—The true heroic deed and
masterpiece
of
J
## p.
J
## p.
Nietzsche - v07 - Human All-Too-Human - b
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 protect, support and nourish.
Let us watch or listen to ourselves at the moment
when we hear or discover a new idea. Perhaps it
displeases us because it is so defiant and so auto-
cratic, and we unconsciously ask ourselves whether
we cannot place a contradiction of it by its side as
an enemy, or fasten on to it a "perhaps" or a
"sometimes": the mere little word "probably"
gives us a feeling of satisfaction, for it shatters the
oppressive tyranny of the unconditional. If, on the
other hand, the new idea enters in gentle shape,
sweetly patient and humble, and falling at once
into the arms of contradiction, We put our autocracy
to the test in another way. Can we not come to
the aid of this weak creature, stroke it and feed it,
give it strength and fulness, and truth and even
unconditionality? Is it possible for us to show
ourselves parental or chivalrous or compassionate
towards our idea? —Then again, we see here a
judgment and there a judgment, sundered from
each other, never looking at or making any move-
.
e
## p. 23 (#43) ##############################################
MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 23
ment towards each other. So we are tickled by
the thought, whether it be not here feasible to make
a match, to draw a conclusion, with the anticipation
that if a consequence follows this conclusion it is
not only the two judgments united in wedlock but
the matchmakers that will gain rronour. If, how-
ever, we cannot acquire a hold upon that thought
either on the path of defiance and ill-will or on that
of good-will (if we hold it to be true)—then we
submit to it and do homage to it as a leader and a
prince, give it a chair of honour, and speak not of
it without a flourish of trumpets: for we are bright
in its brightness. Woe to him who tries to dim
this brightness! Perhaps we ourselves one day
grow suspicious of our idea. Then we, the inde-
fatigable " king-makers " of the history of the intel-
lect, cast it down from its throne and immediately
exalt its adversary. Surely if this be considered
and thought out a little further, no one will speak of
an "absolute impulse to knowledge "!
Why, then, does man prefer the true to the un-
true, in this secret combat with thought-person-
alities, in this generally clandestine match-making of
thoughts, constitution-founding of thoughts, child-
rearing of thoughts, nursing and almsgiving of
thoughts? For the same reason that he practises
honesty in intercourse with real persons : now from
habit, heredity, and training, originally because the
true, like the fair and the just, is more expedient and
more reputable than the untrue. For in the realm of
thought it is difficult to assume a power and glory •
that are built on error or on falsehood. The feeling
that such an edifice might at some time collapse is
•
## p. 24 (#44) ##############################################
24 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
humiliating to the self-esteem of the architect—he is
ashamed of the fragility of the material, and, as he
considers himself more important than the rest of
the world, he would fain construct nothing that is
less durable than the rest of the world. In his long-
ing for truth he embraces the belief in a personal
immortality, the most arrogant and defiant idea
that exists, closely allied as it is to the underly-
ing thought, pereat mundus, dum ego salvus sim!
His work has become his "ego," he transforms
himself into the Imperishable with its universal
challenge. It is his immeasurable pride that will
only employ the best and hardest stones for the
work—truths,1 or what he holds for such. Arro-
gance has always been justly called the "vice of
the sage "; yet without this vice, fruitful in impul-
ses, Truth and her status on earth would be in
a parlous plight. In our propensity to fear our
thoughts, concepts and words, and yet to honour
ourselves in them, unconsciously to ascribe to
them the power of rewarding, despising, praising,
and blaming us, and so to associate with them as
with free intellectual personalities, as with inde-
pendent powers, as with our equals—herein lie the
roots of the remarkable phenomenon which I have
called "intellectual conscience. " Thus something
of the highest moral species has bloomed from a
black root.
27. I
The Obscurantists. —The essential feature of
the black art of obscurantism is not its intention
of clouding the brain, but its attempt to darken
## p. 25 (#45) ##############################################
MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 25
the picture of the world and cloud our idea of
existence. It often employs the method of thwart-
ing 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 meta-
physicians, who pave the way for scepticism and
by their excessive acumen provoke a distrust of
acumen, are excellent instruments of the more
subtle form of obscurantism. —Is it possible that
even Kant may be applied to this purpose? Did
he even intend something of the sort, for a time at
least, to judge from his own notorious exposition:
"to clear the way for belief by setting limitations
to knowledge"? —Certainly he did not succeed, nor
did his followers, on the wolf and fox tracks of this
highly refined and dangerous form of obscurant-
ism—the most dangerous of all, for the black art
here appears in the garb of light.
28.
By what Kind of Philosophy Art is
Corrupted. —When the mists of a metaphysical-
mystical philosophy succeed in making all aesthetic
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 the crude satisfaction of a need
## p. 26 (#46) ##############################################
26 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
by the highest refinement of taste and appreciation).
The more taste diminishes, the more does the desire
for art change and revert to a vulgar hunger, which
the artist henceforth seeks to appease by ever coarser
fare.
29.
On GETHSEMANE. —The most painful thing a
thinker can say to artists is: "Could ye not watch
with me one hour? "
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 en-
tangle it and so turn the conceived into the un-
conceivedand 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.
3'-
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
## p. 27 (#47) ##############################################
MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 27
his lips the goal of all scientific endurance and
hardship, so that almost unconsciously he presses
forward. Other natures stand still, as if spellbound
by the beautiful illusion: the desert swallows them
up, they become lost to science. Other natures,
again, that have often experienced these subjective
consolations, become very disheartened and curse
the salty taste which these mirages leave behind in
the mouth and from which springs a raging thirst
—without one's having come one step nearer to any
sort of a spring.
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 des-
tinies 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 finally into the delusion that he really
knows as much as the individual experts and
creators, yes, even as the great world-spinners
themselves. In the end, the impostor becomes
honest, and actually believes in his own sincerity.
Emotional people say to his very face that he has
the "higher" truth and sincerity—for they are
weary of reality for the time being, and accept the
poetic dream as a pleasant relaxation and a night's
rest for head and heart. The visions of the dream
## p. 28 (#48) ##############################################
28 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
now appear to them of more value, because, as has
been said, they find them more beneficial, and man-
kind has always held that what is apparently of
more value is more true, more real. All that is
generally called reality, the poets, conscious of this
power, proceed with intention to disparage and to
distort into the uncertain, the illusory, the spurious,
the impure, the sinful, sorrowful, and deceitful. They
make use of all doubts about the limits of knowledge,
of all sceptical excesses, in order to spread over every-
thing the rumpled veil of uncertainty. For they
desire that when this darkening process is complete
their wizardry and soul-magic may be accepted
without hesitation as the path to "true truth " and
"real reality. "
v 33-
The Wish to be Just and the Wish to be
A JUDgE. —Schopenhauer, whose profound under-
standing 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)—Schopenhauermakes
this admirable distinction, wherein he comes far
nearer the mark than he would himself dare to ad-
mit: "Insight into the stern necessity of human
actions is the boundary line that divides philoso-
phic from other brains. " He worked against that
wonderful insight of which he was sometimes
capable by the prejudice that he had in common
with the moral man (not the moralist), a prejudice
that he expresses quite guilelessly and devoutly as
## p. 29 (#49) ##############################################
MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 29
follows: "The ultimate and true explanation of the
inner being of the entirety of things must of neces-
sity be closely connected with that about the ethical
significance of human actions. " This connection is
not "necessary" at all: such a connection must .
rather be rejected by that principle of the stern (
necessity of human actions, that is, the unconditioned (
non-freedom and non-responsibility of the will.
Philosophic brains will accordingly be distinguished
from others by their disbelief in the metaphysical
significance of morality. This must create between
the two kinds of brain a gulf of a depth and un-
bridgeableness of which the much-deplored gulf
between "cultured " and " uncultured " scarcely gives
a conception. It is true that many back doors, which
the "philosophic brains," like Schopenhauer's own,
have left for themselves, must be recognised as
useless. None leads into the open, into the fresh
air of the free will, but every door through which
people had slipped hitherto showed behind it once
more the gleaming brass wall of fate. For we are
in a prison, and can only dream of freedom, not>
make ourselves free. That the recognition of this
fact cannot be resisted much longer is shown by
the despairing and incredible postures and grimaces
of those who still press against it and continue their
wrestling-bout with it. Their attitude at present
is something like this: "So no one is responsible
for his actions? And all is full of guilt and the
consciousness of guilt? But some one must be the
sinner. If it is no longer possible or permissible
to accuse and sentence the individual, the one poor
wave in the inevitable rough-and-tumble of the
## p. 30 (#50) ##############################################
30 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
waves of development—well, then, let this stormy
sea, this development itself, be the sinner. Here is
freewill: this totality can be accused and sentenced,
can atone and expiate. So let God be the sinner and
man his redeemer. Let the world's history" be guilt,
expiation, and self-murder. Let the evil-doer be his
own judge, the judge his own hangman. " This
Christianity strained to its limits—for what else is
it ? —is the last thrust in the fencing-match between
the teaching of unconditioned morality and the
teaching of unconditioned non-freedom. It would
be quite horrible if it were anything more than a
logical pose, a hideous grimace of the underlying
thought, perhaps the death-convulsion of the heart
that seeks a remedy in its despair, the heart to which
delirium whispers: "Behold, thou art the lamb
which taketh away the sin of God. " This error lies
not only in the feeling," I am responsible," but just as
much in the contradiction, " I am not responsible,
but some one must be. " That is simply not true.
Hence the philosopher must say, like Christ," Judge
not," and the final distinction between the philo-
sophic brains and the others would be that the
former wish to be just and the latter wish to be
judges.
34-
Sacrifice. —You hold that sacrifice is the hall-
mark 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.
## p. 31 (#51) ##############################################
MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 31
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.
36.
Serpent's Tooth. —Whetherwe 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 ex-
periences than by the experiences we have under-
gone.
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 your-
selves into another personality that you admire,
and enjoy the new portrait of your ego, though
calling it by the other person's name—and this
## p. 32 (#52) ##############################################
32 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
whole proceeding is not to be thought self-deception,
self-seeking, you marvellous beings ? —It seems to
me that those who hide something of themselves
from themselves, or hide their whole selves from
themselves, are alike committing a theft from the
treasury of knowledge. It is clear, then, against
what transgression the maxim " Know thyself" is
a warning.
33.
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.
39-
Why the Stupid so often Become Mal-
ignant. —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.
40.
The Art of Moral Exceptions. —An art that
points out and glorifies the exceptional cases of
morality—where the good becomes bad and the
unjust just—should rarely be given a hearing: just
as now and again we buy something from gipsies,
with the fear that they are diverting to their own
pockets much more than their mere profit from the
purchase.
## p. 33 (#53) ##############################################
MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 33
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.
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.
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.
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
VOl. 11. C
## p. 34 (#54) ##############################################
34 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
stamp place upon themselves in the presence of
enemies and superiors improves their character and
prevents it from becoming too acrid and sour.
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.
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 propor-
tions.
47-
The Farce of Many Industrious Persons.
—By an excess of effort they win leisure for them-
selves, and then they can do nothing with it but
count the hours until the tale is ended.
48.
The Possession of Joy Abounding. —He that
has joy abounding must be a good man, but perhaps
## p. 35 (#55) ##############################################
MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 35
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.
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 eyes of solitude seem to peer at him: that he
loves that grey calm of the misty twilight that steals
along the windows on autumn and early winter
evenings and shuts out all soulless sounds as with
velvet curtains: that in unhewn stones he recognises
the last remaining traces of the primeval age, eager
for speech, and honours them from childhood up-
wards: that, lastly, the sea with its shifting serpent
skin and wild-beast beauty is, and remains to him,
unfamiliar? — Yes, something of the man is described
herewith, but the mirror of Nature does not say that
the same man, with (and not even “in spite of") all
his idyllic sensibilities, might be disagreeable, stingy,
and conceited. Horace, who was a good judge of
such matters, in his famous beatus ille qui procul
negotiis puts the tenderest feeling for country life
into the mouth of a Roman money-lender.
## p. 36 (#56) ##############################################
36 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
So.
Power without Victory. —The strongest cogn i-
tion (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.
Si-
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 justi-
fication 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.
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 thesufferer—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 be-
ware still more of doing than of suffering injustice,
for the sake of our own inward happiness—so as
not to lose our feeling of well-being—quite apart
from any consideration of the precepts of religion
and morality. For in suffering injustice we have
## p. 37 (#57) ##############################################
MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 37
the consolation of a good conscience, of hope and of
revenge, together with the sympathy and applause of
the just, nay of the whole of society, which is afraid
of the evil-doer. Not a few are skilled in the impure
self-deception that enables them to transform every
injustice of their own into an injustice inflicted upon
them from without, and to reserve for their own acts
the exceptional right to the plea of self-defence.
Their object, of course, is to make their own burden
lighter.
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 be-
coming 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.
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 under-
stand how to arouse anger in our dependents and
adversaries, in order to learn what is really done and
thought to our detriment.
55-
Defence Morally more Difficult than
Attack.
—The true heroic deed and masterpiece of
J
## p. 38 (#58) ##############################################
38 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
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.
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.
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.
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 con-
fess that the book did him a great service by thrust-
ing 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 illu-
minate individual facets of his personality, which
hitherto, in another constellation of opinions, had
remained dark and unrecognisable.
## p. 39 (#59) ##############################################
MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 39
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.
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 sup-
pressed envy.
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 round-
about route we derive some light from our own illu-
minating faculty.
62.
Fellowship in Joy. *—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.
* The German word \Mitfreude, coined by Nietzsche in
opposition to Mitleid (sympathy), is untranslateable. —Tr.
## p. 40 (#60) ##############################################
40 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
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 philo-
sophers who denied fellowship in joy.
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.
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 dis-
simulation from ambitious motives and purposely
show themselves unjust and hard, in order to leave
behind them the impression of strength.
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.
66.
Extreme Herostratism*—There might be
* Herostratus of Ephesus (in 356 B. C. ) set fire to the temple
of Diana in order (as he confessed on the rack) to gain
notoriety. —Tr.
## p. 41 (#61) ##############################################
MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 41
Herostratuses who set fire to their own temple, in
which their images are honoured.
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.
68.
The Bad Characteristic of Sympathy. —
Sympathy has a peculiar impudence for its com-
panion. For, wishing to help at all costs, sympathy
is in no perplexity either as to the means of assist-
ance or as to the nature and cause of the disease,
and goes on courageously administering all its
quack medicines to restore the health and reputa-
tion of the patient.
69.
Importunacy. —There is even an importunacy
in relation to works, and the act of associating one-
self 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.
## p. 42 (#62) ##############################################
42 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
70.
The Will is Ashamed of the Intellect. —
In all coolness we make reasonable plans against
our passions. But we make the most serious mis-
take in this connection in being often ashamed,
when the design has to be carried out, of the cool-
ness and calculation with which we conceived it.
So we do just the unreasonable thing, from that
sort of defiant magnanimity that every passion in-
volves.
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 passion-
ately.
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.
73-
A Danger to Universal Morality. —People
who are at the same time noble and honest come
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MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 43
to deify every devilry that brings out their honesty,
and to suspend for a time the balance of their moral
judgment.
74.
THE SADDEST ERROR. —It is an unpardonable
offence when one discovers that where one was con-
vinced 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.
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 irre-
concileable duality (or plurality) in one person.
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.
77.
DEBAUCHERY. —Not joy but joylessness is the
mother of debauchery.
## p. 44 (#64) ##############################################
44
HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
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.
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.
80.
MISTRUST. -Self-mistrust does not always pro-
ceed uncertainly and shyly, but sometimes in a
furious rage, having worked itself into a frenzy in
order not to tremble.
81.
PHILOSOPHY OF PARVENUS. If you want to be
a personality you must even hold your shadow in
honour.
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.
## p. 45 (#65) ##############################################
MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 45
S3-
Letting Yourself Go. —The more you let
yourself go, the less others let you go.
84.
The Innocent Rogue. —There is a slow, grad-
ual 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.
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.
86.
Wherewith We See the Ideal. —Every effi-
cient 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.
87.
Dishonest Praise. —Dishonest praise causes
many more twinges of conscience than dishonest
## p. 46 (#66) ##############################################
46 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
blame, probably only because we have exposed our
capacity for judgment far more completely through
excessive praise than through excessive and unjust
blame.
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 sig-
nificant 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 in-
sufficient nourishment of the brain during this last
period, the occasionally violent pain, the novel and
untried nature of the whole position, and only too
often the ebb and flow of superstitious impressions
and fears, as if dying were of much consequence and
meant the crossing of bridges of the most terrible
kind—all this forbids our using death as a testimony
concerning the living. Nor is it true that the dying
man is generally more honest than the living. On
the contrary, through the solemn attitude of the
bystanders, the repressed or flowing streams of tears
and emotions, every one is inveigled into a comedy
of vanity, now conscious, now unconscious. The
serious way in which every dying man is treated
must have been to many a poor despised devil the
highest joy of his whole life and a sort of compensa-
tion and repayment for many privations.
89.
Morality and its Sacrifice. —The origin of
morality may be traced to two ideas: "The com-
## p. 47 (#67) ##############################################
MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 47
munity ;s of more value than the individual," and
"Th^ permanent interest is to be preferred to the
temporary. " The conclusion drawn is that the per-
manent interest of the community is unconditionally
to be set above the temporary interest of the indi-
vidual, especially his momentary well-being, but also
his permanent interest and even the prolongation
of his existence. Even if the individual suffers
by an arrangement that suits the mass, even if he
is depressed and ruined by it, morality must be
maintained and the victim brought to the sacrifice.
Such a trend of thought arises, however, only in
those who are not the victims—for in the victim's
case it enforces the claim that the individual might
be worth more than the many, and that the present
enjoyment, the " moment in paradise," * should per-
haps be rated higher than a tame succession of
untroubled or comfortable circumstances. But the
philosophy of the sacrificial victim always finds voice
too late, and so victory remains with morals and
morality: which are really nothing more than the
sentiment for the whole concept of morals under
which one lives and has been reared—and reared
not as an individual but as a member of the whole,
as a cipher in a majority. Hence it constantly
happens that the individual makes himself into a
majority by means of his morality.
90.
The Good and the Good Conscience. —You
hold that all good things have at all times had a
* Quotation from Schiller, Don Carlos, i. 5. —Tr.
## p. 48 (#68) ##############################################
48 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
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 has
at one time been new and consequently strange,
against morals, immoral, and has gnawed like a
worm at the heart of the fortunate discoverer.
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, con-
siderations 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! For if
we reach the goal to which they summon us, then
the virtue we have attained, by means of the pure
air it makes us breathe and the spiritual well-being
it communicates, ennobles the remoter impulses of
our action, and afterwards we no longer perform
those actions from the same coarse motives that
inspired us before. —Education should therefore force
the virtues on the pupil, as far as possible, according
to his disposition. Then virtue, the sunshine and
## p. 49 (#69) ##############################################
MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 49
summer atmosphere of the soul, can contribute her
own share of work and add mellowness and sweet-
ness.
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.
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.
94-
JUDICIAL MURDER. —The two greatest judicial
murders * 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.
95-
"LOVE. "—The finest artistic conception wherein
Christianity had the advantage over other religious
* This, of course, refers to Jesus and Socrates. —Tr.
vol. 11. D
## p. 50 (#70) ##############################################
5<D HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
systems lay in one word—Love. Hence it became
the lyric religion (whereas in its two other creations
Semitism bestowed heroico-epical religions upon
the world). In the word "love" there is so much
meaning, so much that stimulates and appeals to
memory and hope, that even the meanest intelli-
gence and the coldest heart feel some glimmering
of its sense.
