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273
Praise. – Here is some one who, you perceive, wishes to praise you: you bite your lips and brace up your heart: Oh, that that cup might go hence! But it does not, it comes! let us therefore drink the sweet impudence of the panegyrist, let us overcome the disgust and profound contempt that we feel for the innermost substance of his praise, let us assume a look of thankful joy – for he wished to make himself agreeable to us! And now that it is all over we know that he feels greatly exalted; he has been victorious over us. Yes, and also over himself, the villain! – for it was no easy matter for him to wring this praise from himself.
274
The Rights and Privileges of Man. – We human beings are the only creatures who, when things do not go well with us, can blot ourselves out like a clumsy sentence, – whether we do so out of honour for humanity or pity for it, or on account of the aversion we feel towards ourselves.
275
The Transformed Being. – Now he becomes virtuous; but only for the sake of hurting others by being so. Don't pay so much attention to him.
276
How Often! How Unexpected! – How may married men have some morning awakened to the fact that their young wife is dull, although she thinks quite the contrary! not to speak of those wives whose flesh is willing but whose intellect is weak!
277
Warm and Cold Virtues. – Courage is sometimes the consequence of cold and unshaken resolution, and at other times of a fiery and reckless élan. For these two kinds of courage there is only the one name! – but how different, nevertheless, are cold virtues and warm virtues! and the man would be a fool who could suppose that “goodness” could only be brought about by warmth, and no less a fool he who would only attribute it to cold. The truth is that mankind has found both warm and cold courage very useful, yet not often enough to prevent it from setting them both in the category of precious stones.
278
The gracious Memory. – A man of high rank will do well to develop a gracious memory, that is, to note all the good qualities of people and remember them particularly; for in this way he holds them in an agreeable dependence. A man may also act in this way towards himself: whether or not he has a gracious memory determines in the end the superiority, gentleness, or distrust with which he observes his own inclinations and intentions, and finally even the nature of these inclinations and intentions.
279
Wherein we become Artists. – He who makes an idol of some one endeavours to justify himself in his own eyes by idealising this person: in other words, he becomes an artist that he may have a clear conscience. When he suffers he does not suffer from his ignorance, but from the lie he has told himself to make himself ignorant. The inmost misery and desire of such a man – and all passionate lovers are included in this category – cannot be exhausted by normal means.
280
Childlike. – Those who live like children – those who have not to struggle for their daily bread, and do not think that their actions have any ultimate signification – remain childlike.
281
Our Ego desires Everything. – It would seem as if men in general were only inspired by the desire to possess: languages at least would permit of this supposition, for they view past actions from the standpoint that we have been put in possession of something – “I have spoken, struggled, conquered” – as if to say, I am now in possession of my word, my struggle, my victory. How greedy man appears in this light! he cannot even let the past escape him: he even wishes to have it still!
282
Danger in Beauty. – This woman is beautiful and intelligent: alas, how much more intelligent she would have become if she had not been beautiful!
283
Domestic and Mental Peace. – Our habitual mood depends upon the mood in which we maintain our habitual entourage.
284
New Things as Old Ones. – Many people seem irritated when something new is told them: they feel the ascendancy which the news has given to the person who has learnt it first.
285
What are the Limits of the Ego. – The majority of people take under their protection, as it were, something that they know, as if the fact of knowing it was sufficient in itself to make it their property. The acquisitiveness of the egoistic feeling has no limits: Great men speak as if they had behind them the whole of time, and had placed themselves at the head of this enormous host; and good women boast of the beauty of their children, their clothes, their dog, their physician, or their native town, but the only thing they dare not say is, “I am all that.” Chi non ha non è– as they say in Italy.
286
Domestic Animals, Pets and the Like. – Could there be anything more repugnant than the sentimentality which is shown to plants and animals – and this on the part of a creature who from the very beginning has made such ravages among them as their most ferocious enemy, – and who ends by even claiming affectionate feelings from his weakened and mutilated victims! Before this kind of “nature” man must above all be serious, if he is any sort of a thinking being.
287
Two Friends. – They were friends once, but now they have ceased to be so, and both of them broke off the friendship at the same time, the one because he believed himself to be too greatly misunderstood, and the other because he thought he was known too intimately – and both were wrong! For neither of them knew himself well enough.
288
The Comedy of the Noble Souls. – Those who cannot succeed in exhibiting a noble and cordial familiarity endeavour to let the nobleness of their nature be seen by their exercise of reserve and strictness, and a certain contempt for familiarity, as if their strong sense of confidence were ashamed to show itself.
289
Where we may say Nothing against Virtue. – Among cowards it is thought bad form to say anything against bravery, for any expression of this kind would give rise to some contempt; and unfeeling people are irritated when anything is said against pity.9
290
A Waste. – We find that with irritable and abrupt people their first words and actions generally afford no indication of their actual character – they are prompted by circumstances, and are to some extent simply reproductions of the spirit of these circumstances. Because, however, as the words have been uttered and the deeds done, the subsequent words and deeds, indicating the real nature of such people, have often to be used to reconcile, amend, or extinguish the former.
291
Arrogance. – Arrogance is an artificial and simulated pride; but it is precisely the essential nature of pride to be incapable of artifice, simulation, or hypocrisy – and thus arrogance is the hypocrisy of the incapacity for hypocrisy, a very difficult thing, and one which is a failure in most cases. But if we suppose that, as most frequently happens, the presumptuous person betrays himself, then a treble annoyance falls to his lot: people are angry with him because he has endeavoured to deceive them, and because he wished to show himself superior to them, and finally they laugh at him because he failed in both these endeavours. How earnestly, therefore, should we dissuade our fellow-men from arrogance!
292
A Species of Misconception. – When we hear somebody speak it is often sufficient for his pronunciation of a single consonant (the letter r, for example) to fill us with doubts as to the honesty of his feelings: we are not accustomed to this particular pronunciation, and should have to make it ourselves as it were arbitrarily – it sounds “forced” to us. This is the domain of the greatest possible misconception: and it is the same with the style of a writer who has certain habits which are not the habits of everybody. His “artlessness” is felt as such only by himself, and precisely in regard to that which he himself feels to be “forced” (because he has yielded in this matter to the prevailing fashion and to so called “good taste”), he may perhaps give pleasure and inspire confidence.
293
Thankful. – One superfluous grain of gratitude and piety makes one suffer as from a vice – in spite of all one's independence and honesty one begins to have a bad conscience.
294
Saints. – It is the most sensual men who find it necessary to avoid women and to torture their bodies.
295
The Subtlety of Serving. – One of the most subtle tasks in the great art of serving is that of serving a more than usually ambitious man, who, indeed, is excessively egoistic in all things, but is entirely adverse to being thought so (this is part of his ambition). He requires that everything shall be according to his own will and humour, yet in such a way as to give him the appearance of always having sacrificed himself, and of rarely desiring anything for himself alone.
296
Duelling. – I think it a great advantage, said some one, to be able to fight a duel – if, of course, it is absolutely necessary; for I have at all times brave companions about me. The duel is the last means of thoroughly honourable suicide left to us; but it is unfortunately a circuitous means, and not even a certain one.
297
Pernicious. – A young man can be most surely corrupted when he is taught to value the like-minded more highly than the differently minded.
298
Hero-Worship and its Fanatics. – The fanatic of an ideal that possesses flesh and blood is right as a rule so long as he assumes a negative attitude, and he is terrible in his negation: he knows what he denies as well as he knows himself, for the simple reason that he comes thence, that he feels at home there, and that he has always the secret fear of being forced to return there some day. He therefore wishes to make his return impossible by the manner of his negation. As soon as he begins to affirm, however, he partly shuts his eyes and begins to idealise (frequently merely for the sake of annoying those who have stayed at home). We might say that there was something artistic about this – agreed, but there is also something dishonest about it.
The idealist of a person imagines this person to be so far from him that he can no longer see him distinctly, and then he travesties that which he can just perceive into something “beautiful” – that is to say, symmetrical, vaguely outlined, uncertain. Since he wishes to worship from afar that ideal which floats on high in the distance, he finds it essential to build a temple for the object of his worship as a protection from the profanum vulgus. He brings into this temple for the object of his worship all the venerable and sanctified objects which he still possesses, so that his ideal may benefit by their charm, and that, nourished in this way, it may grow more and more divine. In the end he really succeeds in forming his God, but, alas for him! there is some one who knows how all this has been done, viz. his intellectual conscience; and there is also some one who, quite unconsciously, begins to protest against these things, viz. the deified one himself, who, in consequence of all this worship, praise, and incense, now becomes completely unbearable and shows himself in the most obvious and dreadful manner to be non-divine, and only too human.
In a case like this there is only one means of escape left for such a fanatic; he patiently suffers himself and his fellows to be maltreated, and interprets all this misery in maiorem dei gloriam by a new kind of self-deceit and noble falsehood. He takes up a stand against himself, and in doing so experiences, as an interpreter and ill-treated person, something like martyrdom – and in this way he climbs to the height of his conceit. Men of this kind to be found, for example, in the entourage of Napoleon: indeed, perhaps it may have been he who inspired the soul of his century with that romantic prostration in the presence of the “genius” and the “hero,” which was so foreign to the spirit of rationalism of the nineteenth century – a man about whom even Byron was not ashamed to say that he was a “worm compared with such a being.” (The formulæ of this prostration have been discovered by Thomas Carlyle, that arrogant old muddle-head and grumbler, who spent his long life in trying to romanticise the common sense of his Englishmen: but in vain!)
299
The Appearance of Heroism. – Throwing ourselves in the midst of our enemies may be a sign of cowardice.
300
Condescending towards the Flatterer. – It is the ultimate prudence of insatiably ambitious men not only to conceal their contempt for man which the sight of flatterers causes them: but also to appear even condescending to them, like a God who can be nothing if not condescending.
301
“Strength of Character.” – “What I have said once I will do” – This manner of thinking is believed to indicate great strength of character. How many actions are accomplished, not because they have been selected as being the most rational, but because at the moment when we thought of them they influenced our ambition and vanity by some means or another, so that we do not stop until we have blindly carried them out. Thus they strengthen in us our belief in our character and our good conscience, in short our strength; whilst the choice of the most rational acts possible brings about a certain amount of scepticism towards ourselves, and thus encourages a sense of weakness in us.
302
Once, Twice, and Thrice True. – Men lie unspeakably and often, but they do not think about it afterwards, and generally do not believe in it.
303
The Pastime of the Psychologist. – He thinks he knows me, and fancies himself to be subtle and important when he has any kind of relations with me; and I take care not to undeceive him. For in such a case I should suffer for it, while now he wishes me well because I arouse in him a feeling of conscious superiority. – There is another, who fears that I think I know him, and feels a sense of inferiority at this. As a result he behaves in a timid and vacillating manner, in my presence, and endeavours to mislead me in regard to himself so that he may regain an ascendancy over me.
304
The Destroyers of the World. – When some men fail to accomplish what they desire to do they exclaim angrily, “May the whole world perish!” This odious feeling is the height of envy which reasons thus: because I cannot have one thing the whole world in general must have nothing! the whole world shall not exist!
305
Greed. – When we set out to buy something our greed increases with the cheapness of the object – Why? Is it because the small differences in price make up the little eye of greed?
306
The Greek Ideal. – What did the Greeks admire in Ulysses? Above all his capacity for lying and for taking a shrewd and dreadful revenge, his being equal to circumstances, his appearing to be nobler than the noblest when necessary, his ability to be everything he desired, his heroic pertinacity, having all means within his command, possessing genius – the genius of Ulysses is an object of the admiration of the gods, they smile when they think of it – all this is the Greek ideal! What is most remarkable about it is that the contradiction between seeming and being was not felt in any way, and that as a consequence it could not be morally estimated. Were there ever such accomplished actors?
307
Facta! Yes, Facta Ficta! – The historian need not concern himself with events which have actually happened, but only those which are supposed to have happened; for none but the latter have produced an effect. The same remark applies to the imaginary heroes. His theme – this so-called world-history – what is it but opinions on imaginary actions and their imaginary motives, which in their turn give rise to opinions and actions the reality of which, however, is at once evaporated, and is only effective as vapour, – a continual generating and impregnating of phantoms above the dense mists of unfathomable reality. All historians record things which have never existed, except in imagination.
308
Not to understand Trade is Noble. – To sell one's virtue only at the highest price, or even to carry on usury with it as a teacher, a civil servant, or an artist, for instance, brings genius and talent down to the level of the common tradesman. We must be careful not to be clever with our wisdom!
309
Fear and Love. – The general knowledge of mankind has been furthered to a greater extent by fear than by love; for fear endeavours to find out who the other is, what he can do, and what he wants: it would be dangerous and prejudicial to be deceived on this point. On the other hand, love is induced by its secret craving to discover as many beautiful qualities as possible in the loved object, or to raise this loved object as high as possible: it is a joy and an advantage to love to be deceived in this way – and this is why it does it.
310
Good-natured People. – Good-natured people have acquired their character from the continual fear of foreign attacks in which their ancestors lived, – these ancestors, who were in the habit of mitigating and tranquillising, humbling themselves, preventing, distracting, flattering, and apologising, concealing their grief and anger, and preserving an unruffled countenance, – and they ultimately bequeathed all this delicate and well-formed mechanism to their children and grandchildren. These latter, thanks to their more favourable lot, did not experience this feeling of dread, but they nevertheless continue in the same groove.
311
The so-called Soul. – The sum-total of those internal movements which come naturally to men, and which they can consequently set in motion readily and gracefully, is called the soul – men are looked upon as void of soul when they let it be seen that their inward emotions are difficult and painful to them.
312
The Forgetful Ones. – In outbursts of passion and the delusions of dreams and madness, man rediscovers his own primitive history, and that of humanity: animality and its savage grimaces. For once his memory stretches back into the past, while his civilised condition is developed from the forgetfulness of these primitive experiences, that is to say, from the failing of this memory. He who, as a forgetful man of a higher nature, has always remained aloof from these things, does not understand men – but it is an advantage if from time to time there are individuals who do not understand men, individuals who are, so to speak, created from the divine seed and born of reason.
313
The Friend whom we want no Longer. – That friend whose hopes we cannot satisfy we should prefer to have as an enemy.
314
In the Society of Thinkers. – In the midst of the ocean of becoming we adventurers and birds of passage wake up on an island no larger than a small boat, and here we look round us for a moment with as much haste and curiosity as possible; for how quickly may some gale blow us away or some wave sweep over the little island and leave nothing of us remaining! Here, however, upon this little piece of ground we meet with other birds of passage and hear of still earlier ones, – and thus we live together for one precious minute of recognition and divining, amid the cheerful fluttering of wings and joyful chirping, and then adventure in spirit far out on the ocean, feeling no less proud than the ocean itself.
315
Parting with Something. – To give up some of our property, or to waive a right, gives pleasure when it denotes great wealth. Generosity may be placed in this category.
316
Weak Sects. – Those sects which feel that they will always remain weak hunt up a few intelligent individual adherents, wishing to make up in quality what they lack in quantity. This gives rise to no little danger for intelligent minds.
317
The Judgment of the Evening. – The man who meditates upon his day's and life's work when he has reached the end of his journey and feels weary, generally arrives at a melancholy conclusion; but this is not the fault of the day or his life, but of weariness. – In the midst of creative work we do not take time, as a rule, to meditate upon life and existence, nor yet in the midst of our pleasures: but if by a chance this did happen once we should no longer believe him to be right who waited for the seventh day and for repose to find everything that exists very beautiful. – He had missed the right moment.
318
Beware of Systemisers! – There is a certain amount of comedy about systemisers: in trying to complete a system and to round off its horizon they have to try to let their weaker qualities appear in the same style as their stronger ones. – They wish to represent complete and uniformly strong natures.
319
Hospitality. – The object of hospitality is to paralyse all hostile feeling in a stranger. When we cease to look upon strangers as enemies, hospitality diminishes; it flourishes so long as its evil presupposition does.
320
The Weather. – An exceptional and uncertain state of the weather makes men suspicious even of one another: at the same time they come to like innovations, for they must diverge from their accustomed habits. This is why despots like those countries where the weather is moral.
321
Danger in Innocence. – Innocent people become easy victims in all circumstances because their lack of knowledge prevents them from distinguishing between moderation and excess, and from being betimes on their guard against themselves. It is as a result of this that innocent, that is, ignorant young women become accustomed to the frequent enjoyment of sexual intercourse, and feel the want of it very much in later years when their husbands fall ill or grow prematurely old. It is on account of this harmless and orthodox conception, as if frequent sexual intercourse were right and proper, that they come to experience a need which afterwards exposes them to the severest tribulations, and even worse.
Considering the matter, however, from a higher and more general point of view, whoever loves a man or a thing without knowing him or it, falls a prey to something which he would not love if he could see it. In all cases where experience, precautions, and prudent steps are required, it is the innocent man who will be most thoroughly corrupted, for he has to drink with closed eyes the dregs and most secret poison of everything put before him. Let us consider the procedure of all princes, churches, sects, parties, and corporations: Is not the innocent man always used as the sweetest bait for the most dangerous and wicked traps? – just as Ulysses availed himself of the services of the innocent Neoptolemos to cheat the old and infirm anchorite and ogre of Lemnos out of his bow and arrows. Christianity, with its contempt for the world, has made ignorance a virtue – innocence, perhaps because the most frequent result of this innocence is precisely, as I have indicated above, guilt, the sense of guilt, and despair: In other words, a virtue which leads to Heaven by the circuitous route of Hell; for only then can the gloomy propylæa of Christian salvation be thrown open, and only then is the promise of a posthumous second innocence effective. This is one of the finest inventions of Christianity!