Chapter

389.

At the Drinking-Table of Experience. —People whose innate moderation leads them to drink but the half of every glass, will not admit that everything in the world has its lees and sediment....

21 minute read

Read Chapter

390.

Singing-Birds. —The followers of a great man often put their own eyes out, so that they may be the better able to sing his praise....

14 minute read

Read Chapter

391.

Beyond our Ken. —The good generally displeases us when it is beyond our ken....

11 minute read

Read Chapter

392.

Rule as Mother or as Child. —There is one condition that gives birth to rules, another to which rules give birth....

13 minute read

Read Chapter

393.

Comedy. —We sometimes earn honour or love for actions and achievements which we have long since sloughed as the snake sloughs his skin. We are hereby easily seduced into becoming the comic actors of our own past, and into throwing the old skin once more about our shoulders—and that not merely from vanity, but from good-will towards our admirers....

32 minute read

Read Chapter

394.

A Mistake of Biographers. —The small force that is required to launch a boat into the stream [pg 175] must not be confounded with the force of the stream that carries the boat along. Yet this mistake is made in nearly all biographies....

25 minute read

Read Chapter

395.

Not Buying too Dear. —The things that we buy too dear we generally turn to bad use, because we have no love for them but only a painful recollection. Thus they involve a twofold drawback....

20 minute read

Read Chapter

396.

The Philosophy that Society always Needs. —The pillars of the social structure rest upon the fundamental fact that every one cheerfully contemplates all that he is, does, and attempts, his sickness or health, his poverty or affluence, his honour or insignificance, and says to himself, “After all, I would not change places with any one!” —Whoever wishes to add a stone to the social structure should always try to implant in mankind this cheerful philosophy of contentment and refusal to change plac

50 minute read

Read Chapter

397.

The Mark of a Noble Soul. —A noble soul is not that which is capable of the highest flights, but that which rises little and falls little, living always in a free and bright atmosphere and altitude....

23 minute read

Read Chapter

398.

Greatness and its Contemplator. —The noblest effect of greatness is that it gives the contemplator [pg 176] a power of vision that magnifies and embellishes....

17 minute read

Read Chapter

399.

Being Satisfied. —We show that we have attained maturity of understanding when we no longer go where rare flowers lurk under the thorniest hedges of knowledge, but are satisfied with gardens, forests, meadows, and ploughlands, remembering that life is too short for the rare and uncommon....

28 minute read

Read Chapter

400.

Advantage in Privation. —He who always lives in the warmth and fulness of the heart, and, as it were, in the summer air of the soul, cannot form an idea of that fearful delight which seizes more wintry natures, who for once in a way are kissed by the rays of love and the milder breath of a sunny February day....

33 minute read

Read Chapter

401.

Recipe for the Sufferer. —You find the burden of life too heavy? Then you must increase the burden of your life. When the sufferer finally thirsts after and seeks the river of Lethe, then he must become a hero to be certain of finding it....

29 minute read

Read Chapter

402.

The Judge. —He who has seen another's ideal becomes his inexorable judge, and as it were his evil conscience....

12 minute read

Read Chapter

403.

The Utility of Great Renunciation. —The useful thing about great renunciation is that it invests [pg 177] us with that youthful pride through which we can thenceforth easily demand of ourselves small renunciations....

20 minute read

Read Chapter

404.

How Duty Acquires a Glamour. —You can change a brazen duty into gold in the eyes of all by always performing something more than you have promised....

17 minute read

Read Chapter

405.

Prayer to Mankind. — “Forgive us our virtues” —so should we pray to mankind....

11 minute read

Read Chapter

406.

They that Create and They that Enjoy. —Every one who enjoys thinks that the principal thing to the tree is the fruit, but in point of fact the principal thing to it is the seed.—Herein lies the difference between them that create and them that enjoy....

26 minute read

Read Chapter

407.

The Glory of all Great Men. —What is the use of genius if it does not invest him who contemplates and reveres it with such freedom and loftiness of feeling that he no longer has need of genius?—To make themselves superfluous is the glory of all great men....

26 minute read

Read Chapter

408.

The Journey to Hades. —I too have been in the underworld, even as Odysseus, and I shall often be there again. Not sheep alone have I sacrificed, [pg 178] that I might be able to converse with a few dead souls, but not even my own blood have I spared. There were four pairs who responded to me in my sacrifice: Epicurus and Montaigne, Goethe and Spinoza, Plato and Rousseau, Pascal and Schopenhauer. With them I have to come to terms. When I have long wandered alone, I will let them prove me right or

2 hour read

Read Chapter

1.

Of the Tree of Knowledge. —Probability, but no truth; the semblance of freedom, but no freedom—these are the two fruits by virtue of which the tree of knowledge cannot be confounded with the tree of life....

23 minute read

Read Chapter

2.

The World's Reason. —That the world is not the abstract essence of an eternal reasonableness is sufficiently proved by the fact that that bit of the world which we know—I mean our human reason—is none too reasonable. And if this is not eternally and wholly wise and reasonable, the rest of the world will not be so either. Here the conclusion a minori ad majus, a parte ad totum holds good, and that with decisive force....

48 minute read

Read Chapter

3.

“ In the Beginning was. ” —To glorify the origin—that is the metaphysical after-shoot which sprouts again at the contemplation of history, and absolutely makes us imagine that in the beginning of things lies all that is most valuable and essential....

27 minute read

Read Chapter

4.

Standard for the Value of Truth. —The difficulty of climbing mountains is no gauge of their height. Yet in the case of science it is different!—we are told by certain persons who wish to be considered “the initiated,” —the difficulty in finding [pg 185] truth is to determine the value of truth! This insane morality originates in the idea that “truths” are really nothing more than gymnastic appliances, with which we have to exercise ourselves until we are thoroughly tired. It is a morality for th

1 minute read

Read Chapter

5.

Use of Words and Reality. —There exists a simulated contempt for all the things that mankind actually holds most important, for all everyday matters. For instance, we say “we only eat to live” —an abominable lie , like that which speaks of the procreation of children as the real purpose of all sexual pleasure. Conversely, the reverence for “the most important things” is hardly ever quite genuine. The priests and metaphysicians have indeed accustomed us to a hypocritically exaggerated use of word

2 minute read

Read Chapter

6.

Earthly Infirmities and their Main Cause. —If we look about us, we are always coming across men who have eaten eggs all their lives without observing that the oblong-shaped taste the best; who do not know that a thunder-storm is beneficial to the stomach; that perfumes are most fragrant in cold, clear air; that our sense of taste varies in different parts of our mouths; that every meal at which we talk well or listen well does harm to the digestion. If we are not satisfied with these examples of

3 minute read

Read Chapter

7.

Two Means of Consolation. —Epicurus, the soul-comforter of later antiquity, said, with that marvellous insight which to this very day is so rarely to be found, that for the calming of the spirit the solution of the final and ultimate theoretical problems is by no means necessary. Hence, instead of raising a barren and remote discussion of the final question, whether the Gods existed, it sufficed him to say to those who were tormented by “fear of the Gods” : “If there are Gods, they do not concer

3 minute read

Read Chapter

8.

In the Night. —So soon as night begins to fall our sensations concerning everyday matters are altered. There is the wind, prowling as if on forbidden paths, whispering as if in search of something, fretting because he cannot find it. There is the lamplight, with its dim red glow, its weary look, unwillingly fighting against night, a sullen slave to wakeful man. There are the breathings of the sleeper, with their terrible rhythm, to which an ever-recurring care seems to blow the trumpet-melody—we

1 minute read

Read Chapter

9.

Origin of the Doctrine of Free Will. —Necessity sways one man in the shape of his passions, another as a habit of hearing and obeying, a third as a logical conscience, a fourth as a caprice and a mischievous delight in evasions. These four, [pg 190] however, seek the freedom of their will at the very point where they are most securely fettered. It is as if the silkworm sought freedom of will in spinning. What is the reason? Clearly this, that every one thinks himself most free where his vitality

2 minute read

Read Chapter

10.

Absence of Feeling of New Chains. —So long as we do not feel that we are in some way dependent, we consider ourselves independent—a false conclusion that shows how proud man is, how eager for dominion. For he hereby assumes that he would always be sure to observe and recognise dependence so soon as he suffered it, the preliminary hypothesis being that he generally lives in independence, and that, should he lose that independence for once in a way, he would immediately detect a contrary sensation

1 minute read

Read Chapter

11.

Freedom of the Will and the Isolation of Facts. —Our ordinary inaccurate observation takes a group of phenomena as one and calls them a fact. Between this fact and another we imagine a vacuum, we isolate each fact. In reality, however, the sum of our actions and cognitions is no series of facts and intervening vacua, but a continuous stream. Now the belief in free will is incompatible with the idea of a continuous, uniform, undivided, indivisible flow. This belief presupposes that every single a

2 minute read

Read Chapter

12.

The Fundamental Errors. —A man cannot feel any psychical pleasure or pain unless he is swayed by one of two illusions. Either he believes in the identity of certain facts, certain sensations, and in that case finds spiritual pleasure and pain in comparing present with past conditions and in noting their similarity or difference (as is invariably the case with recollection); or he believes in the freedom of the will, perhaps when he reflects, “I ought not to have done this,” “This might have turn

1 minute read

Read Chapter

13.

Repetition. —It is an excellent thing to express a thing consecutively in two ways, and thus provide it with a right and a left foot. Truth can stand indeed on one leg, but with two she will walk and complete her journey....

24 minute read

Read Chapter

14.

Man as the Comic Actor of the World. —It would require beings more intellectual than men to relish to the full the humorous side of man's view of himself as the goal of all existence and of his serious pronouncement that he is satisfied only with the prospect of fulfilling a world-mission. If a God created the world, he created man to be his ape, as a perpetual source of amusement in the midst of his rather tedious eternities. The music of the spheres surrounding the world would then presumably

3 minute read

Read Chapter

15.

The Modesty of Man. —How little pleasure is enough for the majority to make them feel that life is good! How modest is man!...

14 minute read

Read Chapter

16.

Where Indifference is Necessary. —Nothing would be more perverse than to wait for the truths that science will finally establish concerning the first and last things, and until then to think (and especially to believe) in the traditional way, as one is so often advised to do. The impulse that bids us seek nothing but certainties in this domain is a religious offshoot, nothing better—a hidden and only apparently sceptical variety of the “metaphysical need,” the underlying idea being that for a lo

5 minute read

Read Chapter

17.

Profound Interpretations. —He who has interpreted a passage in an author “more profoundly” than was intended, has not interpreted the author but has obscured him. Our metaphysicians are in the same relation, or even in a worse relation, to the text of Nature. For, to apply their profound interpretations, they often alter the text to suit their purpose—or, in other words, corrupt the text. A curious example of the corruption and obscuration of an author's text is furnished by the ideas of Schopen

4 minute read

Read Chapter

18.

The Modern Diogenes. —Before we look for man, we must have found the lantern.—Will it have to be the Cynic's lantern?...

13 minute read

Read Chapter

19.

Immoralists. —Moralists must now put up with being rated as immoralists, because they dissect morals. He, however, who would dissect must kill, but only in order that we may know more, judge better, live better, not in order that all the world may dissect. Unfortunately, men still think that every moralist in his every action must be a pattern for others to imitate. They confound him with the preacher of morality. The older moralists did not dissect enough and preached too often, whence that con

54 minute read

Read Chapter

20.

A Caution against Confusion. —There are moralists who treat the strong, noble, self-denying attitude of such beings as the heroes of Plutarch, or the pure, enlightened, warmth-giving state of soul peculiar to truly good men and women, as difficult scientific problems. They investigate the origin of such phenomena, indicating the complex element in the apparent simplicity, and directing their gaze to the tangled skein of motives, the delicate web of conceptual illusions, and the sentiments of ind

1 minute read

Read Chapter

21.

Man as the Measurer. —Perhaps all human morality had its origin in the tremendous excitement that seized primitive man when he discovered measure and measuring, scales and weighing (for the word Mensch [man] means “the measurer” —he wished to name himself after his greatest discovery!). With these ideas they mounted into regions that are quite beyond all measuring and weighing, but did not appear to be so in the beginning....

42 minute read

Read Chapter

22.

The Principle of Equilibrium. —The robber and the man of power who promises to protect a community from robbers are perhaps at bottom beings of the same mould, save that the latter attains his ends by other means than the former—that is to say, through regular imposts paid to him by the community, and no longer through forced contributions. (The same relation exists between [pg 201] merchant and pirate, who for a long period are one and the same person: where the one function appears to them ina

56 minute read

Read Chapter

24.

Judging the Criminal and his Judge. —The criminal, who knows the whole concatenation of circumstances, does not consider his act so far beyond the bounds of order and comprehension as does his judge. His punishment, however, is measured by the degree of astonishment that seizes the judge when he finds the crime incomprehensible.—If the defending counsel's knowledge of the case and its previous history extends far enough, the so-called extenuating circumstances which he duly pleads must end by ab

1 minute read

Read Chapter

25.

Exchange and Equity. —In an exchange, the only just and honest course would be for either party to demand only so much as he considers his commodity to be worth, allowance being made for trouble in acquisition, scarcity, time spent and so forth, besides the subjective value. As soon as you make your price bear a relation to the other's need, you become a refined sort of robber and extortioner.—If money is the sole medium of exchange, we must remember that a shilling is by no means the same thing

1 minute read

Read Chapter

26.

Legal Conditions as Means. —Law, where it rests upon contracts between equals, holds good so long as the power of the parties to the contract remains equal or similar. Wisdom created law to end all feuds and useless expenditure among men on an equal footing. Quite as definite an end is put to this waste, however, when one party has [pg 207] become decidedly weaker than the other. Subjection enters and law ceases, but the result is the same as that attained by law. For now it is the wisdom of the

1 minute read

Read Chapter

27.

Explanation of Malicious Joy. —Malicious joy arises when a man consciously finds himself in evil plight and feels anxiety or remorse or pain. The misfortune that overtakes B. makes him equal to A., and A. is reconciled and no longer envious.—If A. is prosperous, he still hoards up in his memory B.'s misfortune as a capital, so as to throw it in the scale as a counter-weight when he himself suffers adversity. In this case too he feels “malicious joy” ( Schadenfreude ). The sentiment of equality t

1 minute read

Read Chapter

28.

The Arbitrary Element in the Award of Punishment. —To most criminals punishment [pg 208] comes just as illegitimate children come to women. They have done the same thing a hundred times without any bad consequences. Suddenly comes discovery, and with discovery punishment. Yet habit should make the deed for which the criminal is punished appear more excusable, for he has developed a propensity that is hard to resist. Instead of this, the criminal is punished more severely if the suspicion of habi

2 minute read

Read Chapter

29.

Envy and her Nobler Sister. —Where equality is really recognised and permanently established, we see the rise of that propensity that is generally considered immoral, and would scarcely be conceivable in a state of nature—envy. The envious man is susceptible to every sign of individual superiority to the common herd, and wishes to depress every one once more to the level—or raise himself to the superior plane. Hence arise two different modes of action, which Hesiod designated good and bad Eris.

1 minute read

Read Chapter

30.

The Envy of the Gods. — “The envy of the Gods” arises when a despised person sets himself on an equality with his superior (like Ajax), or is made equal with him by the favour of fortune [pg 210] (like Niobe, the too favoured mother). In the social class system this envy demands that no one shall have merits above his station, that his prosperity shall be on a level with his position, and especially that his self-consciousness shall not outgrow the limits of his rank. Often the victorious genera

1 minute read

Read Chapter

31.

Vanity as an Anti-Social Aftergrowth. —As men, for the sake of security, have made themselves equal in order to found communities, but as also this conception is imposed by a sort of constraint and is entirely opposed to the instincts of the individual, so, the more universal security is guaranteed, the more do new offshoots of the old instinct for predominance appear. Such offshoots appear in the setting-up of class distinctions, in the demand for professional dignities and privileges, and, gen

1 minute read

Read Chapter

32.

Equity. —Equity is a development of justice, and arises among such as do not come into conflict with the communal equality. This more subtle recognition of the principle of equilibrium is applied to cases where nothing is prescribed by law. Equity looks forwards and backwards, its maxim being, “Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you.” Aequum means: “This principle is conformable to our equality; it tones down even our small differences to an appearance of equality, and expects

56 minute read

Read Chapter

33.

Elements of Revenge. —The word “revenge” is spoken so quickly that it almost seems as if it could not contain more than one conceptual and emotional root. Hence we are still at pains to find this root. Our economists, in the same way, have never wearied of scenting a similar unity in the word “value,” and of hunting after the primitive root idea of value. As if all words were not pockets, into which this or that or several things have been stuffed at once! So “revenge” is now one thing, now anot

10 minute read

Read Chapter

34.

The Virtues that Damage Us. —As members of communities we think we have no right to exercise certain virtues which afford us great honour and some pleasure as private individuals (for example, indulgence and favour towards miscreants of all kinds)—in short, every mode of action whereby the advantage of society would suffer through our virtue. No bench of judges, face to face with its conscience, may permit itself to be gracious. This privilege is reserved for the king as an individual, and we ar

2 minute read

Read Chapter

35.

The Casuistry of Advantage. —There would be no moral casuistry if there were no casuistry of advantage. The most free and refined intelligence is often incapable of choosing between two alternatives in such a way that his choice necessarily involves the greater advantage. In such cases we choose because we must, and afterwards often feel a kind of emotional sea-sickness....

35 minute read

Read Chapter

36.

Turning Hypocrite. —Every beggar turns hypocrite, like every one who makes his living out of indigence, be it personal or public.—The beggar does not feel want nearly so keenly as he must make others feel it, if he wishes to make a living by mendicancy....

28 minute read

Read Chapter

37.

A Sort of Cult of the Passions. —You hypochondriacs, you philosophic blind-worms talk of the formidable nature of human passions, in order to inveigh against the dreadsomeness of the [pg 217] whole world-structure. As if the passions were always and everywhere formidable! As if this sort of terror must always exist in the world!—Through a carelessness in small matters, through a deficiency in observation of self and of the rising generation, you have yourselves allowed your passions to develop i

1 minute read

Read Chapter

38.

The Sting of Conscience. —The sting of conscience, like the gnawing of a dog at a stone, is mere foolishness....

12 minute read

Read Chapter

39.

Origin of Rights. —Rights may be traced to traditions, traditions to momentary agreements. At some time or other men were mutually content with the consequences of making an agreement, and, again, too indolent formally to renew it. Thus they went on living as if it had constantly been renewed, and gradually, when oblivion cast its [pg 218] veil over the origin, they thought they possessed a sacred, unalterable foundation on which every generation would be compelled to build. Tradition was now a

1 minute read

Read Chapter

40.

The Significance of Oblivion in Moral Sentiment. —The same actions that in primitive society first aimed at the common advantage were later on performed from other motives: from fear or reverence of those who demanded and recommended them; or from habit, because men had seen them done about them from childhood upwards; or from kindness, because the practising of them caused delight and approving looks on all sides; or from vanity, because they were praised. Such actions, in which the fundamental

2 minute read

Read Chapter

41.

The Heirs to the Wealth of Morality. —Even in the domain of morals there is an inherited wealth, which is owned by the gentle, the good-tempered, the compassionate, the indulgent. They have inherited from their forefathers their gentle mode of action, but not common sense (the source of that mode of action). The pleasant thing about this wealth is that one must always bestow and communicate a portion of it, if its presence is to be felt at all. Thus this wealth unconsciously aims at bridging the

2 minute read

Read Chapter

42.

The Judge and Extenuating Circumstances. — “One should behave as a man of honour even towards the devil and pay his debts,” said an old soldier, when the story of Faust had been related to him in rather fuller detail. “Hell is the right place for Faust!” “You are terrible, you men!” cried his wife; “how can that be? After all, his only fault was having no ink in his ink-stand! It is indeed a sin to write with blood, but surely for that such a handsome man ought not to burn in Hell-fire?”...

52 minute read

Read Chapter

43.

Problem of the Duty of Truth. —Duty is an imperious sentiment that forces us to action. We call it good, and consider it outside the pale of discussion. The origin, limits, and justification of duty we will not debate or allow to be debated. But the thinker considers everything an evolution and every evolution a subject for discussion, and is accordingly without duty so long as he is merely a thinker. As such, he would not recognise the duty of seeing and speaking the truth; he would not feel th

1 minute read

Read Chapter

44.

Grades of Morals. —Morality is primarily a means of preserving the community and saving it from destruction. Next it is a means of maintaining the community on a certain plane and in a certain degree of benevolence. Its motives are fear and hope, and these in a more coarse, rough, and powerful form, the more the propensity towards the perverse, one-sided, and personal still persists. The most terrible means of intimidation must be brought into play so long as milder forms have no effect and that

2 minute read

Read Chapter

45.

The Morality of Pity in the Mouths of The Intemperate. —All those who are not sufficiently masters of themselves and do not know morality as a self-control and self-conquest continuously exercised in things great and small, unconsciously come to glorify the good, compassionate, benevolent impulses of that instinctive morality which has no head, but seems merely to consist of a heart and helpful hands. It is to their interest even to cast suspicion upon a morality of reason and to set up the othe

52 minute read

Read Chapter

46.

Sewers of the Soul. —Even the soul must have its definite sewers, through which it can allow its filth to flow off: for this purpose it may use persons, relations, social classes, its native country, or the world, or finally—for the wholly arrogant (I mean our modern “pessimists” )— le bon Dieu ....

33 minute read

Read Chapter

47.

A Kind of Rest and Contemplation. —Beware lest your rest and contemplation resemble that [pg 223] of a dog before a butcher's stall, prevented by fear from advancing and by greed from retiring, and opening its eyes wide as though they were mouths....

25 minute read

Read Chapter

48.

Prohibitions without Reasons. —A prohibition, the reason of which we do not understand or admit, is almost a command, not only for the stiff-necked but for the thirster after knowledge. We at once make an experiment in order to learn why the prohibition was made. Moral prohibitions, like those of the Decalogue, are only suited to ages when reason lies vanquished. Nowadays a prohibition like “Thou shalt not kill,” “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” laid down without reasons, would have an injuriou

56 minute read

Read Chapter

49.

Character Portrait. —What sort of a man is it that can say of himself: “I despise very easily, but never hate. I at once find out in every man something which can be honoured and for which I honour him: the so-called amiable qualities attract me but little” ?...

30 minute read

Read Chapter

50.

Pity and Contempt. —The expression of pity is regarded as a sign of contempt, because one has clearly ceased to be an object of fear as soon as one becomes an object of pity. One has sunk below the level of the equilibrium. For this equilibrium does not satisfy human vanity, which is only satisfied [pg 224] by the feeling that one is imposing respect and awe. Hence it is difficult to explain why pity is so highly prized, just as we need to explain why the unselfish man, who is originally despise

46 minute read

Read Chapter

53.

Conquest of the Passions. —The man who has overcome his passions has entered into possession [pg 225] of the most fruitful soil, like the colonist who has become lord over bogs and forests. To sow the seed of spiritual good works on the soil of the vanquished passions is the next and most urgent task. The conquest itself is a means, not an end: if it be not so regarded, all kind of weeds and devil's crop quickly spring up upon the fertile soil that has been cleared, and soon the growth is all wi

59 minute read

Read Chapter

54.

Skill in Service. —All so-called practical men have skill in service, whether it be serving others or themselves; this is what makes them practical. Robinson owned a servant even better than Friday—his name was Crusoe....

22 minute read

Read Chapter

55.

Danger in Speech to Intellectual Freedom. —Every word is a preconceived judgment....

10 minute read

Read Chapter

56.

Intellect and Boredom. —The proverb, “The Hungarian is far too lazy to feel bored,” gives food for thought. Only the highest and most active animals are capable of being bored.—The boredom of God on the seventh day of Creation would be a subject for a great poet....

29 minute read

Read Chapter

57.

Intercourse with Animals. —The origin of our morality may still be observed in our relations [pg 226] with animals. Where advantage or the reverse do not come into play, we have a feeling of complete irresponsibility. For example, we kill or wound insects or let them live, and as a rule think no more about it. We are so clumsy that even our gracious acts towards flowers and small animals are almost always murderous: this does not in the least detract from our pleasure in them.—To-day is the fest

3 minute read

Read Chapter

58.

New Actors. —Among human beings there is no greater banality than death. Second in order, because it is possible to die without being born, comes birth, and next comes marriage. But these hackneyed little tragi-comedies are always presented, at each of their unnumbered and innumerable performances, by new actors, and accordingly do not cease to find interested spectators: whereas we might well believe that the whole audience of the world-theatre had long since hanged themselves to every tree fro

57 minute read

Read Chapter

59.

What is “ Being Obstinate ” ? —The shortest way is not the straightest possible, but that wherein [pg 228] favourable winds swell our sails. So says the wisdom of seamen. Not to follow his course is obstinate, firmness of character being then adulterated by stupidity....

24 minute read

Read Chapter

60.

The Word “ Vanity. ” —It is annoying that certain words, with which we moralists positively cannot dispense, involve in themselves a kind of censorship of morals, dating from the times when the most ordinary and natural impulses were denounced. Thus that fundamental conviction that on the waves of society we either find navigable waters or suffer shipwreck far more through what we appear than through what we are (a conviction that must act as guiding principle of all action in relation to societ

1 minute read

Read Chapter

61.

The Fatalism of the Turk. —The fatalism of the Turk has this fundamental defect, that it contrasts man and fate as two distinct things. Man, says this doctrine, may struggle against fate and try to baffle it, but in the end fate will always gain the victory. Hence the most rational course is to [pg 229] resign oneself or to live as one pleases. As a matter of fact, every man is himself a piece of fate. When he thinks that he is struggling against fate in this way, fate is accomplishing its ends

2 minute read

Read Chapter

62.

The Advocate of the Devil. — “Only by our own suffering do we become wise, only by others' suffering do we become good” —so runs that strange philosophy which derives all morality from pity and all intellectuality from the isolation of the individual. Herein this philosophy is the unconscious pleader for all human deterioration. For pity needs suffering, and isolation contempt of others....

39 minute read

Read Chapter

63.

The Moral Character-Masks. —In ages when the character-masks of different classes are definitely fixed, like the classes themselves, moralists will be seduced into holding the moral character-masks, too, as absolute, and in delineating them accordingly. Thus Molière is intelligible as the contemporary of the society of Louis XIV.: in our society of transitions and intermediate stages he would seem an inspired pedant....

39 minute read

Read Chapter

64.

The Most Noble Virtue. —In the first era of the higher humanity courage is accounted the most noble virtue, in the next justice, in the third temperance, in the fourth wisdom. In which era do we live? In which do you live?...

28 minute read

Read Chapter

65.

A Necessary Preliminary. —A man who will not become master of his irritability, his venomous and vengeful feelings, and his lust, and attempts to become master in anything else, is as stupid as the farmer who lays out his field beside a torrent without guarding against that torrent....

29 minute read

Read Chapter

66.

What is Truth? — Schwarzert (Melanchthon): We often preach our faith when we have lost it, and leave not a stone unturned to find it—and then we often do not preach worst! Luther : Brother, you are really speaking like an angel to-day. Schwarzert : But that is the idea of your enemies, and they apply it to you. Luther : Then it would be a lie from the devil's hind-quarters. Schwarzert : But that is the idea of your enemies, and they apply it to you. Luther : Then it would be a lie from the devil

1 minute read

Read Chapter

67.

The Habit of Contrasts. —Superficial, inexact observation sees contrasts everywhere in nature (for instance, “hot and cold” ), where there are no contrasts, only differences of degree. This bad habit has induced us to try to understand and interpret even the inner nature, the intellectual and moral world, in accordance with such contrasts. An infinite amount of cruelty, arrogance, harshness, estrangement, and coldness has entered into human emotion, because men imagined they saw contrasts where

47 minute read

Read Chapter

68.

Can We Forgive? —How can we forgive them at all, if they know not what they do? We have nothing to forgive. But does a man ever fully know what he is doing? And if this point at least remains always debatable, men never have anything to forgive each other, and indulgence is for the reasonable man an impossible thing. Finally, if the evil-doers had really known what they did, we should still only have a right to forgive if we had a right to accuse and to punish. But we have not that right....

52 minute read

Read Chapter

69.

Habitual Shame. —Why do we feel shame when some virtue or merit is attributed to us which, as the saying goes, “we have not deserved” ? Because we appear to have intruded upon a territory to which we do not belong, from which we should be excluded, as from a holy place or holy of holies, which ought not to be trodden by our foot. Through the errors of others we have, nevertheless, penetrated to it, and we are now swayed partly by fear, partly by reverence, partly by surprise; we do not know whet

2 minute read

Read Chapter

70.

The Most Unskilful Teacher. —In one man all his real virtues are implanted on the soil of his spirit of contradiction, in another on his incapacity to say “no” —in other words, on his spirit of acquiescence. A third has made all his morality grow out of his pride as a solitary, a fourth from his strong social instinct. Now, supposing that the seeds of the virtues in these four cases, owing to mischance or unskilful teachers, were not sown on the soil of their nature, which provides them with the

1 minute read

Read Chapter

71.

The Cautious Style. — A. But if this were known to all , it would be injurious to the majority . You yourself call your opinions dangerous to those in danger, and yet you make them public? B. I write so that neither the mob, nor the populi , nor the parties of all kinds can read me. So my opinions will never be “public opinions.” A. How do you write, then? B. Neither usefully nor pleasantly—for the three classes I have mentioned. A. How do you write, then? B. Neither usefully nor pleasantly—for

1 minute read

Read Chapter

72.

Divine Missionaries. —Even Socrates feels himself to be a divine missionary, but I am not sure whether we should not here detect a tincture of that Attic irony and fondness for jesting whereby this odious, arrogant conception would be toned down. He talks of the fact without unction—his images of the gadfly and the horse are simple and not sacerdotal. The real religious task which he has set himself—to test God in a hundred ways and see whether he spoke the truth—betrays a bold and free attitude

1 minute read

Read Chapter

73.

Honesty in Painting. —Raphael, who cared a great deal for the Church (so far as she could pay him), but, like the best men of his time, cared little for the objects of the Church's belief, did not advance one step to meet the exacting, ecstatic piety of many of his patrons. He remained honest even in that exceptional picture which was originally intended for a banner in a procession—the Sistine Madonna. Here for once he wished to paint a vision, but such a vision as even noble youths without “fa

3 minute read

Read Chapter

74.

Prayer. —On two hypotheses alone is there any sense in prayer, that not quite extinct custom of olden times. It would have to be possible either to fix or alter the will of the godhead, and the devotee would have to know best himself what he needs and should really desire. Both hypotheses, [pg 236] axiomatic and traditional in all other religions, are denied by Christianity. If Christianity nevertheless maintained prayer side by side with its belief in the all-wise and all-provident divine reaso

1 minute read

Read Chapter

75.

A Holy Lie. —The lie that was on Arria's lips when she died ( Paete, non dolet 19 ) obscures all the truths that have ever been uttered by the dying. It is the only holy lie that has become famous, whereas elsewhere the odour of sanctity has clung only to errors ....

34 minute read

Read Chapter

76.

The Most Necessary Apostle. —Among twelve apostles one must always be hard as stone, in order that upon him the new church may be built....

17 minute read

Read Chapter

77.

Which is more Transitory, the Body or the Spirit? —In legal, moral, and religious institutions the external and concrete elements—in other words, rites, gestures, and ceremonies—are the most permanent. They are the body to which a new spirit is constantly being superadded. The cult, like an unchangeable text, is ever interpreted anew. Concepts and emotions are fluid, customs are solid....

38 minute read

Read Chapter

78.

The Belief in Disease qua Disease. —Christianity first painted the devil on the wall of the world. Christianity first brought the idea of sin into the world. The belief in the remedies, which is offered as an antidote, has gradually been shaken to its very foundations. But the belief in the disease, which Christianity has taught and propagated, still exists....

36 minute read

Read Chapter

79.

Speech and Writings of Religious Men. —If the priest's style and general expression, both in speaking and writing, do not clearly betray the religious man, we need no longer take his views upon religion and his pleading for religion seriously. These opinions have become powerless for him if, judging by his style, he has at command irony, arrogance, malice, hatred, and all the changing eddies of mood, just like the most irreligious of men—how far more powerless will they be for his [pg 238] heare

56 minute read

Read Chapter

80.

The Danger in Personality. —The more God has been regarded as a personality in himself, the less loyal have we been to him. Men are far more attached to their thought-images than to their best beloved. That is why they sacrifice themselves for State, Church, and even for God—so far as he remains their creation, their thought, and is not too much looked upon as a personality. In the latter case they almost always quarrel with him. After all, it was the most pious of men who let slip that bitter c

59 minute read

Read Chapter

81.

Worldly Justice. —It is possible to unhinge worldly justice with the doctrine of the complete non-responsibility and innocence of every man. An attempt has been made in the same direction on the basis of the opposite doctrine of the full responsibility and guilt of every man. It was the founder of Christianity who wished to abolish worldly justice and banish judgment and punishment from the world. For he understood all guilt as “sin” —that is, an outrage against God and not against the world. On

1 minute read

Read Chapter

82.

An Affectation in Parting. —He who wishes to sever his connection with a party or a creed thinks it necessary for him to refute it. This is a most arrogant notion. The only thing necessary is that he should clearly see what tentacles hitherto held him to this party or creed and no longer hold him, what views impelled him to it and now impel him in some other directions. We have not joined the party or creed on strict grounds of knowledge. We should not affect this attitude on parting from it eit

51 minute read

Read Chapter

83.

Saviour and Physician. —In his knowledge of the human soul the founder of Christianity was, as is natural, not without many great deficiencies and prejudices, and, as physician of the soul, was addicted to that disreputable, laical belief in a universal medicine. In his methods he sometimes resembles that dentist who wishes to heal all pain by extracting the tooth. Thus, for example, he assails sensuality with the advice: “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.” —Yet there still remains the dis

1 minute read

Read Chapter

84.

Prisoners. —One morning the prisoners entered the yard for work, but the warder was not there. Some, as their manner was, set to work at once; others stood idle and gazed defiantly around. Then one of them strode forward and cried, “Work as much as you will or do nothing, it all comes to the same. Your secret machinations have come to light; the warder has been keeping his eye on you of late, and will cause a terrible judgment to be passed upon you in a few days' time. You know him—he is of a cr

3 minute read

Read Chapter

85.

The Persecutors of God. —Paul conceived and Calvin followed up the idea that countless creatures have been predestined to damnation from time immemorial, and that this fair world was made in order that the glory of God might be manifested therein. So heaven and hell and mankind merely exist to satisfy the vanity of God! What a cruel, insatiable vanity must have smouldered in the soul of the first or second thinker of such a thought!—Paul, then, after all, remained Saul—the persecutor of God....

48 minute read

Read Chapter

86.

Socrates. —If all goes well, the time will come when, in order to advance themselves on the path [pg 242] of moral reason, men will rather take up the Memorabilia of Socrates than the Bible, and when Montaigne and Horace will be used as pioneers and guides for the understanding of Socrates, the simplest and most enduring of interpretative sages. In him converge the roads of the most different philosophic modes of life, which are in truth the modes of the different temperaments, crystallised by r

1 minute read

Read Chapter

87.

Learning to Write Well. —The age of good speaking is over, because the age of city-state culture is over. The limit allowed by Aristotle to the great city—in which the town-crier must be able to make himself heard by the whole assembled community—troubles us as little as do any city-communities, us who even wish to be understood beyond the boundaries of nations. Therefore every one who is of a good European turn of mind must learn to write well, and to write better and better. He cannot help him

43 minute read

Read Chapter

90.

“ Already ” and “ Still. ” — A. German prose is still very young. Goethe declares that Wieland is its father. B. So young and already so ugly! C. But, so far as I am aware, Bishop Ulfilas already wrote German prose, which must therefore be fifteen hundred years old. B. So old and still so ugly! B. So young and already so ugly! C. But, so far as I am aware, Bishop Ulfilas already wrote German prose, which must therefore be fifteen hundred years old. B. So old and still so ugly!...

1 minute read

Read Chapter

91.

Original German. —German prose, which is really not fashioned on any pattern and must be considered an original creation of German taste, should give the eager advocate of a future original German culture an indication of how real German dress, German society, German furniture, German meals would look without the imitation of models.—Some one who had long reflected on these vistas finally cried in great horror, “But, Heaven help us, perhaps we already have that original culture—only we don't lik

51 minute read

Read Chapter

92.

Forbidden Books. —One should never read anything written by those arrogant wiseacres and puzzle-brains who have the detestable vice of logical paradox. They apply logical formulæ just where everything is really improvised at random and built in the air. ( “Therefore” with them means, “You idiot of a reader, this ‘therefore’ does not exist for you, but only for me.” The answer to this is: “You idiot of a writer, then why do you write?” )...

51 minute read

Read Chapter

93.

Displaying One's Wit. —Every one who wishes to display his wit thereby proclaims that he has also a plentiful lack of wit. That vice which clever Frenchmen have of adding a touch of dédain to their best ideas arises from a desire to be considered richer than they really are. They wish to be carelessly generous, as if weary of continual spending from overfull treasuries....

37 minute read

Read Chapter

94.

French and German Literature. —The misfortune of the French and German literature of the last hundred years is that the Germans ran away too early from the French school, and the French, later on, went too early to the German school....

24 minute read

Read Chapter

95.

Our Prose. —None of the present-day cultured nations has so bad a prose as the German. When [pg 246] clever, blasé Frenchmen say, “There is no German prose,” we ought really not to be angry, for this criticism is more polite than we deserve. If we look for reasons, we come at last to the strange phenomenon that the German knows only improvised prose and has no conception of any other. He simply cannot understand the Italian, who says that prose is as much harder than poetry as the representation

1 minute read

Read Chapter

96.

The Grand Style. —The grand style comes into being when the beautiful wins a victory over the monstrous....

12 minute read

Read Chapter

97.

Dodging. —We do not realise, in the case of distinguished minds, wherein lies the excellence of their expression, their turn of phrase, until we can say what word every mediocre writer would inevitably have hit upon in expressing the same idea. All great artists, in steering their car, show themselves prone to dodge and leave the track, but never to fall over....

36 minute read

Read Chapter

98.

Something like Bread. —Bread neutralises and takes out the taste of other food, and is therefore [pg 247] necessary to every long meal. In all works of art there must be something like bread, in order that they may produce divers effects. If these effects followed one another without occasional pauses and intervals, they would soon make us weary and provoke disgust—in fact, a long meal of art would then be impossible....

42 minute read

Read Chapter

99.

Jean Paul. —Jean Paul knew a great deal, but had no science; understood all manner of tricks of art, but had no art; found almost everything enjoyable, but had no taste; possessed feeling and seriousness, but in dispensing them poured over them a nauseous sauce of tears; had even wit, but, unfortunately for his ardent desire for it, far too little—whence he drives the reader to despair by his very lack of wit. In short, he was the bright, rank-smelling weed that shot up overnight in the fair ple

1 minute read

Read Chapter

100.

Palate for Opposites. —In order to enjoy a work of the past as its contemporaries enjoyed it, one must have a palate for the prevailing taste of the age which it attacked....

19 minute read

Read Chapter

101.

Spirits-of-Wine Authors. —Many writers are neither spirit nor wine, but spirits of wine. They can flare up, and then they give warmth....

16 minute read

Read Chapter

102.

The Interpretative Sense. —The sense of taste, as the true interpretative sense, often talks the other senses over to its point of view and imposes upon them its laws and customs. At table one can receive disclosures about the most subtle secrets of the arts; it suffices to observe what tastes good and when and after what and how long it tastes good....

36 minute read

Read Chapter

103.

Lessing. —Lessing had a genuine French talent, and, as writer, went most assiduously to the French school. He knows well how to arrange and display his wares in his shop-window. Without this true art his thoughts, like the objects of them, would have remained rather in the dark, nor would the general loss be great. His art, however, has taught many (especially the last generation of German scholars) and has given enjoyment to a countless number. It is true his disciples had no need to learn from

1 minute read

Read Chapter

104.

Undesirable Readers. —How an author is vexed by those stolid, awkward readers who always [pg 249] fall at every place where they stumble, and always hurt themselves when they fall!...

19 minute read

Read Chapter

105.

Poets' Thoughts. —Real thoughts of real poets always go about with a veil on, like Egyptian women; only the deep eye of thought looks out freely through the veil.—Poets' thoughts are as a rule not of such value as is supposed. We have to pay for the veil and for our own curiosity into the bargain....

32 minute read

Read Chapter

106.

Write Simply and Usefully. —Transitions, details, colour in depicting the passions—we make a present of all these to the author because we bring them with us and set them down to the credit of his book, provided he makes us some compensation....

24 minute read

Read Chapter

107.

Wieland. —Wieland wrote German better than any one else, and had the genuine adequacies and inadequacies of the master. His translations of the letters of Cicero and Lucian are the best in the language. His ideas, however, add nothing to our store of thought. We can endure his cheerful moralities as little as his cheerful immoralities, for both are very closely connected. The men who enjoyed them were at bottom better men than we are, but also a good deal heavier. They needed an author of this s

1 minute read

Read Chapter

108.

Rare Festivals. —Pithy conciseness, repose, and maturity—where you find these qualities in an author, cry halt and celebrate a great festival in the desert. It will be long before you have such a treat again....

22 minute read

Read Chapter

109.

The Treasure of German Prose. —Apart from Goethe's writings and especially Goethe's conversations with Eckermann (the best German book in existence), what German prose literature remains that is worth reading over and over again? Lichtenberg's Aphorisms , the first book of Jung-Stilling's Story of My Life , Adalbert Stifter's St. Martin's Summer and Gottfried Keller's People of Seldwyla —and there, for the time being, it comes to an end....

45 minute read

Read Chapter

110.

Literary and Colloquial Style. —The art of writing demands, first and foremost, substitutions for the means of expression which speech alone possesses—in other words, for gestures, accent, intonation, and look. Hence literary style is quite different from colloquial style, and far more difficult, because it has to make itself as intelligible as the latter with fewer accessaries. Demosthenes delivered his speeches differently from what we read; he [pg 251] worked them up for reading purposes.—Cic

1 minute read

Read Chapter

111.

Caution in Quotation. —Young authors do not know that a good expression or idea only looks well among its peers; that an excellent quotation may spoil whole pages, nay the whole book; for it seems to cry warningly to the reader, “Mark you, I am the precious stone, and round about me is lead—pale, worthless lead!” Every word, every idea only desires to live in its own company—that is the moral of a choice style....

43 minute read

Read Chapter

112.

How should Errors be Enunciated? —We may dispute whether it be more injurious for errors to be enunciated badly or as well as the best truths. It is certain that in the former case they are doubly harmful to the brain and are less easily removed from it. But, on the other hand, they are not so certain of effect as in the latter case. They are, in fact, less contagious....

39 minute read

Read Chapter

113.

Limiting and Widening. —Homer limited and diminished the horizon of his subject, but allowed individual scenes to expand and blossom out. Later, the tragedians are constantly renewing this process. Each takes his material in ever smaller and smaller fragments than his predecessor did, but [pg 252] each attains a greater wealth of blooms within the narrow hedges of these sequestered garden enclosures....

42 minute read

Read Chapter

114.

Literature and Morality Mutually Explanatory. —We can show from Greek literature by what forces the Greek spirit developed, how it entered upon different channels, and where it became enfeebled. All this also depicts to us how Greek morality proceeded, and how all morality will proceed: how it was at first a constraint and displayed cruelty, then became gradually milder; how a pleasure in certain actions, in certain forms and conventions arose, and from this again a propensity for solitary exerc

1 minute read

Read Chapter

115.

What Landscapes give Permanent Delight. —Such and such a landscape has features eminently suited for painting, but I cannot find the formula for it; it remains beyond my grasp as a whole. I notice that all landscapes which please me permanently have a simple geometrical scheme [pg 253] of lines underneath all their complexity. Without such a mathematical substratum no scenery becomes artistically pleasing. Perhaps this rule may be applied symbolically to human beings....

48 minute read

Read Chapter

116.

Reading Aloud. —The ability to read aloud involves of necessity the ability to declaim. Everywhere we must apply pale tints, but we must determine the degree of pallor in close relation to the richly and deeply coloured background, that always hovers before our eyes and acts as our guide—in other words, in accordance with the way in which we should declaim the same passages. That is why we must be able to declaim....

42 minute read

Read Chapter

117.

The Dramatic Sense. —He who has not the four subtler senses of art tries to understand everything with the fifth sense, which is the coarsest of all—the dramatic sense....

18 minute read

Read Chapter

118.

Herder. —Herder fails to be all that he made people think he was and himself wished to think he was. He was no great thinker or discoverer, no newly fertile soil with the unexhausted strength of a virgin forest. But he possessed in the highest degree the power of scenting the future, he saw and picked the first-fruits of the seasons earlier than all others, and they then believed that he had made them grow. Between darkness and light, youth and age, [pg 254] his mind was like a hunter on the wat

3 minute read

Read Chapter

119.

Scent of Words. —Every word has its scent; there is a harmony and discord of scents, and so too of words....

13 minute read

Read Chapter

120.

The Far-Fetched Style. —The natural style is an offence to the lover of the far-fetched style....

11 minute read

Read Chapter

121.

A Vow. —I will never again read an author of whom one can suspect that he wanted to make a book, but only those writers whose thoughts unexpectedly became a book....

19 minute read

Read Chapter

122.

The Artistic Convention. —Three-fourths of Homer is convention, and the same is the case with all the Greek artists, who had no reason for falling into the modern craze for originality. They had no fear of convention, for after all convention was a link between them and their public. Conventions are the artistic means acquired for the understanding of the hearer; the common speech, learnt with much toil, whereby the artist can really communicate his ideas. All the more when he wishes, like [pg 2

1 minute read

Read Chapter

123.

Artists' Affectation of Scientific Method. —Schiller, like other German artists, fancied that if a man had intellect he was entitled to improvise even with the pen on all difficult subjects. So there we see his prose essays—in every way a model of how not to attack scientific questions of æsthetics and ethics, and a danger for young readers who, in their admiration for Schiller the poet, have not the courage to think meanly of Schiller the thinker and author.—The temptation to traverse for once

2 minute read

Read Chapter

124.

The Faust-Idea. —A little sempstress is seduced and plunged into despair: a great scholar of all the four Faculties is the evil-doer. That cannot have happened in the ordinary course, surely? No, certainly not! Without the aid of the devil incarnate, the great scholar would never have achieved the deed.—Is this really destined to be the greatest German “tragic idea,” as one hears it said among Germans?—But for Goethe even this idea was too terrible. His kind heart could not avoid placing the lit

1 minute read

Read Chapter

125.

Are there “ German Classics ” ? —Sainte-Beuve observes somewhere that the word “classic” does not suit the genius of certain literatures. For instance, nobody could talk seriously of “German classics.” —What do our German publishers, who are about to add fifty more to the fifty German classics we are told to accept, say to that? Does it not almost seem as if one need only have been dead for the last thirty years, and lie a lawful prey to the public, 21 in order to hear suddenly and unexpectedly

5 minute read

Read Chapter

126.

Interesting, but not Beautiful. —This countryside conceals its meaning, but it has one that we should like to guess. Everywhere that I look, I read words and hints of words, but I do not know where begins the sentence that solves the riddle of all these hints. So I get a stiff neck in trying to discover whether I should start reading from this or that point....

37 minute read

Read Chapter

127.

Against Innovators in Language. —The use of neologisms or archaisms, the preference for the rare and the bizarre, the attempt to enrich rather than to limit the vocabulary, are always signs either [pg 261] of an immature or of a corrupted taste. A noble poverty but a masterly freedom within the limits of that modest wealth distinguishes the Greek artists in oratory. They wish to have less than the people has—for the people is richest in old and new—but they wish to have that little better . The

1 minute read

Read Chapter

128.

Gloomy and Serious Authors. —He who commits his sufferings to paper becomes a gloomy author, but he becomes a serious one if he tells us what he has suffered and why he is now enjoying a pleasurable repose....

24 minute read

Read Chapter

129.

Healthiness of Taste. —How is it that health is less contagious than disease—generally, and particularly in matters of taste? Or are there epidemics of health?...

17 minute read

Read Chapter

130.

A Resolution. —Never again to read a book that is born and christened (with ink) at the same moment. Improving our Ideas. —Improving our style means improving our ideas, and nothing else. He [pg 262] who does not at once concede this can never be convinced of the point. Classical Books. —The weakest point in every classical book is that it is written too much in the mother tongue of its author. Bad Books. —The book should demand pen, ink, and desk, but usually it is pen, ink, and desk that deman

42 minute read

Read Chapter

133.

Bad Books. —The book should demand pen, ink, and desk, but usually it is pen, ink, and desk that demand the book. That is why books are of so little account at present....

19 minute read

Read Chapter

134.

Presence of Sense. —When the public reflects on paintings, it becomes a poet; when on poems, an investigator. At the moment when the artist summons it it is always lacking in the right sense, and accordingly in presence of sense, not in presence of mind....

25 minute read

Read Chapter

135.

Choice Ideas. —The choice style of a momentous period does not only select its words but its ideas—and both from the customary and prevailing usage. Venturesome ideas, that smell too fresh, are to the maturer taste no less repugnant than new and reckless images and phrases. Later on both choice ideas and choice words soon smack of mediocrity, because the scent of the choice vanishes quickly, and then nothing but the customary and commonplace element is tasted....

46 minute read

Read Chapter

136.

Main Reason for Corruption of Style. —The desire to display more sentiment than one really feels for a thing corrupts style, in language and in all art. All great art shows rather the opposite tendency. Like every man of moral significance, it loves to check emotion on its way and not let it run its course to the very end. This modesty of letting emotion but half appear is most clearly to be observed, for example, in Sophocles. The features of sentiment seem to become beautified when sentiment f

54 minute read

Read Chapter

137.

An Excuse for the Heavy Style. —The lightly uttered phrase seldom falls on the ear with the full weight of the subject. This is, however, due to the bad training of the ear, which by education must pass from what has hitherto been called music to the school of the higher harmony—in other words, to conversation....

31 minute read

Read Chapter

138.

Bird's-Eye Views. —Here torrents rush from every side into a ravine: their movement is so swift and stormy, and carries the eye along so quickly, that the bare or wooded mountain slopes around seem not to sink down but to fly down. We are in an agonised tension at the sight, as if behind all this were hidden some hostile element, before which all must fly, and against which the abyss alone gave protection. This landscape cannot be painted, unless [pg 264] we hover above it like a bird in the ope

1 minute read

Read Chapter

139.

Rash Comparisons. —If rash comparisons are not proofs of the wantonness of the writer, they are proofs of the exhaustion of his imagination. In any case they bear witness to his bad taste....

22 minute read

Read Chapter

140.

Dancing in Chains. —In the case of every Greek artist, poet, or writer we must ask: What is the new constraint which he imposes upon himself and makes attractive to his contemporaries, so as to find imitators? For the thing called “invention” (in metre, for example) is always a self-imposed fetter of this kind. “Dancing in chains” —to make that hard for themselves and then to spread a false notion that it is easy—that is the trick that they wish to show us. Even in Homer we may perceive a wealth

1 minute read

Read Chapter

141.

Authors' Copiousness. —The last quality that a good author acquires is copiousness: whoever has it to begin with will never become a good author. The noblest racehorses are lean until they are permitted to rest from their victories....

23 minute read

Read Chapter

142.

Wheezing Heroes. —Poets and artists who suffer from a narrow chest of the emotions generally make their heroes wheeze. They do not know what easy breathing means....

17 minute read

Read Chapter

143.

The Short-Sighted. 22 —The short-sighted are the deadly foes of all authors who let themselves go. These authors should know the wrath with which these people shut the book in which they observe that its creator needs fifty pages to express five ideas. And the cause of their wrath is that they have endangered what remains of their vision almost without compensation. A short-sighted person said, “All authors let themselves go.” “Even the Holy Ghost?” “Even the Holy Ghost.” But he had a right to,

53 minute read

Read Chapter

144.

The Style of Immortality. —Thucydides and Tacitus both imagined immortal life for their works when they executed them. That might be guessed [pg 266] (if not known otherwise) from their style. The one thought to give permanence to his ideas by salting them, the other by boiling them down; and neither, it seems, made a miscalculation....

37 minute read

Read Chapter

145.

Against Images and Similes. —By images and similes we convince, but we do not prove. That is why science has such a horror of images and similes. Science does not want to convince or make plausible, and rather seeks to provoke cold distrust by its mode of expression, by the bareness of its walls. For distrust is the touchstone for the gold of certainty....

36 minute read

Read Chapter

146.

Caution. —In Germany, he who lacks thorough knowledge should beware of writing. The good German does not say in that case “he is ignorant,” but “he is of doubtful character.” —This hasty conclusion, by the way, does great credit to the Germans....

28 minute read

Read Chapter

147.

Painted Skeletons. —Painted skeletons are those authors who try to make up for their want of flesh by artistic colourings....

12 minute read

Read Chapter

148.

The Grand Style and Something Better. —It is easier to learn how to write the grand style than how to write easily and simply. The reasons for this are inextricably bound up with morality....

20 minute read

Read Chapter

149.

Sebastian Bach. —In so far as we do not hear Bach's music as perfect and experienced connoisseurs of counterpoint and all the varieties of the fugal style (and accordingly must dispense with real artistic enjoyment), we shall feel in listening to his music—in Goethe's magnificent phrase—as if “we were present at God's creation of the world.” In other words, we feel here that something great is in the making but not yet made—our mighty modern music, which by conquering nationalities, the Church,

1 minute read

Read Chapter

150.

Händel. —Händel, who in the invention of his music was bold, original, truthful, powerful, inclined to and akin to all the heroism of which a nation is capable, often proved stiff, cold, nay even weary of himself in composition. He applied a few well-tried methods of execution, wrote copiously and quickly, and was glad when he had finished—but that joy was not the joy of God and other creators in the eventide of their working day....

43 minute read

Read Chapter

151.

Haydn. —So far as genius can exist in a man who is merely good , Haydn had genius. He went [pg 268] just as far as the limit which morality sets to intellect, and only wrote music that has “no past.”...

28 minute read

Read Chapter

152.

Beethoven and Mozart. —Beethoven's music often appears like a deeply emotional meditation on unexpectedly hearing once more a piece long thought to be forgotten, “Tonal Innocence” : it is music about music. In the song of the beggar and child in the street, in the monotonous airs of vagrant Italians, in the dance of the village inn or in carnival nights he discovers his melodies. He stores them together like a bee, snatching here and there some notes or a short phrase. To him these are hallowed

1 minute read

Read Chapter

153.

Recitative. —Formerly recitative was dry, but now we live in the age of moist recitative. It has fallen into the water, and the waves carry it whithersoever they list....

18 minute read

Read Chapter

154.

“ Cheerful ” Music. —If for a long time we have heard no music, it then goes like a heavy southern wine all too quickly into the blood and leaves behind it a soul dazed with narcotics, half-awake, [pg 269] longing for sleep. This is particularly the case with cheerful music, which inspires in us bitterness and pain, satiety and home-sickness together, and forces us to sip again and again as at a sweetened draught of poison. The hall of gay, noisy merriment then seems to grow narrow, the light to

1 minute read

Read Chapter

155.

Franz Schubert .—Franz Schubert, inferior as an artist to the other great musicians, had nevertheless the largest share of inherited musical wealth. He spent it with a free hand and a kind heart, so that for a few centuries musicians will continue to nibble at his ideas and inspirations. In his works we find a store of unused inventions; the greatness of others will lie in making use of those inventions. If Beethoven may be called the ideal listener for a troubadour, Schubert has a right to be c

57 minute read

Read Chapter

156.

Modern Musical Execution .—Great tragic or dramatic execution of music acquires its character by imitating the gesture of the great sinner, such as Christianity conceives and desires him: the slow-stepping, passionately brooding man, distracted by the agonies of conscience, now flying in terror, now clutching with delight, now standing still in despair—and all the other marks of great sinfulness. [pg 270] Only on the Christian assumption that all men are great sinners and do nothing but sin coul

1 minute read

Read Chapter

157.

Felix Mendelssohn. —Felix Mendelssohn's music is the music of the good taste that enjoys all the good things that have ever existed. It always points behind. How could it have much “in front,” much of a future?—But did he want it to have a future? He possessed a virtue rare among artists, that of gratitude without arrière-pensée . This virtue, too, always points behind....

40 minute read

Read Chapter

158.

A Mother of Arts. —In our sceptical age, real devotion requires almost a brutal heroism of ambition. Fanatical shutting of the eyes and bending of the knee no longer suffice. Would it not be possible for ambition—in its eagerness to be the last devotee of all the ages—to become the begetter of a final church music, as it has been the begetter of the final church architecture? (They call it the Jesuit style.)...

42 minute read

Read Chapter

159.

Freedom in Fetters—a Princely Freedom. —Chopin, the last of the modern musicians, who gazed at and worshipped beauty, like Leopardi; Chopin, the Pole, the inimitable (none that came before or after him has a right to this name)—Chopin had the same princely punctilio in convention that Raphael shows in the use of the simplest traditional colours. The only difference is that Chopin applies them not to colour but to melodic and rhythmic traditions. He admitted the validity of these traditions becau

1 minute read

Read Chapter

160.

Chopin's Barcarolle. —Almost all states and modes of life have a moment of rapture, and good artists know how to discover that moment. Such a moment there is even in life by the seashore—that dreary, sordid, unhealthy existence, dragged out in the neighbourhood of a noisy and covetous rabble. This moment of rapture Chopin in his Barcarolle expressed in sound so supremely that Gods themselves, when they heard it, might yearn to lie long summer evenings in a boat....

46 minute read

Read Chapter

161.

Robert Schumann. — “The Stripling,” as the romantic songsters of Germany and France of the [pg 272] first three decades of this century imagined him—this stripling was completely translated into song and melody by Robert Schumann, the eternal youth, so long as he felt himself in full possession of his powers. There are indeed moments when his music reminds one of the eternal “old maid.”...

46 minute read

Read Chapter

162.

Dramatic Singers. — “Why does this beggar sing?” “Probably he does not know how to wail.” “Then he does right.” But our dramatic singers, who wail because they do not know how to sing—are they also in the right?...

28 minute read

Read Chapter

163.

Dramatic Music. —For him who does not see what is happening on the stage, dramatic music is a monstrosity, just as the running commentary to a lost text is a monstrosity. Such music requires us to have ears where our eyes are. This, however, is doing violence to Euterpe, who, poor Muse, wants to have her eyes and ears where the other Muses have theirs....

37 minute read

Read Chapter

164.

Victory and Reasonableness. —Unfortunately in the æsthetic wars, which artists provoke by their works and apologias for their works, just as is the case in real war, it is might and not reason that decides. All the world now assumes as a historical fact that, in his dispute with Piccini, Gluck was in the right. At any rate, he was victorious, and had might on his side....

38 minute read

Read Chapter

165.

Of the Principle of Musical Execution. —Do the modern musical performers really believe that the supreme law of their art is to give every piece as much high-relief as is possible, and to make it speak at all costs a dramatic language? Is not this principle, when applied for example to Mozart, a veritable sin against the spirit—the gay, sunny, airy, delicate spirit—of Mozart, whose seriousness was of a kindly and not awe-inspiring order, whose pictures do not try to leap from the wall and drive

1 minute read

Read Chapter

166.

The Music of To-Day. —This ultra-modern music, with its strong lungs and weak nerves, is frightened above all things of itself....

15 minute read

Read Chapter

167.

Where Music is at Home. —Music reaches its high-water mark only among men who have not the [pg 274] ability or the right to argue. Accordingly, its chief promoters are princes, whose aim is that there should be not much criticism nor even much thought in their neighbourhood. Next come societies which, under some pressure or other (political or religious), are forced to become habituated to silence, and so feel all the greater need of spells to charm away emotional ennui—these spells being genera

2 minute read

Read Chapter

168.

Sentimentality in Music. —We may be ever so much in sympathy with serious and profound music, yet nevertheless, or perhaps all the more for that reason, we shall at occasional moments be overpowered, entranced, and almost melted away by its [pg 275] opposite—I mean, by those simple Italian operatic airs which, in spite of all their monotony of rhythm and childishness of harmony, seem at times to sing to us like the very soul of music. Admit this or not as you please, you Pharisees of good taste,

3 minute read

Read Chapter

169.

As Friends of Music. —Ultimately we are and remain good friends with music, as we are with the light of the moon. Neither, after all, tries to supplant the sun: they only want to illumine our nights to the best of their powers. Yet we may jest and laugh at them, may we not? Just a little, at least, and from time to time? At the man in the moon, at the woman in the music?...

40 minute read

Read Chapter

170.

Art in an Age of Work. —We have the conscience of an industrious epoch. This debars us from devoting our best hours and the best part of our days to art, even though that art be the greatest and worthiest. Art is for us a matter of leisure, of recreation, and we consecrate to it the residue of our time and strength. This is the cardinal fact that has altered the relation of art to life. When art makes its great demands of time and strength upon its recipients, it has to battle against the consci

3 minute read

Read Chapter

171.

The Employees of Science and the Others. —Really efficient and successful men of science might be collectively called “The Employees.” If in youth their acumen is sufficiently practised, their memory is full, and hand and eye have acquired sureness, they are appointed by an older fellow-craftsman to a scientific position where their qualities may prove useful. Later on, when they have themselves gained an eye for the gaps and defects in their science, they place themselves in whatever position t

4 minute read

Read Chapter

172.

Recognition of Talent. —As I went through the village of S., a boy began to crack his whip with [pg 280] all his might—he had made great progress in this art, and he knew it. I threw him a look of recognition—in reality it hurt me cruelly. We do the same in our recognition of many of the talents. We do good to them when they hurt us....

36 minute read

Read Chapter

173.

Laughing and Smiling. —The more joyful and assured the mind becomes, the more man loses the habit of loud laughter. In compensation, there is an intellectual smile continually bubbling up in him, a sign of his astonishment at the innumerable concealed delights of a good existence. The Talk of Invalids. —Just as in spiritual grief we tear our hair, strike our foreheads, lacerate our cheeks or even (like Œdipus) gouge our eyes out, so against violent physical pain we call to our aid a bitter, viol

46 minute read

Read Chapter

176.

The Patient. —The pine tree seems to listen, the fir tree to wait, and both without impatience. They do not give a thought to the petty human being below who is consumed by his impatience and his curiosity....

23 minute read

Read Chapter

177.

The Best Joker. —My favourite joke is the one that takes the place of a heavy and rather hesitating idea, and that at once beckons with its finger and winks its eye....

19 minute read

Read Chapter

178.

The Accessaries of all Reverence. —Wherever the past is revered, the over-cleanly and over-tidy people should not be admitted. Piety does not feel content without a little dust, dirt, and dross....

18 minute read

Read Chapter

179.

The Great Danger of Savants. —It is just the most thorough and profound savants who are in peril of seeing their life's goal set ever lower and lower, and, with a feeling of this in their minds, to become ever more discouraged and more unendurable in the latter half of their lives. At first they plunge into their science with spacious hopes and set themselves daring tasks, the ends of which are [pg 282] already anticipated by their imaginations. Then there are moments as in the lives of the grea

3 minute read

Read Chapter

180.

Teachers in the Age of Books. —Now that self-education and mutual education are becoming more widespread, the teacher in his usual form must become almost unnecessary. Friends eager to learn, who wish to master some branch of knowledge together, find in our age of books a shorter and more natural way than “school” and “teachers.”...

32 minute read

Read Chapter

181.

Vanity as the Greatest Utility. —Originally the strong individual uses not only Nature but even societies and weaker individuals as objects of rapine. He exploits them, so far as he can, and then passes on. As he lives from hand to mouth, alternating between hunger and superfluity, he kills more animals than he can eat, and robs and maltreats men more than is necessary. His manifestation of power is at the same time one of revenge against his cramped and worried existence. Furthermore, he wishes

2 minute read

Read Chapter

182.

Weather-Signs of Culture. —There are so few decisive weather-signs of culture that we must be glad to have at least one unfailing sign at hand for use in house and garden. To test whether a man belongs to us (I mean to the free spirits) or not, we must test his sentiments regarding Christianity. If he looks upon Christianity with other than a critical eye, we turn our backs to him, for he brings us impure air and bad weather.—It is no longer our task to teach such men what a sirocco wind is. The

1 minute read

Read Chapter

183.

There is a Proper Time for Wrath and Punishment. —Wrath and punishment are our inheritance [pg 285] from the animals. Man does not become of age until he has restored to the animals this gift of the cradle.—Herein lies buried one of the mightiest ideas that men can have, the idea of a progress of all progresses.—Let us go forward together a few millenniums, my friends! There is still reserved for mankind a great deal of joy, the very scent of which has not yet been wafted to the men of our day!

2 minute read

Read Chapter

184.

Origin of Pessimists. —A snack of good food often decides whether we are to look to the future with hollow eye or in hopeful mood. The same influence extends to the very highest and most intellectual states. Discontent and reviling of the world are for the present generation an inheritance from starveling ancestors. Even in our artists and [pg 286] poets we often notice that, however exuberant their life, they are not of good birth, and have often, from oppressed and ill-nourished ancestors, inh

1 minute read

Read Chapter

185.

Of Reasonable Death. —Which is more reasonable, to stop the machine when the works have done the task demanded of them, or to let it run on until it stands still of its own accord—in other words, is destroyed? Is not the latter a waste of the cost of upkeep, a misuse of the strength and care of those who serve? Are men not here throwing away that which would be sorely needed elsewhere? Is not a kind of contempt of the machines propagated, in that many of them are so uselessly tended and kept up?

2 minute read

Read Chapter

186.

Retrograde Influences. —All criminals force society back to earlier stages of culture than that in which they are placed for the time being. Their influence is retrograde. Let us consider the tools that society must forge and maintain for its defence: the cunning detectives, the jailers, the hangmen. Nor should we forget the public counsel for prosecution and defence. Finally we may ask ourselves whether the judge himself and punishment and the whole legal procedure are not oppressive rather tha

1 minute read

Read Chapter

187.

War as a Remedy. —For nations that are growing weak and contemptible war may be prescribed as a remedy, if indeed they really want to go on living. National consumption as well as individual admits of a brutal cure. The eternal will to live and inability to die is, however, in itself already a sign of senility of emotion. The more fully and thoroughly we live, the more ready we are to sacrifice life for a single pleasurable emotion. A people that lives and feels in this wise has no need of war..

51 minute read

Read Chapter

188.

Intellectual and Physical Transplantation as Remedies. —The different cultures are so many intellectual climates, every one of which is peculiarly harmful or beneficial to this or that organism. History as a whole, as the knowledge of different cultures, is the science of remedies, but not the science of the healing art itself. We still need a physician who can make use of these remedies, in order to send every one—temporarily or permanently—to the climate that just suits him. To live in the pre

2 minute read

Read Chapter

189.

Reason and the Tree of Mankind. —What you all fear in your senile short-sightedness, regarding the over-population of the world, gives the more hopeful a mighty task. Man is some day to become a tree overshadowing the whole earth, with millions upon millions of buds that shall all grow to fruits side by side, and the earth itself shall be prepared for the nourishment of this tree. That the shoot, tiny as yet, may increase in sap and strength; that the sap may flow in countless channels for the n

3 minute read

Read Chapter

190.

The Praise of Disinterestedness and its Origin. —Between two neighbouring chieftains there was a long-standing quarrel: they laid waste each other's territories, stole cattle, and burnt down houses, with an indecisive result on the whole, because their power was fairly equal. A third, who from the distant situation of his property was able to keep aloof from these feuds, yet had reason to dread the day when one of the two neighbours should gain a decisive preponderance, at last intervened betwee

6 minute read

Read Chapter

191.

Days of Darkness. — “Days of Darkness” is the name given in Norway to the period when the sun remains below the horizon the whole day long. The temperature then falls slowly but continually.—A fine simile for all thinkers for whom the sun of the human future is temporarily eclipsed....

30 minute read

Read Chapter

192.

The Philosophy of Luxury. —A garden, figs, a little cheese, and three or four good friends—that was the luxury of Epicurus....

13 minute read

Read Chapter

193.

The Epochs of Life. —The real epochs of life are those brief periods of cessation midway between the rise and decline of a dominating idea or emotion. Here once again there is satisfaction: all the rest is hunger and thirst—or satiety....

24 minute read

Read Chapter

194.

Dreams. —Our dreams, if for once in a way they succeed and are complete—generally a dream is a bungled piece of work—are symbolic concatenations of scenes and images in place of a narrative poetical language. They paraphrase our experiences or expectations or relations with poetic boldness and definiteness, so that in the morning we are always astonished at ourselves when we remember the nature of our dream. In dreams we use up too much artistry—and hence are often too poor in artistry in the da

49 minute read

Read Chapter

195.

Nature and Science. —As in nature, so in science the worse and less fertile soils are first cultivated—because the means that science in its early stages has at command are fairly sufficient for this purpose. The working of the most fertile soils requires an enormous, carefully developed, persevering method, tangible individual results, and an organised body of well-trained workers. All these are found together only at a late stage.—Impatience and ambition often grasp too early at these most fer

1 minute read

Read Chapter

196.

The Simple Life. —A simple mode of life is nowadays difficult, requiring as it does far more reflection and gift for invention than even very clever people possess. The most honourable will perhaps still say, “I have not the time for such lengthy reflection. The simple life is for me too lofty a goal: I will wait till those wiser than I have discovered it.”...

40 minute read

Read Chapter

197.

Peaks and Needle-Points. —The poor fertility, the frequent celibacy, and in general the sexual coldness of the highest and most cultivated spirits, as that of the classes to which they belong, is essential in human economy. Intelligence recognises and makes use of the fact that at an acme of [pg 295] intellectual development the danger of a neurotic offspring is very great. Such men are the peaks of mankind—they ought no longer to run out into needle-points....

44 minute read

Read Chapter

198.

Natura non facit saltum. —However strongly man may develop upwards and seem to leap from one contradiction to another, a close observation will reveal the dovetails where the new building grows out of the old. This is the biographer's task: he must reflect upon his subject on the principle that nature takes no jumps....

31 minute read

Read Chapter

199.

Clean, but —He who clothes himself with rags washed clean dresses cleanly, to be sure, but is still ragged....

12 minute read

Read Chapter

200.

The Solitary Speaks. —In compensation for much disgust, disheartenment, boredom—such as a lonely life without friends, books, duties, and passions must involve—we enjoy those short spans of deep communion with ourselves and with Nature. He who fortifies himself completely against boredom fortifies himself against himself too. He will never drink the most powerful elixir from his own innermost spring....

38 minute read

Read Chapter

201.

False Renown. —I hate those so-called natural beauties which really have significance only through science, especially geographical science, but are insignificant [pg 296] in an æsthetic sense: for example, the view of Mont Blanc from Geneva. This is an insignificant thing without the auxiliary mental joy of science: the nearer mountains are all more beautiful and fuller of expression, but “not nearly so high,” adds that absurd depreciatory science. The eye here contradicts science: how can it t

48 minute read

Read Chapter

202.

Those that Travel for Pleasure. —Like animals, stupid and perspiring, they climb mountains: people forgot to tell them that there were fine views on the way....

17 minute read

Read Chapter

203.

Too Much and Too Little. —Men nowadays live too much and think too little. They have hunger and dyspepsia together, and become thinner and thinner, however much they eat. He who now says “Nothing has happened to me” is a blockhead....

22 minute read

Read Chapter

204.

End and Goal. —Not every end is the goal. The end of a melody is not its goal, and yet if a melody has not reached its end, it has also not reached its goal. A parable....

20 minute read

Read Chapter

205.

Neutrality of Nature on a Grand Scale. —The neutrality of Nature on a grand scale (in [pg 297] mountain, sea, forest, and desert) is pleasing, but only for a brief space. Afterwards we become impatient. “Have they all nothing to say to us ? Do we not exist so far as they are concerned?” There arises a feeling that a lèse-majesté is committed against humanity....

45 minute read

Read Chapter

206.

Forgetting our Purpose. —In a journey we commonly forget its goal. Almost every vocation is chosen and entered upon as means to an end, but is continued as the ultimate end. Forgetting our purpose is the most frequent form of folly....

24 minute read

Read Chapter

207.

Solar Orbit of an Idea. —When an idea is just rising on the horizon, the soul's temperature is usually very low. Gradually the idea develops in warmth, and is hottest (that is to say, exerts its greatest influence) when belief in the idea is already on the wane....

29 minute read

Read Chapter

208.

How to have every Man against You. —If some one now dared to say, “He that is not for me is against me,” he would at once have all against him.—This sentiment does credit to our era....

24 minute read

Read Chapter

209.

Being Ashamed of Wealth. —Our age endures only a single species of rich men—those who are [pg 298] ashamed of their wealth. If we hear it said of any one that he is very rich, we at once feel a similar sentiment to that experienced at the sight of a repulsively swollen invalid, one suffering from diabetes or dropsy. We must with an effort remember our humanity, in order to go about with this rich man in such a way that he does not notice our feeling of disgust. But as soon as he prides himself a

3 minute read

Read Chapter

210.

Extravagant Presumptions. —There are men so presumptuous that they can only praise a greatness which they publicly admire by representing it as steps and bridges that lead to themselves....

18 minute read

Read Chapter

211.

On the Soil of Insult. —He who wishes to deprive men of a conception is generally not satisfied with refuting it and drawing out of it the illogical worm that resides within. Rather, when the worm has been killed, does he throw the whole fruit as well into the mire, in order to make it ignoble in men's sight and to inspire disgust. Thus he thinks that he has found a means of making the usual “third-day resurrection” of conceptions an impossibility.—He is wrong, for on the very soil of insult, in

46 minute read

Read Chapter

213.

The Elder : You promise too much; you cannot bear this burden. Pyrrho : Then I will tell men even that, and say that I am too weak, and cannot keep my promise. The greater my unworthiness, the more will they [pg 301] mistrust the truth, when it passes through my lips. The Elder : You propose to teach distrust of truth? Pyrrho : Yes; distrust as it never was yet on earth, distrust of anything and everything. This is the only road to truth. The right eye must not trust the left eye, and for some t

3 minute read

Read Chapter

214.

European Books. —In reading Montaigne, La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyère, Fontenelle (especially the Dialogues des Morts ), Vauvenargues, and Chamfort we are nearer to antiquity than in any group of six authors of other nations. Through these six the spirit of the last centuries before Christ has once more come into being, and they collectively form an important link in the great and still continuous chain of the Renaissance. Their books are raised above all changes of national taste and philosophica

3 minute read

Read Chapter

215.

Fashion and Modernity. —Wherever ignorance, uncleanness, and superstition are still rife, where communication is backward, agriculture poor, and the priesthood powerful, national costumes are still worn. Fashion, on the other hand, rules where the opposite conditions prevail. Fashion is accordingly to be found next to the virtues in modern Europe. Are we to call it their seamy side?—Masculine dress that is fashionable and no longer national proclaims of its wearer: firstly, that he does not wish

8 minute read

Read Chapter

216.

“ German Virtue. ” —There is no denying that from the end of the eighteenth century a current of moral awakening flowed through Europe. Then only Virtue found again the power of speech. She learnt to discover the unrestrained gestures of exaltation and emotion, she was no longer ashamed of herself, and she created philosophies and poems for her own glorification. If we look for the sources of this current, we come upon Rousseau, but the mythical Rousseau, the phantom formed from the impression l

5 minute read

Read Chapter

217.

Classic and Romantic. —Both classically and romantically minded spirits—two species that always exist—cherish a vision of the future; but the former derive their vision from the strength of their time, the latter from its weakness....

22 minute read

Read Chapter

218.

The Machine as Teacher. —Machinery teaches in itself the dovetailed working of masses of men, in activities where each has but one thing to do. It is the model of party organisations and of warfare. On the other hand, it does not teach individual self-glorification, for it makes of the many a machine, and of each individual a tool for one purpose. Its most general effect is to teach the advantage of centralisation....

42 minute read

Read Chapter

219.

Unable to Settle. —One likes to live in a small town. But from time to time just this small town drives us out into bare and lonely Nature, especially when we think we know it too well. Finally, in order to refresh ourselves from Nature, we go to the big town. A few draughts from this cup and we see its dregs, and the circle begins afresh, with the small town as starting-point.—So the moderns live; [pg 310] they are in all things rather too thorough to be able to settle like the men of other day

58 minute read

Read Chapter

220.

Reaction against the Civilisation of Machinery. —The machine, itself a product of the highest mental powers, sets in motion hardly any but the lower, unthinking forces of the men who serve it. True, it unfetters a vast quantity of force which would otherwise lie dormant. But it does not communicate the impulse to climb higher, to improve, to become artistic. It creates activity and monotony, but this in the long-run produces a counter-effect, a despairing ennui of the soul, which through machine

53 minute read

Read Chapter

221.

The Danger of Enlightenment. —All the half-insane, theatrical, bestially cruel, licentious, and especially sentimental and self-intoxicating elements which go to form the true revolutionary substance, and became flesh and spirit, before the revolution, in Rousseau—all this composite being, with factitious enthusiasm, finally set even “enlightenment” upon its fanatical head, which thereby began itself to shine as in an illuminating halo. Yet, enlightenment is essentially foreign to that phenomeno

1 minute read

Read Chapter

222.

Passion in the Middle Ages. —The Middle Ages are the period of great passions. Neither antiquity nor our period possesses this widening of the soul. Never was the capacity of the soul greater or measured by larger standards. The physical, primeval sensuality of the barbarian races and the over-soulful, over-vigilant, over-brilliant eyes of Christian mystics, the most childish and youthful and the most over-ripe and world-weary, the savageness of the beast of prey and the effeminacy and excessive

1 minute read

Read Chapter

223.

Robbing and Saving. —All intellectual movements whereby the great may hope to rob and the [pg 312] small to save are sure to prosper. That is why, for instance, the German Reformation made progress....

25 minute read

Read Chapter

224.

Gladsome Souls. —When even a remote hint of drink, drunkenness, and an evil-smelling kind of jocularity was given, the souls of the old Germans waxed gladsome. Otherwise they were depressed, but here they found something they really understood....

23 minute read

Read Chapter

225.

Debauchery at Athens. —Even when the fish-market of Athens acquired its thinkers and poets, Greek debauchery had a more idyllic and refined appearance than Roman or German debauchery ever had. The voice of Juvenal would have sounded there like a hollow trumpet, and would have been answered by a good-natured and almost childish outburst of laughter....

34 minute read

Read Chapter

226.

Cleverness of the Greek. —As the desire for victory and pre-eminence is an ineradicable trait of human nature, older and more primitive than any respect of or joy in equality, the Greek State sanctioned gymnastic and artistic competitions among equals. In other words, it marked out an arena where this impulse to conquer would find a vent without jeopardising the political order. With the final decline of gymnastic and artistic contests the Greek State fell into a condition of profound unrest and

48 minute read

Read Chapter

227.

The “ Eternal Epicurus. ” —Epicurus has lived in all periods, and lives yet, unbeknown to those who called and still call themselves Epicureans, and without repute among philosophers. He has himself even forgotten his own name—that was the heaviest luggage that he ever cast off....

26 minute read

Read Chapter

228.

The Style of Superiority. — “University slang,” the speech of the German students, has its origin among the students who do not study. The latter know how to acquire a preponderance over their more serious fellows by exposing all the farcical elements of culture, respectability, erudition, order, and moderation, and by having words taken from these realms always on their lips, like the better and more learned students, but with malice in their glance and an accompanying grimace. This language of

1 minute read

Read Chapter

229.

The Recluse. —We retire into seclusion, but not from personal misgivings, as if the political and social conditions of the day did not satisfy us; rather because by our retirement we try to save and [pg 314] collect forces which will some day be urgently needed by culture, the more this present is this present , and, as such, fulfils its task. We form a capital and try to make it secure, but, as in times of real danger, our method is to bury our hoard....

52 minute read

Read Chapter

230.

Tyrants of the Intellect. —In our times, any one who expressed a single moral trait so thoroughly as the characters of Theophrastus and Molière do, would be considered ill, and be spoken of as possessing “a fixed idea.” The Athens of the third century, if we could visit it, would appear to us populated by fools. Nowadays the democracy of ideas rules in every brain—there the multitude collectively is lord. A single idea that tried to be lord is now called, as above stated, “a fixed idea.” This is

56 minute read

Read Chapter

231.

A Most Dangerous Emigration. —In Russia there is an emigration of the intelligence. People cross the frontier in order to read and write good books. Thus, however, they are working towards turning their country, abandoned by the intellect, into a gaping Asiatic maw, which would fain swallow our little Europe....

30 minute read

Read Chapter

232.

Political Fools. —The almost religious love of the king was transferred by the Greeks, when the [pg 315] monarchy was abolished, to the polis . An idea can be loved more than a person, and does not thwart the lover so often as a beloved human being (for the more men know themselves to be loved, the less considerate they usually become, until they are no longer worthy of love, and a rift really arises). Hence the reverence for State and polis was greater than the reverence for princes had ever be

1 minute read

Read Chapter

233.

Against Neglect of the Eyes. —Might one not find among the cultured classes of England, who read the Times , a decline in their powers of sight every ten years?...

18 minute read

Read Chapter

234.

Great Works and Great Faith. —One man had great works, but his comrade had great faith in these works. They were inseparable, but obviously the former was entirely dependent upon the latter....

19 minute read

Read Chapter

235.

The Sociable Man. — “I don't get on well with myself,” said some one in explanation of his fondness for society. “Society has a stronger digestion than I have, and can put up with me.”...

23 minute read

Read Chapter

236.

Shutting the Mind's Eyes. —If we are practised and accustomed to reflect upon our actions, [pg 316] we must nevertheless close the inner eye while performing an action (be this even only writing letters or eating or drinking). Even in conversation with average people we must know how to obscure our own mental vision in order to attain and grasp average thinking. This shutting of the eyes is a conscious act and can be achieved by the will....

49 minute read

Read Chapter

237.

The Most Terrible Revenge. —If we wish to take a thorough revenge upon an opponent, we must wait until we have our hand quite full of truths and equities, and can calmly use the whole lot against him. Hence the exercise of revenge may be identified with the exercise of equity. It is the most terrible kind of revenge, for there is no higher court to which an appeal can be made. Thus did Voltaire revenge himself on Piron, with five lines that sum up Piron's whole life, work, and character: every w

1 minute read

Read Chapter

238.

Taxes of Luxury. —In shops we buy the most necessary and urgent things, and have to pay very dear, because we pay as well for what is also to be had there cheap, but seldom finds a customer—articles of luxury that minister to pleasure. Thus luxury lays a constant tax upon the man of simple life who does without luxuries....

33 minute read

Read Chapter

239.

Why Beggars still Live. —If all alms were given only out of compassion, the whole tribe of beggars would long since have died of starvation....

17 minute read

Read Chapter

240.

Why Beggars still Live. —The greatest of almsgivers is cowardice....

9 minute read

Read Chapter

241.

How the Thinker Makes Use of a Conversation. —Without being eavesdroppers, we can hear a good deal if we are able to see well, and at the same time to let ourselves occasionally get out of our own sight. But people do not know how to make use of a conversation. They pay far too much attention to what they want to say and reply, whereas the true listener is often contented to make a provisional answer and to say something merely as a payment on account of politeness, but on the other hand, with h

1 minute read

Read Chapter

242.

The Art of Excusing Oneself. —If some one excuses himself to us, he has to make out a very [pg 318] good case, otherwise we readily come to feel ourselves the culprits, and experience an unpleasant emotion....

26 minute read

Read Chapter

243.

Impossible Intercourse. —The ship of your thoughts goes too deep for you to be able to travel with it in the waters of these friendly, decorous, obliging people. There are too many shallows and sandbanks: you would have to tack and turn, and would find yourself continually at your wits' end, and they would soon also be in perplexity as to your perplexity, the reason for which they cannot divine....

42 minute read

Read Chapter

244.

The Fox of Foxes. —A true fox not only calls sour the grapes he cannot reach, but also those he has reached and snatched from the grasp of others....

18 minute read

Read Chapter

245.

In Intimate Intercourse. —However closely men are connected, there are still all the four quarters of the heavens in their common horizon, and at times they become aware of this fact....

18 minute read

Read Chapter

246.

The Silence of Disgust. —Behold! some one undergoes a thorough and painful transformation as thinker and human being, and makes a public avowal of the change. And those who hear him see nothing, and still believe he is the same as before! This common experience has already disgusted [pg 319] many writers. They had rated the intellectuality of mankind too highly, and made a vow to be silent as soon as they became aware of their mistake....

49 minute read

Read Chapter

247.

Business Seriousness. —The business of many rich and eminent men is their form of recreation from too long periods of habitual leisure. They then become as serious and impassioned as other people do in their rare moments of leisure and amusement. The Eye's Double Sense. —Just as a sudden scaly ripple runs over the waters at your feet, so there are similar sudden uncertainties and ambiguities in the human eye. They lead to the question: is it a shudder, or a smile, or both? Positive and Negative.

50 minute read

Read Chapter

250.

The Revenge of the Empty Nets. —Above all we should beware of those who have the bitter feeling of the fisherman who after a hard day's work comes home in the evening with nets empty....

20 minute read

Read Chapter

251.

Non-Assertion of our Rights. —The exertion of power is laborious and demands courage. That [pg 320] is why so many do not assert their most valid rights, because their rights are a kind of power, and they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise them. Indulgence and patience are the names given to the virtues that cloak these faults....

40 minute read

Read Chapter

252.

Bearers of Light. —In Society there would be no sunshine if the born flatterers (I mean the so-called amiable people) did not bring some in with them....

17 minute read

Read Chapter

253.

When most Benevolent. —When a man has been highly honoured and has eaten a little, he is most benevolent....

12 minute read

Read Chapter

254.

To the Light. —Men press forward to the light not in order to see better but to shine better.—The person before whom we shine we gladly allow to be called a light....

19 minute read

Read Chapter

255.

The Hypochondriac. —The hypochondriac is a man who has just enough intellect and pleasure in the intellect to take his sorrows, his losses, and his mistakes seriously. But the field on which he grazes is too small: he crops it so close that in the end he has to look for single stalks. Thus he finally becomes envious and avaricious—and only then is he unbearable....

37 minute read

Read Chapter

256.

Giving in Return. —Hesiod advises us to give the neighbour who has helped us good measure and, [pg 321] if possible, fuller measure in return, as soon as we have the power. For this is where the neighbour's pleasure comes in, since his former benevolence brings him interest. Moreover, he who gives in return also has his pleasure, inasmuch as, by giving a little more than he got, he redeems the slight humiliation of being compelled to seek aid....

44 minute read

Read Chapter

257.

More subtle than Is Necessary. —Our sense of observation for how far others perceive our weaknesses is far more subtle than our sense of observation for the weaknesses of others. It follows that the first-named sense is more subtle than is necessary....

24 minute read

Read Chapter

258.

A Kind of Bright Shadows. —Close to the nocturnal type of man we almost regularly find, as if bound up with him, a bright soul. This is, as it were, the negative shadow cast by the former....

20 minute read

Read Chapter

259.

Not to take Revenge. —There are so many subtle sorts of revenge that one who has occasion to take revenge can really do or omit to do what he likes. In any case, the whole world will agree, after a time, that he has avenged himself. Hence the avoidance of revenge is hardly within man's power. He must not even so much as say that he does not want to do so, since the contempt for revenge is interpreted and felt as a sublime and exquisite form of revenge.—It follows that we must do nothing superflu

56 minute read

Read Chapter

260.

The Mistake of Those who Pay Homage. —Every one thinks he is paying a most agreeable compliment to a thinker when he says that he himself hit upon exactly the same idea and even upon the same expression. The thinker, however, is seldom delighted at hearing such news, nay, rather, he often becomes distrustful of his own thoughts and expressions. He silently resolves to revise both some day. If we wish to pay homage to any one, we must beware of expressing our agreement, for this puts us on the sa

1 minute read

Read Chapter

261.

Letters. —A letter is an unannounced visit, and the postman is the intermediary of impolite surprises. Every week we ought to have one hour for receiving letters, and then go and take a bath....

19 minute read

Read Chapter

262.

Prejudiced. —Some one said: I have been prejudiced against myself from childhood upwards, and hence I find some truth in every censure and some absurdity in every eulogy. Praise I generally value too low and blame too high....

24 minute read

Read Chapter

263.

The Path to Equality. —A few hours of mountain-climbing make a blackguard and a saint two rather similar creatures. Weariness is the shortest path to equality and fraternity—and finally liberty is bestowed by sleep....

22 minute read

Read Chapter

264.

Calumny. —If we begin to trace to its source a real scandalous misrepresentation, we shall rarely look for its origin in our honourable and straightforward enemies; for if they invented anything of the sort about us, they, as being our enemies, would gain no credence. Those, however, to whom for a time we have been most useful, but who, from some reason or other, may be secretly sure that they will obtain no more from us—such persons are in a position to start the ball of slander rolling. They g

1 minute read

Read Chapter

265.

The Child's Kingdom of Heaven. —The happiness of a child is as much of a myth as the happiness of the Hyperboreans of whom the Greeks [pg 324] fabled. The Greeks supposed that, if indeed happiness dwells anywhere on our earth, it must certainly dwell as far as possible from us, perhaps over yonder at the edge of the world. Old people have the same thought—if man is at all capable of being happy, he must be happy as far as possible from our age, at the frontiers and beginnings of life. For many a

1 minute read

Read Chapter

266.

The Impatient. —It is just the growing man who does not want things in the growing stage. He is too impatient for that. The youth will not wait until, after long study, suffering, and privation, his picture of men and things is complete. Accordingly, he confidently accepts another picture that lies ready to his hand and is recommended to him, and pins his faith to that, as if it must give him at once the lines and colours of his own painting. He presses a philosopher or a poet to his bosom, and

1 minute read

Read Chapter

267.

There are no Teachers. —As thinkers we ought only to speak of self-teaching. The instruction of the young by others is either an experiment performed upon something as yet unknown and unknowable, or else a thorough levelling process, in order to make the new member of society conform to the customs and manners that prevail for the time being. In both cases the result is accordingly unworthy of a thinker—the handiwork of parents and teachers, whom some valiantly honest person 25 has called “ nos

1 minute read

Read Chapter

268.

Sympathy with Youth. —We are sorry when we hear that some one who is still young is losing his teeth or growing blind. If we knew all the irrevocable and hopeless feelings hidden in his whole being, how great our sorrow would be! Why do [pg 326] we really suffer on this account? Because youth has to continue the work we have undertaken, and every flaw and failing in its strength is likely to injure our work, that will fall into its hands. It is the sorrow at the imperfect guarantee of our immort

1 minute read

Read Chapter

269.

The Ages of Life. —The comparison of the four ages of life with the four seasons of the year is a venerable piece of folly. Neither the first twenty nor the last twenty years of a life correspond to a season of the year, assuming that we are not satisfied with drawing a parallel between white hair and snow and similar colour-analogies. The first twenty years are a preparation for life in general, for the whole year of life, a sort of long New Year's Day. The last twenty review, assimilate, bring

3 minute read

Read Chapter

270.

Women's Intellect in Modern Society. —What women nowadays think of men's intellect may be divined from the fact that in their art of adornment they think of anything but of emphasising the intellectual side of their faces or their single intellectual features. On the contrary, they conceal such traits, and understand, for example by an arrangement of their hair over their forehead, how to give themselves an appearance of vivid, eager sensuality and materialism, just when they but slightly posses

1 minute read

Read Chapter

271.

Great and Transitory. —What moves the observer to tears is the rapturous look of happiness with which a fair young bride gazes upon her husband. We feel all the melancholy of autumn in thinking of the greatness and of the transitoriness of human happiness....

25 minute read

Read Chapter

272.

Sense and Sacrifice. —Many a woman has the intelletto del sacrifizio , 26 and no longer enjoys life when her husband refuses to sacrifice her. With all her wit, she then no longer knows—whither? and without perceiving it, is changed from sacrificial victim to sacrificial priest....

29 minute read

Read Chapter

273.

The Unfeminine. — “Stupid as a man,” say the women; “Cowardly as a woman,” say the men. Stupidity in a woman is unfeminine....

17 minute read

Read Chapter

274.

Masculine and Feminine Temperament and Mortality. —That the male sex has a worse [pg 329] temperament than the female follows from the fact that male children have a greater mortality than female, clearly because they “leap out of their skins” more easily. Their wildness and unbearableness soon make all the bad stuff in them deadly....

40 minute read

Read Chapter

275.

The Age of Cyclopean Building. —The democratisation of Europe is a resistless force. Even he who would stem the tide uses those very means that democratic thought first put into men's hands, and he makes these means more handy and workable. The most inveterate enemies of democracy (I mean the spirits of upheaval) seem only to exist in order, by the fear that they inspire, to drive forward the different parties faster and faster on the democratic course. Now we may well feel sorry for those who a

3 minute read

Read Chapter

276.

The Right of Universal Suffrage. —The people has not granted itself universal suffrage but, wherever this is now in force, it has received and accepted it as a temporary measure. But in any case the people has the right to restore the gift, if it does not satisfy its anticipations. This dissatisfaction [pg 331] seems universal nowadays, for when, at any occasion where the vote is exercised, scarce two-thirds, nay perhaps not even the majority of all voters, go to the polls, that very fact is a v

2 minute read

Read Chapter

277.

False Conclusions. —What false conclusions are drawn in spheres where we are not at home, even by those of us who are accustomed as men of science to draw right conclusions! It is humiliating! Now it is clear that in the great turmoil of worldly doings, in political affairs, in all sudden and urgent matters such as almost every day brings up, these false conclusions must decide. For no one [pg 332] feels at home with novelties that have sprung up in the night. All political work, even with great

1 minute read

Read Chapter

278.

Premisses of the Age of Machinery. —The press, the machine, the railway, the telegraph are premisses of which no one has yet dared to draw the conclusions that will follow in a thousand years....

19 minute read

Read Chapter

279.

A Drag upon Culture. —When we are told that here men have no time for productive occupations, because military manœuvres and processions take up their days, and the rest of the population must feed and clothe them, their dress, however, being striking, often gay and full of absurdities; that there only a few distinguished qualities are recognised, individuals resemble each other more than elsewhere, or at any rate are treated as equals, yet obedience is exacted and yielded without reasoning, for

2 minute read

Read Chapter

280.

More Reverence for Them that Know. —In the competition of production and sale the public is made judge of the product. But the public has no special knowledge, and judges by the appearance of the wares. In consequence, the art of appearance (and perhaps the taste for it) must increase under the dominance of competition, while on the other hand the quality of every product must deteriorate. The result will be—so far as reason does not fall in value—that one day an end will be put to that competit

2 minute read

Read Chapter

281.

The Danger of Kings. —Democracy has it in its power, without any violent means, and only by a lawful pressure steadily exerted, to make kingship and emperorship hollow, until only a zero remains, perhaps with the significance of every zero in that, while nothing in itself, it multiplies a number tenfold if placed on the right side. Kingship and emperorship would remain a gorgeous ornament upon the simple and appropriate dress of democracy, a beautiful superfluity that democracy allows itself, a

1 minute read

Read Chapter

282.

The Teacher a Necessary Evil. —Let us have as few people as possible between the productive minds and the hungry and recipient minds! The middlemen almost unconsciously adulterate the food which they supply. For their work as middlemen they want too high a fee for themselves, and this is drawn from the original, productive spirits—namely, interest, admiration, leisure, money, and other advantages.—Accordingly, we should always look upon the teacher as a necessary evil, just like the merchant; as

1 minute read

Read Chapter

283.

The Tax of Homage. —Him whom we know and honour,—be he physician, artist, or artisan,—who does and produces something for us, we gladly [pg 336] pay as highly as we can, often a fee beyond our means. On the other hand, we pay the unknown as low a price as possible; here is a contest in which every one struggles and makes others struggle for a foot's breadth of land. In the work of the known there is something that cannot be bought, the sentiment and ingenuity put into his work for our own sake.

1 minute read

Read Chapter

284.

The Means towards Genuine Peace. —No government will nowadays admit that it maintains an army in order to satisfy occasionally its passion for conquest. The army is said to serve only defensive purposes. This morality, which justifies self-defence, is called in as the government's advocate. This means, however, reserving morality for ourselves and immorality for our neighbour, because he must be thought eager for attack and conquest if our state is forced to consider means of self-defence.—At th

4 minute read

Read Chapter

285.

Whether Property can be squared with Justice. —When the injustice of property is strongly felt (and the hand of the great clock is once more at this place), we formulate two methods of relieving this injustice: either an equal distribution, or an abolition of private possession and a return to State ownership. The latter method is especially dear to the hearts of our Socialists, who are angry with that primitive Jew for saying, “Thou shalt not steal.” In their view the eighth 27 commandment shou

45 minute read

Read Chapter

288.

How far Machinery Humiliates. —Machinery is impersonal; it robs the piece of work of its pride, of the individual merits and defects that cling to all work that is not machine-made—in other words, of its bit of humanity. Formerly, all buying from handicraftsmen meant a mark of distinction for their personalities, with whose productions people surrounded themselves. Furniture and dress accordingly became the symbols of mutual valuation and personal connection. Nowadays, on the other hand, we seem

57 minute read

Read Chapter

289.

Century-old Quarantine. —Democratic institutions are centres of quarantine against the old plague of tyrannical desires. As such they are extremely useful and extremely tedious....

16 minute read

Read Chapter

290.

The Most Dangerous Partisan. —The most dangerous partisan is he whose defection would involve the ruin of the whole party—in other words, the best partisan....

17 minute read

Read Chapter

291.

Destiny and the Stomach. —A piece more or less of bread and butter in the jockey's body is occasionally the decisive factor in races and bets, and thus in the good and bad luck of thousands.—So long as the destiny of nations depends upon diplomats, the stomachs of diplomats will always be the object of patriotic misgivings. Quousque tandem .......

36 minute read

Read Chapter

292.

The Victory of Democracy. —All political powers nowadays attempt to exploit the fear of Socialism for their own strengthening. Yet in the long run democracy alone gains the advantage, for all parties are now compelled to flatter “the masses” and grant them facilities and liberties of all kinds, with the result that the masses finally become omnipotent. The masses are as far as possible removed from Socialism as a doctrine of altering the acquisition of property. If once they get the steering-whe

3 minute read

Read Chapter

293.

Goal and Means of Democracy. —Democracy tries to create and guarantee independence for as many as possible in their opinions, way of life, and occupation. For this purpose democracy must withhold the political suffrage both from those who have nothing and from those who are really rich, as being the two intolerable classes of men. At the removal of these classes it must always work, because they are continually calling its task in question. In the same way democracy must prevent all measures tha

1 minute read

Read Chapter

294.

Discretion and Success. —That great quality of discretion, which is fundamentally the virtue of virtues, their ancestress and queen, has in common life by no means always success on its side. The wooer would find himself deceived if he had wooed that virtue only for the sake of success. For it is rated by practical people as suspicious, and is confused with cunning and hypocrisy: he who obviously lacks discretion, the man who quickly grasps and sometimes misses his grasp, has prejudice on his si

1 minute read

Read Chapter

295.

Et in Arcadia Ego. —I looked down, over waves of hills, to a milky-green lake, through firs and pines austere with age; rocky crags of all shapes about me, the soil gay with flowers and grasses. A herd of cattle moved, stretched, and expanded itself before me; single cows and groups in the distance, in the clearest evening light, hard by the forest of pines; others nearer and darker; all in calm and eventide contentment. My watch pointed to half-past six. The bull of the herd had stepped into th

2 minute read

Read Chapter

296.

Counting and Measuring. —The art of seeing many things, of weighing one with another, of reckoning one thing with another and constructing from them a rapid conclusion, a fairly correct sum—that goes to make a great politician or general or merchant. This quality is, in fact, a power of speedy mental calculation. The art of seeing one thing alone, of finding therein the sole motive for action, the guiding principle of all other action, goes to make the hero and also the fanatic. This quality mea

54 minute read

Read Chapter

297.

Not to See too Soon. —As long as we undergo some experience, we must give ourselves up to the experience and shut our eyes—in other words, not become observers of what we are undergoing. For to observe would disturb good digestion of the experience, and instead of wisdom we should gain nothing but dyspepsia....

31 minute read

Read Chapter

298.

From the Practice of the Wise. —To become wise we must will to undergo certain experiences, and accordingly leap into their jaws. This, it is true, is very dangerous. Many a “sage” has been eaten up in the process....

25 minute read

Read Chapter

299.

Exhaustion of the Intellect. —Our occasional coldness and indifference towards people, which is imputed to us as hardness and defect of character, is often only an exhaustion of the intellect. In this state other men are to us, as we are to ourselves, tedious or immaterial....

28 minute read

Read Chapter

300.

“ The One Thing Needful. ” —If we are clever, the one thing we need is to have joy in our hearts. “Ah,” adds some one, “if we are clever, the best thing we can do is to be wise.”...

25 minute read

Read Chapter

301.

A Sign of Love. —Some one said, “There are two persons about whom I have never thought deeply. That is a sign of my love for them.”...

18 minute read

Read Chapter

302.

How we Seek to Improve Bad Arguments. —Many a man adds a bit of his personality to his bad arguments, as if they would thus go better and change into straight and good arguments. In the same way, players at skittles, even after a throw, try to give a direction to the ball by turns and gestures....

32 minute read

Read Chapter

303.

Honesty. —It is but a small thing to be a pattern sort of man with regard to rights and property—for [pg 349] instance (to name trifling points, which of course give a better proof of this sort of pattern nature than great examples), if as a boy one never steals fruit from another's orchard, and as a man never walks on unmown fields. It is but little; you are then still only a “law-abiding person,” with just that degree of morality of which a “society,” a group of human beings, is capable....

57 minute read

Read Chapter

304.

“ Man! ” —What is the vanity of the vainest individual as compared with the vanity which the most modest person feels when he thinks of his position in nature and in the world as “Man!”...

20 minute read

Read Chapter

305.

The Most Necessary Gymnastic. —Through deficiency in self-control in small matters a similar deficiency on great occasions slowly arises. Every day on which we have not at least once denied ourselves some trifle is turned to bad use and a danger to the next day. This gymnastic is indispensable if we wish to maintain the joy of being our own master....

36 minute read

Read Chapter

306.

Losing Ourselves. —When we have first found ourselves, we must understand how from time to time to lose ourselves and then to find ourselves again.—This is true on the assumption that we are thinkers. A thinker finds it a drawback always to be tied to one person....

30 minute read

Read Chapter

307.

When it is Necessary to Part. —You must, for a time at least, part from that which you want to know and measure. Only when you have left a city do you see how high its towers rise above its houses....

24 minute read

Read Chapter

308.

At Noontide. —He to whom an active and stormy morning of life is allotted, at the noontide of life feels his soul overcome by a strange longing for a rest that may last for months and years. All grows silent around him, voices sound farther and farther in the distance, the sun shines straight down upon him. On a hidden woodland sward he sees the great God Pan sleeping, and with Pan Nature seems to him to have gone to sleep with an expression of eternity on their faces. He wants nothing, he troub

1 minute read

Read Chapter

309.

To Beware of One's Portrait-Painter. —A great painter, who in a portrait has revealed and put on canvas the fullest expression and look of which a man is capable, will almost always think, when he sees the man later in real life, that he is only looking at a caricature....

30 minute read

Read Chapter

310.

The Two Principles of the New Life. — First Principle : to arrange one's life on the most secure and tangible basis, not as hitherto upon the most distant, undetermined, and cloudy foundation. Second Principle : to establish the rank of the nearest and nearer things, and of the more and less secure, before one arranges one's life and directs it to a final end....

40 minute read

Read Chapter

311.

Dangerous Irritability. —Talented men who are at the same time idle will always appear somewhat irritated when one of their friends has accomplished a thorough piece of work. Their jealousy is awakened, they are ashamed of their own laziness, or rather, they fear that their active friend will now despise them even more than before. In such a mood they criticise the new achievement, and, to the utter astonishment of the author, their criticism becomes a revenge....

46 minute read

Read Chapter

312.

Destructions of Illusions. —Illusions are certainly expensive amusements; but the destruction [pg 352] of illusions is still more expensive, if looked upon as an amusement, as it undoubtedly is by some people....

22 minute read

Read Chapter

313.

The Monotone of the “ Sage. ” —Cows sometimes have a look of wondering which stops short on the path to questioning. In the eye of the higher intelligence, on the other hand, the nil admirari is spread out like the monotony of the cloudless sky....

30 minute read

Read Chapter

314.

Not to be Ill too Long. —We should beware of being ill too long. The lookers-on become impatient of their customary duty of showing sympathy, because they find it too much trouble to maintain the appearance of this emotion for any length of time. Then they immediately pass to suspicion of our character, with the conclusion: “You deserve to be ill, and we need no longer be at pains to show our sympathy.”...

42 minute read

Read Chapter

315.

A Hint to Enthusiasts. —He who likes to be carried away, and would fain be carried on high, must beware lest he become too heavy. For instance, he must not learn much, and especially not let himself be crammed with science. Science makes men ponderous—take care, ye enthusiasts!...

29 minute read

Read Chapter

316.

Knowledge of how to Surprise Oneself. —He who would see himself as he is, must know [pg 353] how to surprise himself, torch in hand. For with the mind it is as with the body: whoever is accustomed to look at himself in the glass forgets his ugliness, and only recognises it again by means of the portrait-painter. Yet he even grows used to the picture and forgets his ugliness all over again.—Herein we see the universal law that man cannot endure unalterable ugliness, unless for a moment. He forget

1 minute read

Read Chapter

317.

Opinions and Fish. —We are possessors of our opinions as of fish—that is, in so far as we are possessors of a fish pond. We must go fishing and have luck—then we have our fish, our opinions. I speak here of live opinions, of live fish. Others are content to possess a cabinet of fossils—and, in their head, “convictions.”...

36 minute read

Read Chapter

318.

Signs of Freedom and Servitude. —To satisfy one's needs so far as possible oneself, even if imperfectly, is the path towards freedom in mind and personality. To satisfy many even superfluous needs, and that as fully as possible, is a training for servitude. The Sophist Hippias, who himself earned and made all that he wore within and without, is the representative of the highest freedom of mind and personality. It does not matter whether [pg 354] all is done equally well and perfectly—pride can r

50 minute read

Read Chapter

319.

Belief in Oneself. —In our times we mistrust every one who believes in himself. Formerly this was enough to make people believe in one. The recipe for finding faith now runs: “Spare not thyself! In order to set thy opinion in a credible light, thou must first set fire to thy own hut!”...

31 minute read

Read Chapter

320.

At Once Richer and Poorer. —I know a man who accustomed himself even in childhood to think well of the intellectuality of mankind—in other words, of their real devotion as regards things of the intellect, their unselfish preference for that which is recognised as true—but who had at the same time a modest or even depreciatory view of his own brain (judgment, memory, presence of mind, imagination). He set no value on himself when he compared himself with others. Now in the course of years he was

2 minute read

Read Chapter

321.

How we should Attack. —The reasons for which men believe or do not believe are in very few people as strong as they might be. As a rule, in order to shake a belief it is far from necessary to use the heaviest weapon of attack. Many attain their object by merely making the attack with some noise—in fact, pop-guns are often enough. In dealing with very vain persons, the semblance of a strong attack is enough. They think they are being taken quite seriously, and readily give way....

49 minute read

Read Chapter

322.

Death. —Through the certain prospect of death a precious, fragrant drop of frivolity might be mixed with every life—and now, you singular druggist-souls, you have made of death a drop of poison, unpleasant to taste, which makes the whole of life hideous....

24 minute read

Read Chapter

323.

Repentance. —Never allow repentance free play, [pg 356] but say at once to yourself, “That would be adding a second piece of folly to the first.” If you have worked evil, you must bethink yourself of doing good. If you are punished for your actions, submit to the punishment with the feeling that by this very submission you are somehow doing good, in that you are deterring others from falling into the same error. Every malefactor who is punished has a right to consider himself a benefactor to man

56 minute read

Read Chapter

324.

Becoming a Thinker. —How can any one become a thinker if he does not spend at least a third part of the day without passions, men, and books?...

18 minute read

Read Chapter

325.

The Best Remedy. —A little health on and off is the best remedy for the invalid....

11 minute read

Read Chapter

326.

Don't Touch. —There are dreadful people who, instead of solving a problem, complicate it for those who deal with it and make it harder to solve. 29 Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be entreated not to hit the nail at all....

30 minute read

Read Chapter

327.

Forgetting Nature. —We speak of Nature, and, in doing so, forget ourselves: we ourselves are [pg 357] Nature, quand même .—Consequently, Nature is something quite different from what we feel on hearing her name pronounced....

23 minute read

Read Chapter

328.

Profundity and Ennui. —In the case of profound men, as of deep wells, it takes a long time before anything that is thrown into them reaches the bottom. The spectators, who generally do not wait long enough, too readily look upon such a man as callous and hard—or even as boring....

30 minute read

Read Chapter

329.

When it is Time to Vow Fidelity to Oneself. —We sometimes go astray in an intellectual direction which does not correspond to our talents. For a time we struggle heroically against wind and tide, really against ourselves; but finally we become weary and we pant. What we accomplish gives us no real pleasure, since we think that we have paid too heavy a price for these successes. We even despair of our productivity, of our future, perhaps in the midst of victory.—Finally, finally we turn back—and

1 minute read

Read Chapter

330.

Weather Prophets. —Just as the clouds reveal to us the direction of the wind high above our [pg 358] heads, so the lightest and freest spirits give signs of future weather by their course. The wind in the valley and the market-place opinions of to-day have no significance for the future, but only for the past....

32 minute read

Read Chapter

331.

Continual Acceleration. —Those who begin slowly and find it hard to become familiar with a subject, sometimes acquire afterwards the quality of continual acceleration—so that in the end no one knows where the current will take them....

23 minute read

Read Chapter

332.

The Three Good Things. —Greatness, calm, sunlight—these three embrace all that a thinker desires and also demands of himself: his hopes and duties, his claims in the intellectual and moral sphere, nay even in his daily manner of life and the scenic background of his residence. Corresponding to these three things are, firstly thoughts that exalt, secondly thoughts that soothe, and thirdly thoughts that illuminate—but, fourthly, thoughts that share in all these three qualities, in which all earthl

16 minute read

Read Chapter

334.

Market Value. —If we wish to pass exactly for what we are, we must be something that has its market value. As, however, only objects in common use have a market value, this desire is the consequence either of shrewd modesty or of stupid immodesty....

25 minute read

Read Chapter

335.

Moral for Builders. —We must remove the scaffolding when the house has been built....

11 minute read

Read Chapter

336.

Sophocleanism. —Who poured more water into wine than the Greeks? Sobriety and grace combined—that was the aristocratic privilege of the Athenian in the time of Sophocles and after. Imitate that whoever can! In life and in work!...

23 minute read

Read Chapter

337.

Heroism. —The heroic consists in doing something great (or in nobly not doing something) without feeling oneself to be in competition with or before others. The hero carries with him, wherever he goes, the wilderness and the holy land with inviolable precincts....

29 minute read

Read Chapter

338.

Finding our “ Double ” in Nature. —In some country places we rediscover ourselves, with a delightful shudder: it is the pleasantest way of finding our “double.” —How happy must he be who has [pg 360] that feeling just here, in this perpetually sunny October air, in this happy elfin play of the wind from morn till eve, in this clearest of atmospheres and mildest of temperatures, in all the serious yet cheerful landscape of hill, lake, and forest on this plateau, which has encamped fearlessly next

1 minute read

Read Chapter

339.

Affability of the Sage. —The sage will unconsciously be affable in his intercourse with other men, as a prince would be, and will readily treat them as equals, in spite of all differences of talent, rank, and character. For this characteristic, however, so soon as people notice it, he is most heavily censured....

30 minute read

Read Chapter

340.

Gold. —All that is gold does not glitter. A soft sheen characterises the most precious metal....

11 minute read

Read Chapter

341.

Wheel and Drag. —The wheel and the drag have different duties, but also one in common—that of hurting each other....

13 minute read

Read Chapter

342.

Disturbances of the Thinker. —All that interrupts the thinker in his thoughts (disturbs him, as people say) must be regarded by him calmly, as a new model who comes in by the door to offer himself to the artist. Interruptions are the ravens which bring food to the recluse....

29 minute read

Read Chapter

343.

Being very Clever. —Being very clever keeps men young, but they must put up with being considered, for that very reason, older than they are. For men read the handwriting of the intellect as signs of experience —that is, of having lived much and evilly, of suffering, error, and repentance. Hence, if we are very clever and show it, we appear to them older and wickeder than we are....

41 minute read

Read Chapter

344.

How we must Conquer. —We ought not to desire victory if we only have the prospect of overcoming our opponent by a hair's breadth. A good victory makes the vanquished rejoice, and must have about it something divine which spares humiliation ....

25 minute read

Read Chapter

345.

An Illusion of Superior Minds. —Superior minds find it difficult to free themselves from an illusion; for they imagine that they excite envy among the mediocre and are looked upon as exceptions. [pg 362] As a matter of fact, however, they are looked upon as superfluous, as something that would not be missed if it did not exist....

35 minute read

Read Chapter

346.

Demanded by Cleanliness. —Changing opinions is in some natures as much demanded by cleanliness as changing clothes. In the case of other natures it is only demanded by vanity....

18 minute read

Read Chapter

347.

Also Worthy of a Hero. —Here is a hero who did nothing but shake the tree as soon as the fruits were ripe. Do you think that too small a thing? Well, just look at the tree that he shook....

21 minute read

Read Chapter

348.

A Gauge for Wisdom. —The growth of wisdom may be gauged exactly by the diminution of ill-temper....

12 minute read

Read Chapter

349.

Expressing an Error Disagreeably. —It is not to every one's taste to hear truth pleasantly expressed. But let no one at least believe that error will become truth if it is disagreeably expressed....

19 minute read

Read Chapter

350.

The Golden Maxim. —Man has been bound with many chains, in order that he may forget to [pg 363] comport himself like an animal. And indeed he has become more gentle, more intellectual, more joyous, more meditative than any animal. But now he still suffers from having carried his chains so long, from having been so long without pure air and free movement—these chains, however, are, as I repeat again and again, the ponderous and significant errors of moral, religious, and metaphysical ideas. Only

12 minute read

Read Chapter