No More Learning

real wealth is produced from the moderate property
that would be enough for an intellectual man. Such
wealth, then, is the glittering outcrop of intellectual
dependence and poverty, but it looks quite different
from what its humble origin might lead one to expect,
because it can mask itself with culture and art—it
can, in fact, purchase the mask. Hence it excites
envy in the poor and uncultured—who at bottom
always envy culture and see no mask in the mask—
and gradually paves the way for a social revolution.
For a gilded coarseness and a histrionic blowing of
trumpets in the pretended enjoyment of culture
inspires that class with the thought, " It is only a
matter of money," whereas it is indeed to some ex-
tent a matter of money, but far more of intellect.
3ii-
Joy in Commanding and Obeying. —Com-
manding 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.
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.
313.
When Asses are Needed. —We shall not move
the crowd to cry" Hosanna '. "until we have ridden
into the city upon an ass.


## p. 149 (#173) ############################################

MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 149
314-
PARTY USAgE. —Every party attempts to repre-
sent 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.
315.
Becoming Empty. —Of him who abandons him-
self 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.
Welcome Enemies. — The Socialistic move-
ments 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 ex-
ceptional 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.
317.
Possession Possesses. —Only up to a certain
point does possession make men feel freer and more
independent; one step farther, and possession be-
comes lord, the possessor a slave. The latter must
J«-v *,! »*. '


## p. 150 (#174) ############################################

ISO HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
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.
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 legis-
lative body be composed of these, it will finally be
necessary, in each individual case, that only the
voices and judgments of the most specialised ex-
perts should decide; the honesty of all the rest
should have become so great that it is simply a
matter of decency to leave the voting also in the
hands of these men. The result would be that
the law, in the strictest sense, would emanate from
the intelligence of the most intelligent. —As things
now are, voting is done by parties, and at every
division there must be hundreds of uneasy con-
sciences among the ill-taught, the incapable of judg-
ment, among those who merely repeat, imitate, and
go with the tide. Nothing lowers the dignity of
a new law so much as this inherent shamefaced
feeling of insincerity that necessarily results at every


## p. 151 (#175) ############################################

MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 151
party division. But, as has been said, it is easy,
ridiculously easy, to set up such a model: no power
on earth is at present strong enough to realise such
an ideal—unless the belief in the highest utility of
knowledge, and of those that know, at last dawns
even upon the most hostile minds and is preferred
to the prevalent belief in majorities. In the sense
of such a future may our watchword be: "More
reverence for them that know, and down with all
parties! "
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
before, they still possess them) would possess the
capacity, which other nations have now lost, for
doing certain things and particularly for under-
standing certain things. Much undoubtedly is lost
if the lack of sense—which is just the common
factor in all those qualities—is lost. Here too, how-
ever, there are no losses without the highest com-
pensatory gains, so that no reason is left for
lamenting, granting that we do not, like children,
and gourmands, wish to enjoy at once the fruits of
all seasons of the year.


## p. 152 (#176) ############################################

152 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
320.
\^)^ Carrying Coals to Newcastle. —The govern-
ments 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 character-
istic 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-
tentious semi-poverty of the middle classes. Above
all, they make teachers of all grades into an intel-
lectual court looking unconsciously "towards the
heights. " By putting obstacle after obstacle in the
way of private schools and the wholly distasteful
individual tuition they secure the disposal of a
considerable number of educational posts, towards
which numerous hungry and submissive eyes are
turned to an extent five times as great as can ever
be satisfied. These posts, however, must support
the holder but meagrely, so that he maintains a
feverish thirst for promotion and becomes still more
closely attached to the views of the government.
For it is always more advantageous to foster
moderate discontent than contentment, the mother
of courage, the grandmother of free thought and
exuberance. By means of this physically and
mentally bridled body of teachers, the youth of the
country is as far as possible raised to a certain level
of culture that is useful to the State and arranged
on a suitable sliding-scale. Above all, the immature


## p. 153 (#177) ############################################

MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 153
and ambitious minds of all classes are almost imper-
ceptibly imbued with the idea that only a career
which is recognised and hall-marked by the State
can lead immediately to social distinction. The
effect of this belief in government examinations and
titles goes so far that even men who have remained
independent and have risen by trade or handicraft
still feel a pang of discontent in their hearts until
their position too is marked and acknowledged by a
gracious bestowal of rank and orders from above—
until one becomes a " somebody. " Finally the State
connects all these hundreds of offices and posts in its
hands with the obligation of being trained and hall-
marked in these State schools if one ever wishes to
enter this charmed circle. Honour in society, daily
bread, the possibility of a family, protection from
above, the feeling of community in a common
culture—all this forms a network of hopes into
which every young man walks: how should he feel
the slightest breath of mistrust? In the end, per-
haps, the obligation of being a soldier for one year
has become with every one, after the lapse of a few
generations, an unreflecting habit, an understood
thing, with an eye to which we construct the plan
of our lives quite early. Then the State can venture
on the master-stroke of weaving together school
and army, talent, ambition and strength by means
of common advantages—that is, by attracting the
more highly gifted on favourable terms to the army
and inspiring them with the military spirit of joyful
obedience; so that finally, perhaps, they become
attached permanently to the flag and endow it by
their talents with an ever new and more brilliant


## p. 154 (#178) ############################################

154 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
lustre. Then nothing more is wanted but an oppor-
tunity for great wars. These are provided from
professional reasons (and so in all innocence) by
diplomats, aided by newspapers and Stock Ex-
changes. For "the nation," as a nation of soldiers,
need never be supplied with a good conscience in
war—it has one already.
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 ex-
penditure of lung-power in order to bawl, to deafen,
to excite, to terrify? Is it anything more than an
everlasting false alarm, which tries to lead our ears
and our wits into a false direction?
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.
323-
To be a Good German means to de-Ger-
manise 20neself. — National differences consist,


## p. 155 (#179) ############################################

MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 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 improve
upon the hypothetical question, "What is German? "
by the counter-question, " What is now German? "
and every good German will answer it practically,
by overcoming his German characteristics. For
when a nation advances and grows, it bursts the
girdle previously given to it by its national outlook.
When it remains stationary or declines, its soul is
surrounded by a fresh girdle, and the crust, as it
becomes harder and harder, builds a prison around,
with walls growing ever higher. Hence if a nation
has much that is firmly established, this is a sign
that it wishes to petrify and would like to become
nothing but a monument. This happened, from a
definite date, in the case of Egypt. So he who is
well-disposed towards the Germans may for his part
consider how he may more and more grow out of
what is German. The tendency to be un-German
has therefore always been a mark of efficient mem-
bers of our nation.
324-
FOREIgNISMS. —A foreigner who travelled in Ger-
many found favour or the reverse by certain asser-
tions of his, according to the districts in which he
stayed. All intelligent Suabians, he used to say,


## p. 156 (#180) ############################################

156 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
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
all too fond of mocking, and so could endure
mockery himself, which the South German could
not. —The intellect of the Germans was kept down
by their beer and their newspapers: he recom-
mended them tea and pamphlets, of course as a
cure. —He advised us to contemplate the different
nations of worn-out Europe and see how well each
displayed some particular quality of old age, to the
delight of those who sit before the great spectacle:
how the French successfully represent the clever-
ness and amiability of old age, the English the
experience and reserve, the Italians the innocence
and candour. Can the other masks of old age be
wanting? Where is the proud old man, the dom-
ineering old man, the covetous old man ? —The
most dangerous region in Germany was Saxony and
Thuringia: nowhere else was there more mental
nimbleness, more knowledge of men, side by side
with freedom of thought; and all this was so
modestly veiled by the ugly dialect and the zealous
officiousness of the inhabitants that one hardly
noticed that one here had to deal with the intel-
lectual drill-sergeants of Germany, her teachers for
good or evil. —The arrogance of the North Germans
was kept in check by their tendency to obey, that
of the South Germans by their tendency—to make
themselves comfortable. —It appeared to him that


## p. 157 (#181) ############################################

MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 157
in their women German men possessed awkward
but self-opinionated housewives, who belauded
themselves so perseveringly that they had almost
persuaded the world, and at any rate their husbands,
of their peculiarly German housewifely virtue. —
When the conversation turned on Germany's home
and foreign policy, he used to say (he called it
"betray the secret") that Germany's greatest states-
man did not believe in great statesmen. —The future
of Germany he found menaced and menacing, for
Germans had forgotten how to enjoy themselves (an
art that the Italians understood so well), but, by the
great games of chance called wars and dynastic
revolutions, had accustomed themselves to emotion-
alism, and consequently would one day have an
Entente. For that is the strongest emotion that a
nation can procure for itself. —The German Socialist
was all the more dangerous because impelled by
no definite necessity: his trouble lay in not knowing
what he wanted; so, even if he attained many of
his objects, he would still pine away from desire
in the midst of delights, just like Faust, but pre-
sumably like a very vulgar Faust. "For the Faust-
Devil," he finally exclaimed, "by whom cultured
Germans were so much plagued, was exorcised by
Bismarck; but now the Devil has entered into the
swine,* and is worse than ever! "
325-
Opinions. —Most men are nothing and count
for nothing until they have arrayed themselves in
* Luke viii. 33. —Tr.


## p. 158 (#182) ############################################

158 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
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.
326.
Two Kinds of Sobriety. —In order not to con-
found the sobriety arising from mental exhaustion
with that arising from moderation, one must remark
that the former is peevish, the latter cheerful.
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 in-
sipid and rotten to the taste, and counts, for whole
strata of the people, among the adulterated food-
stuffs.
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.
329-
Sovereignty. —To honour and acknowledge
even the bad, when it pleases one, and to have no


## p. 159 (#183) ############################################

MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 159
conception of how one could be ashamed of being
pleased thereat, is the mark of sovereignty in things
great and small.
330.
Influence a Phantom, not a Reality. — J
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.
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.
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.
333-
Intercourse as an Enjoyment. —If a man
renounces the world and intentionally lives in soli-
tude, he may come to regard intercourse with
others, which he enjoys but seldom, as a special
delicacy.


## p. 160 (#184) ############################################

ICO HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
J
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.
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.
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, in-
clude the Godhead in our will. But the beautiful
we must not will, we must be capable of it, in inno-
cence 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 thinking of the beautiful.
Many better and nobler men, from impotence or
from want of beauty in their souls, remain unre-
"\


## p. 161 (#185) ############################################

MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. l6l
freshing and ugly to behold, with all their good
will and good works. They rebuff and injure even
virtue through the repulsive garb in which their
bad taste arrays her.
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 per-
ceive that this repudiation has led us not to wisdom
but to satiety of life.
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.
339-
"Gaudeamus Igitur. "—Joy must contain edi-
fying 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, uncon-
sciously vows to itself, " I will be good! " "I will
become perfect! " and is at once seized by a pre-
monition of perfection that is like a shudder of re-
ligious awe?
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.
VOl. II. L
-


## p. 162 (#186) ############################################

162 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
341-
Loving the Master. —The apprentice and the
master love the master in different ways.
342.
All-too-Beautiful and Human. —"Nature
is too beautiful for thee, poor mortal," one often
feels. But now and then, at a profound contem-
plation 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.
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 dis-
cover 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.
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


## p. 163 (#187) ############################################

MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 163
you some element of fraud—your speech, your ex-
pression, 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.
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? "
346.
Being Misunderstood. —When one is mis-
understood generally, it is impossible to remove a
particular misunderstanding. This point must be
recognised,tosave superfluous expenditure of energy
in self-defence.
347-
The Water-Drinker Speaks. —Go on drink-
ing 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 with-
out mutual recriminations?
348.
From Cannibal Country. —In solitude the v/
lonely man is eaten up by himself, among crowds
by the many. Choose which you prefer.


## p. 166 (#188) ############################################

166 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
<LlJ-r»~
356.
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 is just the writers of uncertain health—
among whom, unfortunately, nearly all great writers
must be classed—who are wont to have a far more
even and assured tone of health in their writings,
because they are better versed than are the physi-
cally robust in the philosophy of psychical health
and convalescence and in their teachers—morning,
sunshine, forest, and fountain.
357-
Disloyalty a Condition of Mastery. —It
cannot be helped—every master has but one pupil,
and he becomes disloyal to him, for he also is des-
tined for mastery.
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.
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


## p. 167 (#189) ############################################

MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 167
window—ay, and even try to prevent others from
so doing?
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.
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.
362.
Intellectual Order of Precedence. —You
rank far below others when you try to establish the
exception and they the rule.
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.
364.
The Reason for Much Fretfulness. —He
that prefers the beautiful to the useful in life will


## p. 168 (#190) ############################################

168 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
J
undoubtedly, like children who prefer sweetmeats
to bread, destroy his digestion and acquire a very
fretful outlook on the world.
365-
Excess as A Remedy. —tyVe can make our own
talent once more acceptable to ourselves by hon-
ouring 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. I
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, con-
templative natures, on the other hand, reflect on
how they have chosen their self "once for all" at
their entry into life.
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.
368.
Obscuring Oneself. —We must understand
how to obscure ourselves in order to get rid of the
gnat-swarms of pestering admirers.


## p. 169 (#191) ############################################

MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 169
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 recherche" 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.
370.
The Danger in Admiration. —The admira-
tion of a quality or of an art may be so strong as to
deter us from aspiring to possess that quality or art.
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 re-
quirements there exists a twofold species of artists.
372.
Secessions. —Whoever secedes from us offends
not us, perhaps, but certainly our adherents.
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


## p. 170 (#192) ############################################

170
HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
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 in-
dividual, and the proper epitaph is a belated sigh.
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.
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.
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.
377.
Pity. In the gilded sheath of pity is sometimes
hidden the dagger of envy.
378.
WHAT IS GENIUS ? -To aspire to a lofty aim and
to will the means to that aim.


## p. 171 (#193) ############################################

MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 171
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.
380.
The Philosophic Life Misinterpreted. —At
the moment when one is beginning to take philo-
sophy seriously, the whole world fancies that one is
doing the reverse.
381.
Imitation. —By imitation, the bad gains, the
good loses credit—especially in art.
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 verdict on our own epoch, and say
that it was unbearable, that life under such condi-
tions was intolerable. "And yet every one can
endure his own times? " Yes, because the spirit of


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172 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
his age not only lies upon him but is in him. The
spirit of the age offers resistance to itself and can
bear itself.
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 embitter their foes than let it be seen
that they place them on an equal footing with them-
selves.
384-
y 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.
385-
CONTRASTS. —The most senile thought ever con-
ceived 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 thy-
self. "—With the one knowledge'of men has ceased,
with the other it has not yet begun.


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MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 173
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 hun-
dred 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 into his own ear ? —Even so: wis-
dom is the whispering of the sage to himself in the
crowded market-place.
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.
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 utter-
ances, ready-to shoot down any one who shows
freely that there are matters in which their judg-
ment is not taken into acccount.


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174 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
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 sedi-
ment.
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.
391-
Beyond our Ken. —The good generally dis-
pleases us when it is beyond our ken.
392.
Rule as Mother or as Child. —There is one
condition that gives birth to rules, another to which
rules give birth.
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.
394-
A Mistake of Biographers. —The small force
that is required to launch a boat into the stream


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MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 175
must not be confounded with the force of the
stream that carries the boat along. Yet this mis-
take is made in nearly all biographies.
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 recol-
lection. Thus they involve a twofold drawback.
396.
The Philosophy that Society always
Needs. —The pillars of the social structure rest
upon the fundamental fact that every one cheer-
fully 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 places.
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
398.
Greatness and its Contemplator. —The
noblest effect of greatness is that it gives the con-


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176 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
templator a power of vision that magnifies and em-
bellishes.
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.
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.
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.