Human, All-Too-Human: A Book For Free Spirits; Part II

60

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

61

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

62

Fellowship in Joy.[5 - The German word Mitfreude, coined by Nietzsche in opposition to Mitleid (sympathy), is untranslateable. – Tr.]– 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. But to picture to oneself the joy of others and to rejoice thereat is the highest privilege of the highest animals, and again, amongst them, is the property only of the most select specimens – accordingly a rare “human thing.” Hence there have been philosophers who denied fellowship in joy.

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 dissimulation 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.[6 - 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.]– There might be 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 companion. For, wishing to help at all costs, sympathy is in no perplexity either as to the means of assistance or as to the nature and cause of the disease, and goes on courageously administering all its quack medicines to restore the health and reputation of the patient.

69

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

70

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

71

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

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 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 convinced of being loved, one is only regarded as a household utensil and decoration, whereby the master of the house can find an outlet for his vanity before his guests.

75

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

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.

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 proceed 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.

83

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

84

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