The Joyful Wisdom (The Gay Science) quotes

there is wantonness, restlessness, contradiction and April-weather in it; so that one is as constantly reminded of the proximity of winter as of the victory over it: the victory which is coming, which must come, which has perhaps already come....

Gratitude continually flows forth, as if the most unexpected thing had happened, the gratitude of a convalescent—for convalescence was this most unexpected thing.

"Joyful Wisdom": that implies the Saturnalia of a spirit which has patiently withstood a long, frightful pressure—patiently, strenuously, impassionately, without submitting, but without hope—and which is now suddenly o'erpowered with hope, the hope of health, the intoxication of convalescence.

… pain which takes time, by which we are burned as it were with green wood, that compels us philosophers to descend into our ultimate depths, and divest ourselves of all trust, all good-nature, veiling, gentleness, and averageness, wherein we have perhaps formerly installed our humanity.

I doubt whether such pain "improves" us; but I know that it deepens us.

Be it that we learn to confront it with our pride, our scorn, our strength of will, doing like the Indian who, however sorely tortured, revenges himself on his tormentor with his bitter tongue;

one emerges from such long, dangerous exercises in self-mastery as another being, with several additional notes of interrogation, and above all, with the will to question more than ever, more profoundly, more strictly, more sternly, more wickedly, more quietly than has ever been questioned hitherto.

Confidence in life is gone: life itself has become a problem.

—Let it not be imagined that one has necessarily become a hypochondriac thereby! Even love of life is still possible—only one loves differently. It is the love of a woman of whom one is doubtful....

Confidence in life is gone: life itself has become a problem.—Let it not be imagined that one has necessarily become a hypochondriac thereby!

Even love of life is still possible—only one loves differently. It is the love of a woman of whom one is doubtful....

The charm, however, of all that is problematic, the delight in the X, is too great in those more spiritual and more spiritualised men, not to spread itself again and again like a clear glow over all the trouble of the problematic, over all the …

we have lived long enough to believe this. At present we regard it as a matter of propriety not to be anxious either to see everything naked, or to be present at everything, or to understand and "know" everything.

"Is it true that the good God is everywhere present?" asked a little girl of her mother: "I think that is indecent":—a hint to philosophers!

One should have more reverence for the shamefacedness with which nature has concealed herself behind enigmas and motley uncertainties. Perhaps truth is a woman who has reasons for not showing her reasons? Perhaps her name is Baubo, to speak in Greek?... Oh, those Greeks!

"Is it true that the good God is everywhere present?" asked a little girl of her mother: "I think that is indecent":—a hint to philosophers! One should have more reverence for the shamefacedness with which nature has concealed herself behind enigmas and motley uncertainties.

Perhaps truth is a woman who has reasons for not showing her reasons?

Perhaps her name is Baubo, to speak in Greek?... Oh, those Greeks! They knew how to live: for that purpose it is necessary to keep bravely to the surface, the fold and the skin;

Oh, those Greeks! They knew how to live: for that purpose it is necessary to keep bravely to the surface, the fold and the skin; to worship appearance, to believe in forms, tones, and words, in the whole Olympus of appearance!

Those Greeks were superficial—from profundity!

And are we not coming back precisely to this point, we dare-devils of the spirit, who have scaled the highest and most dangerous peak of contemporary thought, and have looked around us from it, have looked down from it?

To laugh at oneself as one would have to laugh in order to laugh out of the veriest truth,—to do this the best have not hitherto had enough of the sense of truth, and the most endowed have had far too little genius!

There is perhaps still a future even for laughter!

When the maxim, "The race is all, the individual is nothing,"—has incorporated itself in humanity, and when access stands open to every one at all times to this ultimate emancipation and irresponsibility.—Perhaps then laughter will have united with wisdom, perhaps then there will be only …

… this corrective laughter, human nature has on the whole been changed by the ever new appearance of those teachers of the design of existence,—human nature has now an additional requirement, the very requirement of the ever new appearance of such teachers and doctrines of "design."

Man has gradually become a visionary animal, who has to fulfil one more condition of existence than the other animals: man must from time to time believe that he knows why he exists

; his species cannot flourish without periodically confiding in life! Without the belief in reason in life! And always from time to time will the human race decree anew that "there is something which really may not be laughed at."

… our usual short-sightedness, to separate our neighbours precisely into useful and hurtful, into good and evil men, yet when we make a general calculation, and on longer reflection on the whole question, we become distrustful of this defining and separating, and finally leave it alone.

Even the most hurtful man is still perhaps, in respect to the conservation of the race, the most useful of all

; for he conserves in himself or by his effect on others, impulses without which mankind might long ago have languished or decayed.

The new, however, is under all circumstances the evil, as that which wants to conquer, which tries to upset the old boundary-stones and the old piety; only the old is the good!

The good men of every age are those who go to the roots of the old thoughts and bear fruit with them, the agriculturists of the spirit.

But every soil becomes finally exhausted, and the ploughshare of evil must always come once more.—There is at present a fundamentally erroneous theory of morals which is much celebrated, especially in England:

Loss of Dignity.—

Meditation has lost all its dignity of form

; the ceremonial and solemn bearing of the meditative person have been made a mockery, and one would no longer endure a wise man of the old style.

but let us wait only for the grandchildren and grandchildren's children, if we have time to wait,—they bring the interior of their grandfathers into the sun, that interior of which the grandfathers themselves were unconscious.

The son, indeed, is often the betrayer of his father; the latter understands himself better since he has got his son.

We have all hidden gardens and plantations in us; and by another simile, we are all growing volcanoes, which will have their hours of eruption:—how near or how distant this is, nobody of course knows, not even the good God.

The son, indeed, is often the betrayer of his father; the latter understands himself better since he has got his son.

We have all hidden gardens and plantations in us; and by another simile, we are all growing volcanoes, which will have their hours of eruption

:—how near or how distant this is, nobody of course knows, not even the good God.

Consciousness.—

Consciousness is the last and latest development of the organic, and consequently also the most unfinished and least powerful of these developments.

Innumerable mistakes originate out of consciousness, which, "in spite of fate," as Homer says, cause an animal or a man to break down earlier than might be necessary.

the easy booty—and that is what every sufferer is—is for them an enchanting thing.

Pity is said to be the virtue of the gay lady.

What is called Love.—The lust of property and love: what different associations each of these ideas evoke!—and yet it might be the same impulse twice named:

the possession for the most part becomes smaller through possessing. Our pleasure in ourselves seeks to maintain itself, by always transforming something new into ourselves,—that is just possessing.

To become satiated with a possession, that is to become satiated with ourselves.

(One can also suffer from excess,—even the desire to cast away, to share out, can assume the honourable name of "love.") When we see any one suffering, we willingly utilise the opportunity then afforded to take possession of him;

but who knows this love? Who has experienced it?

Its right name is friendship.

Out of the Distance.—This mountain makes the whole district which it dominates charming in every way, and full of significance:

whether disfavour and opposition from without, whether every kind of hatred, jealousy, stubbornness, distrust, severity, greed, and violence do not belong to the favouring circumstances without which a great growth even in virtue is hardly possible?

The poison by which the weaker nature is destroyed is strengthening to the strong individual—and he does not call it poison.

Dignity of Folly.—Several millenniums further on in the path of the last century!—and in everything that man does the highest prudence will be exhibited: but just thereby prudence will have lost all its dignity.

And just as a tyranny of truth and science would be in a position to raise the value of falsehood, a tyranny of prudence could force into prominence a new species of nobleness.

To be noble—that might then mean, perhaps, to be capable of follies.

To the Teachers of Unselfishness.—The virtues of a man are called good, not in respect of the results they have for himself, but in respect of the results which we expect therefrom for ourselves and for society:—we have all along had very little unselfishness, very …

Thus spoke Napoleon once to his wife, when she had reasons for calling in question the fidelity of her husband.—

The times of corruption are the seasons when the apples fall from the tree

: I mean the individuals, the seed-bearers of the future, the pioneers of the spiritual colonisation and of a new construction of national and social unions. Corruption is only an abusive term for the harvest time of a people.

I mean the individuals, the seed-bearers of the future, the pioneers of the spiritual colonisation and of a new construction of national and social unions.

Corruption is only an abusive term for the harvest time of a people.

Different Dissatisfactions.—The feeble and as it were feminine dissatisfied people have ingenuity for beautifying and deepening life; the strong dissatisfied people—the masculine persons among them, to continue the metaphor—have the ingenuity for improving and safeguarding life.

What is Living?—

Living—that is to continually eliminate from ourselves what is about to die

; Living—that is to be cruel and inexorable towards all that becomes weak and old in ourselves, and not only in ourselves. Living—that means, therefore, to be without piety toward the dying, the wretched and the old?

Injuring with one's best Qualities.—

Our strong points sometimes drive us so far forward that we cannot any longer endure our weaknesses, and we perish by them

: we also perhaps see this result beforehand, but nevertheless do not want it to be otherwise. We then become hard towards that which would fain be spared in us, and our pitilessness is also our greatness.

Historia abscondita.—

Every great man has a power which operates backward; all history is again placed on the scales on his account, and a thousand secrets of the past crawl out of their lurking-places—into his sunlight.

There is absolutely no knowing what history may be some day. The past is still perhaps undiscovered in its essence! There are yet so many retroactive powers needed!

Altered Taste.—

The alteration of the general taste is more important than the alteration of opinions

; opinions, with all their proving, refuting, and intellectual masquerade, are merely symptoms of altered taste, and are certainly not what they are still so often claimed to be, the causes of the altered taste. How does the general taste alter?

Against Remorse.—

The thinker sees in his own actions attempts and questionings to obtain information about something or other

; success and failure are answers to him first and foremost.

They are not so much afraid of ennui as of labour without pleasure; indeed they require much ennui, if their work is to succeed with them.

For the thinker and for all inventive spirits ennui is the unpleasant "calm" of the soul which precedes the happy voyage and the dancing breezes

; he must endure it, he must await the effect it has on him:—it is precisely this which lesser natures cannot at all experience! It is common to scare away ennui in every way, just as it is common to labour without pleasure.

… remedy for pessimistic philosophies and the excessive sensibility which seems to me the real "distress of the present":—but perhaps this remedy already sounds too cruel, and would itself be reckoned among the symptoms owing to which people at present conclude that "existence is something evil."

Well! the remedy for "the distress" is distress.

Magnanimity and allied Qualities.—Those paradoxical phenomena, such as the sudden coldness in the demeanour of good-natured men, the humour of the melancholy, and above all magnanimity, as a sudden renunciation of revenge or of the gratification of envy—appear in men in whom there is a …

One day it flashes upon our mind what others know of us (or think they know)—and then we acknowledge that it is the more powerful.

We get on with our bad conscience more easily than with our bad reputation.

Where Goodness Begins.—Where bad eyesight can no longer see the evil impulse as such, on account of its refinement,—there man sets up the kingdom of goodness;

Consequently, the duller the eye so much the further does goodness extend!

Hence the eternal cheerfulness of the populace and of children! Hence the gloominess and grief (allied to the bad conscience) of great thinkers.

The Consciousness of Appearance.—How wonderfully and novelly, and at the same time how awfully and ironically, do I feel myself situated with respect to collective existence, with my knowledge!

Verily not a dead mask which one could put upon an unknown X, and which to be sure one could also remove!

Appearance is for me the operating and living thing itself

;

They do not know what to make of themselves—and so they paint the misfortune of others on the wall; they always need others! And always again other others!—

Pardon me, my friends, I have ventured to paint my happiness on the wall.

What a fool he would be who would think it enough to refer here to this origin and this nebulous veil of illusion, in order to annihilate that which virtually passes for the world—namely, so-called "reality"!

It is only as creators that we can annihilate!

—But let us not forget this: it suffices to create new names and valuations and probabilities, in order in the long run to create new "things."

in truth he would too willingly have seen the whole of mechanics traced back to moral acts of volition and arbitrariness:—but because nobody could render him this service, he concealed nature and mechanism from himself as best he could, and lived in a dream.

Oh, those men of former times understood how to dream, and did not need first to go to sleep!

—and we men of the present day also still understand it too well, with all our good-will for wakefulness and daylight!

Similar to the ship, which, with its white sails, like an immense butterfly, passes over the dark sea! Yes! Passing over existence! That is it! That would be it!——It seems that the noise here has made me a visionary?

All great noise causes one to place happiness in the calm and the distance.

When a man is in the midst of his hubbub, in the midst of the breakers of his plots and plans, he there sees perhaps calm, enchanting beings glide past him, for whose happiness and retirement he longs—they are women.

But still! But still! My noble enthusiast, there is also in the most beautiful sailing-ship so much noise and bustling, and alas, so much petty, pitiable bustling!

The enchantment and the most powerful effect of women is, to use the language of philosophers, an effect at a distance, an actio in distans

; there belongs thereto, however, primarily and above all,—distance!

Love.—

Love pardons even the passion of the beloved.

Woman in Music.—How does it happen that warm and rainy winds bring the musical mood and the inventive delight in melody with them? Are they not the same winds that fill the churches and give women amorous thoughts?

and many found fault with the saint because he had advised cruelty, for he had advised to kill the child.

"But is it not more cruel to let it live?" asked the saint.

The Unsuccessful.—Those poor women always fail of success who become agitated and uncertain, and talk too much in presence of him whom they love; for men are most successfully seduced by a certain subtle and phlegmatic tenderness.

it is a necessity of the first importance that here enjoins and demands. We others are the exceptions and the danger,—we eternally need protection!—

Well, there can actually be something said in favour of the exceptions provided that they never want to become the rule.

The Animal with good Conscience.—It is not unknown to me that there is vulgarity in everything that pleases Southern Europe—whether it be Italian opera (for example, Rossini's and Bellini's), or the Spanish adventure-romance (most readily accessible to us in the French garb of Gil Blas)—but …

What we should be Grateful for.—

It is only the artists, and especially the theatrical artists who have furnished men with eyes and ears

to hear and see with some pleasure what everyone is in himself, what he experiences and aims at:

they then show an admiration for the originator of their happiness, as if he had led them immediately to the vision of his holiest and ultimate verities, as if he had reached his goal, and had actually seen and communicated his vision.

It is to the advantage of his reputation that he has not really arrived at his goal.

Art and Nature.—The Greeks (or at least the Athenians) liked to hear good talking: indeed they had an eager inclination for it, which distinguished them more than anything else from non-Greeks.

… chanted to a melody while she holds her fine hands before her delicate little ears—and so there are a thousand enjoyments of the warfare, the defeats included, of which the unpoetic, the so-called prose-men know nothing at all:—they consequently write and speak only bad prose!

Warfare is the father of all good things, it is also the father of good prose!

—There have been four very singular and truly poetical men in this century who have arrived at mastership in prose, for which otherwise this century is not suited, owing to lack of poetry, as we have indicated.

But why, then, do you Write?—A:

I do not belong to those who think with the wet pen in hand

; and still less to those who yield themselves entirely to their passions before the open ink-bottle, sitting on their chair and staring at the paper. I am always vexed and abashed by writing;

I am always vexed and abashed by writing; writing is a necessity for me,—even to speak of it in a simile is disagreeable. B: But why, then, do you write? A:

Well, my dear Sir, to tell you in confidence, I have hitherto found no other means of getting rid of my thoughts.

B: And why do you wish to get rid of them? A: Why I wish? Do I really wish! I must.—B: Enough! Enough!

How could we dispense with Art for that purpose, how could we dispense with the fool?—

And as long as you are still ashamed of yourselves in any way, you still do not belong to us!

and then it is no longer the eternal imperfection that we carry over the river of Becoming—for we think we carry a goddess, and are proud and artless in rendering this service.

As an æsthetic phenomenon existence is still endurable to us

; and by Art, eye and hand and above all the good conscience are given to us, to be able to make such a phenomenon out of ourselves.

New Struggles.—After Buddha was dead people showed his shadow for centuries afterwards in a cave,—an immense frightful shadow.

God is dead: but as the human race is constituted, there will perhaps be caves for millenniums yet, in which people will show his shadow,—And we—we have still to overcome his shadow!

Let us be on our Guard.—Let us be on our guard against thinking that the world is a living being. Where could it extend itself? What could it nourish itself with? How could it grow and increase? We know tolerably well what the organic is;

New Struggles.—

After Buddha was dead people showed his shadow for centuries afterwards in a cave,—an immense frightful shadow.

God is dead: but as the human race is constituted, there will perhaps be caves for millenniums yet, in which people will show his shadow,—And we—we have still to overcome his shadow!

It is altogether unaffected by our æsthetic and moral judgments! Neither has it any self-preservative instinct, nor instinct at all; it also knows no law. Let us be on our guard against saying that there are laws in nature.

There are only necessities: there is no one who commands, no one who obeys, no one who transgresses.

When you know that there is no design, you know also that there is no chance: for it is only where there is a world of design that the word "chance" has a meaning.

When you know that there is no design, you know also that there is no chance: for it is only where there is a world of design that the word "chance" has a meaning.

Let us be on our guard against saying that death is contrary to life. The living being is only a species of dead being, and a very rare species.

—Let us be on our guard against thinking that the world eternally creates the new. There are no eternally enduring substances; matter is just another such error as the God of the Eleatics.

Moreover, those propositions became the very standards of knowledge according to which the "true" and the "false" were determined—throughout the whole domain of pure logic.

The strength of conceptions does not, therefore, depend on their degree of truth, but on their antiquity, their embodiment, their character as conditions of life.

Where life and knowledge seemed to conflict, there has never been serious contention; denial and doubt have there been regarded as madness.

and in respect to the future essential transformations of herds and communities, states and societies, one can prophesy that there will still be very divergent moralities.

Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.

The Herd's Sting of Conscience.—In the longest and remotest ages of the human race there was quite a different sting of conscience from that of the present day.

without these articles of faith no one could manage to live at present! But for all that they are still unproved.

Life is no argument; error might be among the conditions of life.

The Element of Moral Scepticism in Christianity.—Christianity also has made a great contribution to enlightenment, and has taught moral scepticism in a very impressive and effective manner—accusing and embittering, but with untiring patience and subtlety; it annihilated in every individual the belief in his virtues:

In the Horizon of the Infinite.—

We have left the land and have gone aboard ship! We have broken down the bridge behind us,—nay, more, the land behind us!

Well, little ship! look out! Beside thee is the ocean; it is true it does not always roar, and sometimes it spreads out like silk and gold and a gentle reverie.

The Madman.—

Have you ever heard of the madman who on a bright morning lighted a lantern and ran to the market-place calling out unceasingly: "I seek God! I seek God!"

—As there were many people standing about who did not believe in God, he caused a great deal of amusement. Why! is he lost? said one. Has he strayed away like a child? said another. Or does he keep himself hidden?

Does not empty space breathe upon us? Has it not become colder? Does not night come on continually, darker and darker? Shall we not have to light lanterns in the morning? Do we not hear the noise of the grave-diggers who are burying God?

Do we not smell the divine putrefaction?—for even Gods putrefy! God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him!

How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife,—who will wipe the blood from us? With what water could we cleanse ourselves?

Shall we not have to light lanterns in the morning? Do we not hear the noise of the grave-diggers who are burying God? Do we not smell the divine putrefaction?—for even Gods putrefy! God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him!

How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers?

The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife,—who will wipe the blood from us? With what water could we cleanse ourselves? What lustrums, what sacred games shall we have to devise?

When led out and called to account, he always gave the reply:

"What are these churches now, if they are not the tombs and monuments of God?"

—

Mystical Explanations.—

Mystical explanations are regarded as profound; the truth is that they do not even go the length of being superficial.

After-Effect of the most Ancient Religiousness.—The thoughtless man thinks that the Will is the only thing that operates, that willing is something simple, manifestly given, underived, and comprehensible in itself.

The Conditions for God.—

"God himself cannot subsist without wise men," said Luther, and with good reason; but "God can still less subsist without unwise men,"—good Luther did not say that!

A Dangerous Resolution.—The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.

A Dangerous Resolution.—

The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.

Christianity and Suicide.—Christianity made use of the excessive longing for suicide at the time of its origin as a lever for its power:

Against Christianity.—

It is now no longer our reason, but our taste that decides against Christianity.

Axioms.—An unavoidable hypothesis on which mankind must always fall back again, is, in the long run, more powerful than the most firmly believed belief in something untrue (like the Christian belief). In the long run: that means a hundred thousand years from now.

Axioms.—An unavoidable hypothesis on which mankind must always fall back again, is, in the long run, more powerful than the most firmly believed belief in something untrue (like the Christian belief).

In the long run: that means a hundred thousand years from now.

Pessimists as Victims.—When a profound dislike of existence gets the upper hand, the after-effect of a great error in diet of which a people has been long guilty comes to light.

Frankincense.—

Buddha says: "Do not flatter thy benefactor!" Let one repeat this saying in a Christian church:—it immediately purifies the air of all Christianity.

The Greatest Utility of Polytheism.—For the individual to set up his own ideal and derive from it his laws, his pleasures and his rights—that has perhaps been hitherto regarded as the most monstrous of all human aberrations, and as idolatry in itself;

An Inconvenient Peculiarity.—

To find everything deep is an inconvenient peculiarity: it makes one constantly strain one's eyes, so that in the end one always finds more than one wishes.

Every Virtue has its Time.—The honesty of him who is at present inflexible often causes him remorse; for inflexibility is the virtue of a time different from that in which honesty prevails.

Egoism.—

Egoism is the perspective law of our sentiment, according to which the near appears large and momentous, while in the distance the magnitude and importance of all things diminish.

After a Great Victory.—The best thing in a great victory is that it deprives the conqueror of the fear of defeat. "Why should I not be worsted for once?" he says to himself, "I am now rich enough to stand it."

After a Great Victory.—

The best thing in a great victory is that it deprives the conqueror of the fear of defeat.

"Why should I not be worsted for once?" he says to himself, "I am now rich enough to stand it."

Always in our own Society.—All that is akin to me in nature and history speaks to me, praises me, urges me forward and comforts me—: other things are unheard by me, or immediately forgotten.

We are only in our own society always.

Misanthropy and Philanthropy.—We only speak about being sick of men when we can no longer digest them, and yet have the stomach full of them.

Misanthropy and Philanthropy.—We only speak about being sick of men when we can no longer digest them, and yet have the stomach full of them.

Misanthropy is the result of a far too eager philanthropy and "cannibalism,"—but who ever bade you swallow men like oysters, my Prince Hamlet!

Concerning an Invalid.—"Things go badly with him!"—What is wrong?—"He suffers from the longing to be praised, and finds no sustenance for it."—Inconceivable!

he has not yet learned that the multitude is not lazy enough for him! that it always presses forward! that it does not allow any one to stand still!—And he likes so well to stand still!

Fame.—When the gratitude of many to one casts aside all shame, then fame originates.

The Perverter of Taste.—A: "You are a perverter of taste—they say so everywhere!" B: "Certainly! I pervert every one's taste for his party:—no party forgives me for that."

To be Profound and to Appear Profound.—He who knows that he is profound strives for clearness; he who would like to appear profound to the multitude strives for obscurity.

The multitude thinks everything profound of which it cannot see the bottom; it is so timid and goes so unwillingly into the water.

Apart.—Parliamentarism, that is to say, the public permission to choose between five main political opinions, insinuates itself into the favour of the numerous class who would fain appear independent and individual, and like to fight for their opinions.

To be Profound and to Appear Profound.—

He who knows that he is profound strives for clearness; he who would like to appear profound to the multitude strives for obscurity.

The multitude thinks everything profound of which it cannot see the bottom; it is so timid and goes so unwillingly into the water.

Thoughts.—

Thoughts are the shadows of our sentiments—always, however, obscurer, emptier, and simpler.

The Good Time for Free Spirits.—Free Spirits take liberties even with regard to Science—and meanwhile they are allowed to do so,—while the Church still remains!—In so far they have now their good time.

In Solitude.—

When one lives alone one does not speak too loudly, and one does not write too loudly either, for one fears the hollow reverberation—the criticism of the nymph Echo.

—And all voices sound differently in solitude!

The Thinker.—

He is a thinker: that is to say, he knows how to take things more simply than they are.

Against Eulogisers.—A: "One is only praised by one's equals!" B: "Yes! And he who praises you says: 'You are my equal!'"

Against many a Vindication.—

The most perfidious manner of injuring a cause is to vindicate it intentionally with fallacious arguments.

The Good-natured.—What is it that distinguishes the good-natured, whose countenances beam kindness, from other people? They feel quite at ease in presence of a new person, and are quickly enamoured of him; they therefore wish him well; their first opinion is: "He pleases me."

The Limits of our Sense of Hearing.—

We hear only the questions to which we are capable of finding an answer.

Caution therefore!—There is nothing we are fonder of communicating to others than the seal of secrecy—together with what is under it.

Caution therefore!—

There is nothing we are fonder of communicating to others than the seal of secrecy—together with what is under it.

Vexation of the Proud Man.—The proud man is vexed even with those who help him forward: he looks angrily at his carriage-horses!

Liberality.—

Liberality is often only a form of timidity in the rich.

Laughing.—To laugh means to love mischief, but with a good conscience.

Laughing.—

To laugh means to love mischief, but with a good conscience.

In Applause.—In applause there is always some kind of noise: even in self-applause.

In Applause.—

In applause there is always some kind of noise: even in self-applause.

A Spendthrift.—He has not yet the poverty of the rich man who has counted all his treasure,—he squanders his spirit with the irrationalness of the spendthrift Nature.

Need.—

Need is supposed to be the cause of things; but in truth it is often only the effect of the things themselves.

During the Rain.—It rains, and I think of the poor people who now crowd together with their many cares, which they are unaccustomed to conceal;

The Envious Man.—

That is an envious man—it is not desirable that he should have children; he would be envious of them, because he can no longer be a child.

A Great Man!—Because a person is "a great man," we are not authorised to infer that he is a man. Perhaps he is only a boy, or a chameleon of all ages, or a bewitched girl.

A Great Man!—

Because a person is "a great man," we are not authorised to infer that he is a man. Perhaps he is only a boy, or a chameleon of all ages, or a bewitched girl.

A Mode of Asking for Reasons.—There is a mode of asking for our reasons which not only makes us forget our best reasons, but also arouses in us a spite and repugnance against reason generally:—a very stupefying mode of questioning, and properly an artifice of …

Cause and Effect.—

Before the effect one believes in other causes than after the effect.

My Antipathy.—I do not like those people who, in order to produce an effect, have to burst like bombs, and in whose neighbourhood one is always in danger of suddenly losing one's hearing—or even something more.

The Object of Punishment.—

The object of punishment is to improve him who punishes,—that is the ultimate appeal of those who justify punishment.

Sacrifice.—The victims think otherwise than the spectators about sacrifice and sacrificing: but they have never been allowed to express their opinion.

Animal Criticism.—

I fear the animals regard man as a being like themselves, very seriously endangered by a loss of sound animal understanding;—they regard him perhaps as the absurd animal, the laughing animal, the crying animal, the unfortunate animal.

The Natural.—"Evil has always had the great effect! And Nature is evil! Let us therefore be natural!"—so reason secretly the great aspirants after effect, who are too often counted among great men.

The "Plodders."—

Persons slow of apprehension think that slowness forms part of knowledge.

Dreaming.—Either one does not dream at all, or one dreams in an interesting manner. One must learn to be awake in the same fashion:—either not at all, or in an interesting manner.

Dreaming.—

Either one does not dream at all, or one dreams in an interesting manner. One must learn to be awake in the same fashion:—either not at all, or in an interesting manner.

The most Dangerous Point of View.—What I now do, or neglect to do, is as important for all that is to come, as the greatest event of the past: in this immense perspective of effects all actions are equally great and small.

The Joyless Person.—A single joyless person is enough to make constant displeasure and a clouded heaven in a household; and it is only by a miracle that such a person is lacking!—

Happiness is not nearly such a contagious disease;—how is that!

On the Sea-Shore.—I would not build myself a house (it is an element of my happiness not to be a house-owner!).

On the Sea-Shore.—

I would not build myself a house (it is an element of my happiness not to be a house-owner!).

If I had to do so, however, I should build it, like many of the Romans, right into the sea,—I should like to have some secrets in common with that beautiful monster.

Books.—

Of what account is a book that never carries us away beyond all books!

The Sigh of the Seeker of Knowledge.—"Oh, my covetousness!

Guilt.—

Although the most intelligent judges of the witches, and even the witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchcraft, the guilt, nevertheless, was not there. So it is with all guilt.

Better to be in Debt.—

"Better to remain in debt than to pay with money which does not bear our stamp!"—that is what our sovereignty prefers.

Always at Home.—One day we attain our goal—and then refer with pride to the long journeys we have made to reach it. In truth, we did not notice that we travelled.

The Deniers of Chance.—

No conqueror believes in chance.

From Paradise.—"Good and Evil are God's prejudices"—said the serpent.

From Paradise.—

"Good and Evil are God's prejudices"—said the serpent.

One times One.—One only is always in the wrong, but with two truth begins.—One only cannot prove himself right; but two are already beyond refutation.

Originality.—

What is originality? To see something that does not yet bear a name, that cannot yet be named, although it is before everybody's eyes.

As people are usually constituted, it is the name that first makes a thing generally visible to them.—Original persons have also for the most part been the namers of things.

What we Do.—

What we do is never understood, but only praised and blamed.

Ultimate Scepticism.—But what after all are man's truths?—They are his irrefutable errors.

Ultimate Scepticism.—

But what after all are man's truths?—They are his irrefutable errors.

Where Cruelty is Necessary.—He who is great is cruel to his second-rate virtues and judgments.

Where Cruelty is Necessary.—

He who is great is cruel to his second-rate virtues and judgments.

With a high Aim.—With a high aim a person is superior even to justice, and not only to his deeds and his judges.

With a high Aim.—With a high aim a person is superior even to justice, and not only to his deeds and his judges.

What makes Heroic?—To face simultaneously one's greatest suffering and one's highest hope.

What dost thou Believe in?—In this: That the weights of all things must be determined anew.

What Saith thy Conscience?—

"Thou shalt become what thou art."

Where are thy Greatest Dangers?—In pity.

What dost thou Love in others?—My hopes.

Whom dost thou call Bad?—Him who always wants to put others to shame.

What dost thou think most humane?—To spare a person shame.

What dost thou think most humane?—To spare a person shame.

What is the Seal of Liberty Attained?—To be no longer ashamed of oneself.

well, I also mean to tell what I have wished for myself to-day, and what thought first crossed my mind this year,—a thought which ought to be the basis, the pledge and the sweetening of all my future life!

I want more and more to perceive the necessary characters in things as the beautiful:—I shall thus be one of those who beautify things. Amor fati: let that henceforth be my love!

I do not want to wage war with the ugly. I do not want to accuse, I do not want even to accuse the accusers. Looking aside, let that be my sole negation! And all in all, to sum up:

I want more and more to perceive the necessary characters in things as the beautiful:—I shall thus be one of those who beautify things. Amor fati: let that henceforth be my love! I do not want to wage war with the ugly.

I do not want to accuse, I do not want even to accuse the accusers. Looking aside, let that be my sole negation! And all in all, to sum up: I wish to be at any time hereafter only a yea-sayer!

Personal Providence.—There is a certain climax in life, at which, notwithstanding all our freedom, and however much we may have denied all directing reason and goodness in the beautiful chaos of existence, we are once more in great danger of intellectual bondage, and have to …

But our life is too short, and our power of vision too limited for us to be more than friends in the sense of that sublime possibility.—

And so we will believe in our stellar friendship, though we should have to be terrestrial enemies to one another.

Architecture for Thinkers.—An insight is needed (and that probably very soon) as to what is specially lacking in our great cities—namely, quiet, spacious, and widely extended places for reflection, places with long, lofty colonnades for bad weather, or for too sunny days, where no noise …

It is a new justice, however, that is necessary! And a new solution! And new philosophers!

The moral earth also is round! The moral earth also has its antipodes!

The antipodes also have their right to exist! there is still another world to discover—and more than one! Aboard ship! ye philosophers!

One Thing is Needful.—

To "give style" to one's character—that is a grand and a rare art!

He who surveys all that his nature presents in its strength and in its weakness, and then fashions it into an ingenious plan, until everything appears artistic and rational, and even the weaknesses enchant the eye—exercises that admirable art.

Out of the Seventh Solitude.—One day the wanderer shut a door behind him, stood still, and wept. Then he said: "Oh, this inclination and impulse towards the true, the real, the non-apparent, the certain! How I detest it!

Why does this gloomy and passionate taskmaster follow just me? I should like to rest, but it does not permit me to do so.

Are there not a host of things seducing me to tarry! Everywhere there are gardens of Armida for me, and therefore there will always be fresh separations and fresh bitterness of heart! I must set my foot forward, my weary wounded foot:

Has it found what it sought? Does it merely pretend to be disappointed?—But already another wave approaches, still more eager and wild than the first, and its soul also seems to be full of secrets and of longing for treasure-seeking.

Thus live the waves,—thus live we who exercise will!

—I do not say more.—But what! Ye distrust me? Ye are angry at me, ye beautiful monsters? Do ye fear that I will quite betray your secret? Well!

But we who are different, who are thirsty for reason, want to look as carefully into our experiences, as in the case of a scientific experiment, hour by hour, day by day!

We ourselves want to be our own experiments, and our own subjects of experiment.

On Meeting Again.—A: Do I quite understand you? You are in search of something? Where, in the midst of the present, actual world, is your niche and star?

Happiness in Destiny.—

Destiny confers its greatest distinction upon us when it has made us fight for a time on the side of our adversaries. We are thereby predestined to a great victory.

In Media Vita.—No! Life has not deceived me!

for example, a bed of ease, or the path to a bed of ease, or an entertainment, or a course of idling,—for me it is a world of dangers and victories, in which even the heroic sentiments have their arena and dancing-floor.

"Life as a means to knowledge"—with this principle in one's heart, one can not only be brave, but can even live joyfully and laugh joyfully!

And who could know how to laugh well and live well, who did not first understand the full meaning of war and victory!

What Belongs to Greatness.—Who can attain to anything great if he does not feel the force and will in himself to inflict great pain?

The ability to suffer is a small matter: in that line, weak women and even slaves often attain masterliness.

But not to perish from internal distress and doubt when one inflicts great anguish and hears the cry of this anguish—that is great, that belongs to greatness.

Better Deaf than Deafened.—

Formerly a person wanted to have a calling, but that no longer suffices to-day, for the market has become too large,—there has now to be bawling.

The consequence is that even good throats outcry each other, and the best wares are offered for sale with hoarse voices; without market-place bawling and hoarseness there is now no longer any genius.—It is, sure enough, an evil age for the thinker:

The Evil Hour.—There has perhaps been an evil hour for every philosopher, in which he thought: What do I matter, if people should not believe my poor arguments!—And then some malicious bird has flown past him and twittered: "

What do you matter? What do you matter?

"

He also who loves himself must have learned it in this way: there is no other way.

Love also has to be learned.

Cheers for Physics!—How many men are there who know how to observe? And among the few who do know,—how many observe themselves? "Everyone is furthest from himself"—all the "triers of the reins" know that to their discomfort;

it is precisely thus that we have learned to love all things that we now love.

We are always finally recompensed for our good-will, our patience, reasonableness and gentleness towards what is unfamiliar, by the unfamiliar slowly throwing off its veil and presenting itself to us as a new, ineffable beauty:—that is its thanks for our hospitality.

He also who loves himself must have learned it in this way: there is no other way. Love also has to be learned.

Is it possible! A man like him, who had lived cheerfully and to all appearance as a soldier,—was a pessimist! He had merely put on a good demeanour towards life, and had all along concealed his ultimate judgment, his profoundest sentiment!

Socrates, Socrates had suffered from life!

And he also took his revenge for it—with that veiled, fearful, pious, and blasphemous phrase! Had even a Socrates to revenge himself? Was there a grain too little of magnanimity in his superabundant virtue? Ah, my friends! We must surpass even the Greeks!

The eternal sand-glass of existence will ever be turned once more, and thou with it, thou speck of dust!"—

Wouldst thou not throw thyself down and gnash thy teeth, and curse the demon that so spake? Or hast thou once experienced a tremendous moment in which thou wouldst answer him: "Thou art a God, and never did I hear aught more divine!"

If that thought acquired power over thee, as thou art, it would transform thee, and perhaps crush thee; the question with regard to all and everything: "Dost thou want this once more, and also for innumerable times?"

Bless the cup that is about to overflow, that the water may flow golden out of it, and carry everywhere the reflection of thy bliss! Lo! This cup is again going to empty itself, and Zarathustra is again going to be a man."—

Thus began Zarathustra's down-going.

What our Cheerfulness Signifies.—

The most important of more recent events—that "God is dead," that the belief in the Christian God has become unworthy of belief—already begins to cast its first shadows over Europe.

To the few at least whose eye, whose suspecting glance, is strong enough and subtle enough for this drama, some sun seems to have set, some old, profound confidence seems to have changed into doubt:

Such an intention might perhaps, to express it mildly, be a piece of Quixotism, a little enthusiastic craziness; it might also, however, be something worse, namely, a destructive principle, hostile to life....

"Will to Truth,"—that might be a concealed Will to Death.

—Thus the question, Why is there science? leads back to the moral problem: What in general is the purpose of morality, if life, nature, and history are "non-moral"?

just as the worth of a medicine to a sick person is altogether independent of the question whether he has a scientific opinion about medicine, or merely thinks about it as an old wife would do.

A morality could even have grown out of an error: but with this knowledge the problem of its worth would not even be touched.

—Thus, no one has hitherto tested the value of that most celebrated of all medicines, called morality: for which purpose it is first of all necessary for one—to call it in question. Well, that is just our work.—

For man is a venerating animal! But he is also a distrustful animal: and that the world is not worth what we have believed it to be worth is about the surest thing our distrust has at last managed to grasp.

So much distrust, so much philosophy!

We take good care not to say that the world is of less value:

It is not the fierceness of the beast of prey that finds moral disguise necessary, but the gregarious animal, with its profound mediocrity, anxiety and ennui.

Morality dresses up the European

—let us acknowledge it!—in more distinguished, more important, more conspicuous guise—in "divine" guise—

that for example, it is methodically ordered to proceed outward from the "inner world," from "the facts of consciousness," because it is the world which is better known to us! Error of errors!

The known is the accustomed, and the accustomed is the most difficult of all to "understand," that is to say, to perceive as a problem, to perceive as strange, distant, "outside of us."

... The great certainty of the natural sciences in comparison with psychology and the criticism of the elements of consciousness—unnatural sciences as one might almost be entitled to call them—rests precisely on the fact that they take what is strange as their object:

… to those who only get their thoughts from books, or at the prompting of books,—it is our custom to think in the open air, walking, leaping, climbing, or dancing on lonesome mountains by preference, or close to the sea, where even the paths become thoughtful.

Our first question concerning the value of a book, a man, or a piece of music is: Can it walk? or still better: Can it dance?...

We seldom read; we do not read the worse for that—oh, how quickly do we divine how a person has arrived at his thoughts:—whether sitting before an ink-bottle with compressed belly and head bent over the paper:

… stronger, as men of the future, we thrust our roots always more powerfully into the deep—into evil—, while at the same time we embrace the heavens ever more lovingly, more extensively, and suck in their light ever more eagerly with all our branches and leaves.

We grow like trees—that is difficult to understand, like all life!

—not in one place, but everywhere, not in one direction only, but upwards and outwards, as well as inwards and downwards. At the same time our force shoots forth in stem, branches, and roots;

… of all possible world-interpretations:—I say this in confidence to my friends the Mechanicians, who to-day like to hobnob with philosophers, and absolutely believe that mechanics is the teaching of the first and last laws upon which, as upon a ground-floor, all existence must be built.

But an essentially mechanical world would be an essentially meaningless world!

Supposing we valued the worth of a music with reference to how much it could be counted, calculated, or formulated—how absurd such a "scientific" estimate of music would be! What would one have apprehended, understood, or discerned in it!

That one does not thereby get into the depths, that one does not get deep enough down—is a superstition of the hydrophobic, the enemies of cold water; they speak without experience.

Oh! the great cold makes one quick!

—And let me ask by the way: Is it a fact that a thing has been misunderstood and unrecognised when it has only been touched upon in passing, glanced at, flashed at? Must one absolutely sit upon it in the first place?

and "that have I seen"—spake Zarathustra. So much with respect to brevity; the matter stands worse as regards my ignorance, of which I make no secret to myself.

There are hours in which I am ashamed of it; to be sure there are likewise hours in which I am ashamed of this shame.

Perhaps we philosophers, all of us, are badly placed at present with regard to knowledge: science is growing, the most learned of us are on the point of discovering that we know too little.

the matter stands worse as regards my ignorance, of which I make no secret to myself. There are hours in which I am ashamed of it; to be sure there are likewise hours in which I am ashamed of this shame.

Perhaps we philosophers, all of us, are badly placed at present with regard to knowledge: science is growing, the most learned of us are on the point of discovering that we know too little.

But it would be worse still if it were otherwise,—if we knew too much; our duty is and remains, first of all, not to get into confusion about ourselves. We are different from the learned;

The Question of Intelligibility.—

One not only wants to be understood when one writes, but also—quite as certainly—not to be understood.

It is by no means an objection to a book when someone finds it unintelligible: perhaps this might just have been the intention of its author,—perhaps he did not want to be understood by "anyone."

if, however, its taste be in the direction of independence, rapid coming and going, travelling, and perhaps adventure for which only the swiftest are qualified, it prefers rather to live free on poor fare, than to be unfree and plethoric.

Not fat, but the greatest suppleness and power is what a good dancer wishes from his nourishment,—and I know not what the spirit of a philosopher would like better than to be a good dancer.

For the dance is his ideal, and also his art, in the end likewise his sole piety, his "divine service."...

Not fat, but the greatest suppleness and power is what a good dancer wishes from his nourishment,—and I know not what the spirit of a philosopher would like better than to be a good dancer.

For the dance is his ideal, and also his art, in the end likewise his sole piety, his "divine service."

...

I certainly do not desire that my vivacity should have that effect, however much it may impel me to arrive quickly at an object, in order to arrive at it at all.

For I think it is best to do with profound problems as with a cold bath—quickly in, quickly out.

That one does not thereby get into the depths, that one does not get deep enough down—is a superstition of the hydrophobic, the enemies of cold water; they speak without experience. Oh! the great cold makes one quick!—And let me ask by the way:

Great Healthiness.—

We, the new, the nameless, the hard-to-understand, we firstlings of a yet untried future—we require for a new end also a new means, namely, a new healthiness, stronger, sharper, tougher, bolder and merrier than any healthiness hitherto.

He whose soul longs to experience the whole range of hitherto recognised values and desirabilities, and to circumnavigate all the coasts of this ideal "Mediterranean Sea," who, from the adventures of his most personal experience, wants to know how it feels to be a conqueror, …

Well! Who would not willingly accord with your wishes? My bagpipe is waiting, and my voice also—it may sound a little hoarse; take it as it is! don't forget we are in the mountains!

But what you will hear is at least new; and if you do not understand it, if you misunderstand the singer, what does it matter!

That—has always been "The Singer's Curse."[14] So much the more distinctly can you hear his music and melody, so much the better also can you—dance to his piping. Would you like to do that?...