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the two greatest religions above-mentioned to the
SURPLUS of failures in life? They endeavour to preserve
and keep alive whatever can be preserved; in fact, as the
religions FOR SUFFERERS, they take the part of these
upon principle; they are always in favour of those who
suffer from life as from a disease, and they would fain treat
every other experience of life as false and impossible.
However highly we may esteem this indulgent and
preservative care (inasmuch as in applying to others, it has
applied, and applies also to the highest and usually the
most suffering type of man), the hitherto PARAMOUNT
religions—to give a general appreciation of them—are
among the principal causes which have kept the type of
‘man’ upon a lower level—they have preserved too much
THAT WHICH SHOULD HAVE PERISHED. One has
to thank them for invaluable services; and who is
sufficiently rich in gratitude not to feel poor at the
contemplation of all that the ‘spiritual men’ of Christianity
have done for Europe hitherto! But when they had given
comfort to the sufferers, courage to the oppressed and
despairing, a staff and support to the helpless, and when
they had allured from society into convents and spiritual
penitentiaries the broken-hearted and distracted: what else
had they to do in order to work systematically in that
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fashion, and with a good conscience, for the preservation
of all the sick and suffering, which means, in deed and in
truth, to work for the DETERIORATION OF THE
EUROPEAN RACE? To REVERSE all estimates of
value—THAT is what they had to do! And to shatter the
strong, to spoil great hopes, to cast suspicion on the
delight in beauty, to break down everything autonomous,
manly, conquering, and imperious—all instincts which are
natural to the highest and most successful type of ‘man’—
into uncertainty, distress of conscience, and self-
destruction; forsooth, to invert all love of the earthly and
of supremacy over the earth, into hatred of the earth and
earthly things—THAT is the task the Church imposed on
itself, and was obliged to impose, until, according to its
standard of value, ‘unworldliness,’ ‘unsensuousness,’ and
‘higher man’ fused into one sentiment. If one could
observe the strangely painful, equally coarse and refined
comedy of European Christianity with the derisive and
impartial eye of an Epicurean god, I should think one
would never cease marvelling and laughing; does it not
actually seem that some single will has ruled over Europe
for eighteen centuries in order to make a SUBLIME
ABORTION of man? He, however, who, with opposite
requirements (no longer Epicurean) and with some divine
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hammer in his hand, could approach this almost voluntary
degeneration and stunting of mankind, as exemplified in
the European Christian (Pascal, for instance), would he
not have to cry aloud with rage, pity, and horror: ‘Oh,
you bunglers, presumptuous pitiful bunglers, what have
you done! Was that a work for your hands? How you
have hacked and botched my finest stone! What have you
presumed to do!’—I should say that Christianity has
hitherto been the most portentous of presumptions. Men,
not great enough, nor hard enough, to be entitled as artists
to take part in fashioning MAN; men, not sufficiently
strong and far-sighted to ALLOW, with sublime self-
constraint, the obvious law of the thousandfold failures
and perishings to prevail; men, not sufficiently noble to see
the radically different grades of rank and intervals of rank
that separate man from man:—SUCH men, with their
‘equality before God,’ have hitherto swayed the destiny of
Europe; until at last a dwarfed, almost ludicrous species has
been produced, a gregarious animal, something obliging,
sickly, mediocre, the European of the present day.
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CHAPTER IV: APOPHTHEGMS
AND INTERLUDES
63. He who is a thorough teacher takes things
seriously—and even himself—only in relation to his
pupils.
64. ‘Knowledge for its own sake’—that is the last snare
laid by morality: we are thereby completely entangled in
morals once more.
65. The charm of knowledge would be small, were it
not so much shame has to be overcome on the way to it.
65A. We are most dishonourable towards our God: he
is not PERMITTED to sin.
66. The tendency of a person to allow himself to be
degraded, robbed, deceived, and exploited might be the
diffidence of a God among men.
67. Love to one only is a barbarity, for it is exercised at
the expense of all others. Love to God also!
68. ‘I did that,’ says my memory. ‘I could not have
done that,’ says my pride, and remains inexorable.
Eventually—the memory yields.
69. One has regarded life carelessly, if one has failed to
see the hand that—kills with leniency.
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70. If a man has character, he has also his typical
experience, which always recurs.
71. THE SAGE AS ASTRONOMER.—So long as
thou feelest the stars as an ‘above thee,’ thou lackest the
eye of the discerning one.
72. It is not the strength, but the duration of great
sentiments that makes great men.
73. He who attains his ideal, precisely thereby surpasses
it.
73A. Many a peacock hides his tail from every eye—
and calls it his pride.
74. A man of genius is unbearable, unless he possess at
least two things besides: gratitude and purity.
75. The degree and nature of a man’s sensuality extends
to the highest altitudes of his spirit.
76. Under peaceful conditions the militant man attacks
himself.
77. With his principles a man seeks either to dominate,
or justify, or honour, or reproach, or conceal his habits:
two men with the same principles probably seek
fundamentally different ends therewith.
78. He who despises himself, nevertheless esteems
himself thereby, as a despiser.
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79. A soul which knows that it is loved, but does not
itself love, betrays its sediment: its dregs come up.
80. A thing that is explained ceases to concern us—
What did the God mean who gave the advice, ‘Know
thyself!’ Did it perhaps imply ‘Cease to be concerned
about thyself! become objective!’— And Socrates?—And
the ‘scientific man’?
81. It is terrible to die of thirst at sea. Is it necessary that
you should so salt your truth that it will no longer—
quench thirst?
82. ‘Sympathy for all’—would be harshness and tyranny
for THEE, my good neighbour.
83. INSTINCT—When the house is on fire one
forgets even the dinner—Yes, but one recovers it from
among the ashes.
84. Woman learns how to hate in proportion as she—
forgets how to charm.
85. The same emotions are in man and woman, but in
different TEMPO, on that account man and woman never
cease to misunderstand each other.
86. In the background of all their personal vanity,
women themselves have still their impersonal scorn—for
‘woman".
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87. FETTERED HEART, FREE SPIRIT—When
one firmly fetters one’s heart and keeps it prisoner, one
can allow one’s spirit many liberties: I said this once before
But people do not believe it when I say so, unless they
know it already.
88. One begins to distrust very clever persons when
they become embarrassed.
89. Dreadful experiences raise the question whether he
who experiences them is not something dreadful also.
90. Heavy, melancholy men turn lighter, and come
temporarily to their surface, precisely by that which makes
others heavy—by hatred and love.
91. So cold, so icy, that one burns one’s finger at the
touch of him! Every hand that lays hold of him shrinks
back!—And for that very reason many think him red-hot.
92. Who has not, at one time or another—sacrificed
himself for the sake of his good name?
93. In affability there is no hatred of men, but precisely
on that account a great deal too much contempt of men.
94. The maturity of man—that means, to have
reacquired the seriousness that one had as a child at play.
95. To be ashamed of one’s immorality is a step on the
ladder at the end of which one is ashamed also of one’s
morality.
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96. One should part from life as Ulysses parted from
Nausicaa— blessing it rather than in love with it.
97. What? A great man? I always see merely the play-
actor of his own ideal.
98. When one trains one’s conscience, it kisses one
while it bites.
99. THE DISAPPOINTED ONE SPEAKS—‘I
listened for the echo and I heard only praise".
100. We all feign to ourselves that we are simpler than
we are, we thus relax ourselves away from our fellows.
101. A discerning one might easily regard himself at
present as the animalization of God.
102. Discovering reciprocal love should really
disenchant the lover with regard to the beloved. ‘What!
She is modest enough to love even you? Or stupid
enough? Or—or—-‘
103. THE DANGER IN HAPPINESS.—‘Everything
now turns out best for me, I now love every fate:—who
would like to be my fate?’
104. Not their love of humanity, but the impotence of
their love, prevents the Christians of today—burning us.
105. The pia fraus is still more repugnant to the taste
(the ‘piety’) of the free spirit (the ‘pious man of
knowledge’) than the impia fraus. Hence the profound
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lack of judgment, in comparison with the Church,
characteristic of the type ‘free spirit’—as ITS non-
freedom.
106. By means of music the very passions enjoy
themselves.
107. A sign of strong character, when once the
resolution has been taken, to shut the ear even to the best
counter-arguments. Occasionally, therefore, a will to
stupidity.
108. There is no such thing as moral phenomena, but
only a moral interpretation of phenomena.
109. The criminal is often enough not equal to his
deed: he extenuates and maligns it.
110. The advocates of a criminal are seldom artists
enough to turn the beautiful terribleness of the deed to the
advantage of the doer.
111. Our vanity is most difficult to wound just when
our pride has been wounded.
112. To him who feels himself preordained to
contemplation and not to belief, all believers are too noisy
and obtrusive; he guards against them.
113. ‘You want to prepossess him in your favour? Then
you must be embarrassed before him.’
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114. The immense expectation with regard to sexual
love, and the coyness in this expectation, spoils all the
perspectives of women at the outset.
115. Where there is neither love nor hatred in the
game, woman’s play is mediocre.
116. The great epochs of our life are at the points when
we gain courage to rebaptize our badness as the best in us.
117. The will to overcome an emotion, is ultimately
only the will of another, or of several other, emotions.
118. There is an innocence of admiration: it is
possessed by him to whom it has not yet occurred that he
himself may be admired some day.
119. Our loathing of dirt may be so great as to prevent
our cleaning ourselves—‘justifying’ ourselves.
120. Sensuality often forces the growth of love too
much, so that its root remains weak, and is easily torn up.
121. It is a curious thing that God learned Greek when
he wished to turn author—and that he did not learn it
better.
122. To rejoice on account of praise is in many cases
merely politeness of heart—and the very opposite of
vanity of spirit.
123. Even concubinage has been corrupted—by
marriage.
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124. He who exults at the stake, does not triumph over
pain, but because of the fact that he does not feel pain
where he expected it. A parable.
125. When we have to change an opinion about any
one, we charge heavily to his account the inconvenience
he thereby causes us.
126. A nation is a detour of nature to arrive at six or
seven great men.—Yes, and then to get round them.
127. In the eyes of all true women science is hostile to
the sense of shame. They feel as if one wished to peep
under their skin with it—or worse still! under their dress
and finery.
128. The more abstract the truth you wish to teach, the
more must you allure the senses to it.
129. The devil has the most extensive perspectives for
God; on that account he keeps so far away from him:—
the devil, in effect, as the oldest friend of knowledge.
130. What a person IS begins to betray itself when his
talent decreases,—when he ceases to show what he CAN
do. Talent is also an adornment; an adornment is also a
concealment.
131. The sexes deceive themselves about each other:
the reason is that in reality they honour and love only
themselves (or their own ideal, to express it more
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agreeably). Thus man wishes woman to be peaceable: but
in fact woman is ESSENTIALLY unpeaceable, like the
cat, however well she may have assumed the peaceable
demeanour.
132. One is punished best for one’s virtues.
133. He who cannot find the way to HIS ideal, lives
more frivolously and shamelessly than the man without an
ideal.
134. From the senses originate all trustworthiness, all
good conscience, all evidence of truth.
135. Pharisaism is not a deterioration of the good man;
a considerable part of it is rather an essential condition of
being good.
136. The one seeks an accoucheur for his thoughts, the
other seeks some one whom he can assist: a good
conversation thus originates.
137. In intercourse with scholars and artists one readily
makes mistakes of opposite kinds: in a remarkable scholar
one not infrequently finds a mediocre man; and often,
