Part IV — Maxims and Interludes
Original German
Viertes Hauptstück:
Sprüche und Zwischenspiele.
63 Wer von Grund aus Lehrer ist, nimmt alle Dinge nur in Bezug auf seine Schüler ernst,—sogar sich selbst.
64 "Die Erkenntniss um ihrer selbst willen"—das ist der letzte Fallstrick, den die Moral legt: damit verwickelt man sich noch einmal völlig in sie.
65 Der Reiz der Erkenntniss wäre gering, wenn nicht auf dem Wege zu ihr so viel Scham zu überwinden wäre.
65a Man ist am unehrlichsten gegen seinen Gott: er darf nicht sündigen!
66 Die Neigung, sich herabzusetzen, sich bestehlen, belügen und ausbeuten zu lassen, könnte die Scham eines Gottes unter Menschen sein.
67 Die Liebe zu Einem ist eine Barbarei: denn sie wird auf Unkosten aller Übrigen ausgeübt. Auch die Liebe zu Gott.
68 "Das habe ich gethan" sagt mein Gedächtniss. Das kann ich nicht gethan haben—sagt mein Stolz und bleibt unerbittlich. Endlich—giebt das Gedächtniss nach.
69 Man hat schlecht dem Leben zugeschaut, wenn man nicht auch die Hand gesehn hat, die auf eine schonende Weise—tödtet.
70 Hat man Charakter, so hat man auch sein typisches Erlebniss, das immer wiederkommt.
71 Der Weise als Astronom.—So lange du noch die Sterne fühlst als ein "Über-dir", fehlt dir noch der Blick des Erkennenden.
72 Nicht die Stärke, sondern die Dauer der hohen Empfindung macht die hohen Menschen.
73 Wer sein Ideal erreicht, kommt eben damit über dasselbe hinaus.
73a Mancher Pfau verdeckt vor Aller Augen seinen Pfauenschweif—und heisst es seinen Stolz.
74 Ein Mensch mit Genie ist unausstehlich, wenn er nicht mindestens noch zweierlei dazu besitzt: Dankbarkeit und Reinlichkeit.
75 Grad und Art der Geschlechtlichkeit eines Menschen reicht bis in den letzten Gipfel seines Geistes hinauf.
76 Unter friedlichen Umständen fällt der kriegerische Mensch über sich selber her.
77 Mit seinen Grundsätzen will man seine Gewohnheiten tyrannisiren oder rechtfertigen oder ehren oder beschimpfen oder verbergen:—zwei Menschen mit gleichen Grundsätzen wollen damit wahrscheinlich noch etwas Grund-Verschiedenes.
78 Wer sich selbst verachtet, achtet sich doch immer noch dabei als Verächter.
79 Eine Seele, die sich geliebt weiss, aber selbst nicht liebt, verräth ihren Bodensatz:—ihr Unterstes kommt herauf.
80 Eine Sache, die sich aufklärt, hört auf, uns etwas anzugehn.—Was meinte jener Gott, welcher anrieth: "erkenne dich selbst"! Hiess es vielleicht: "höre auf, dich etwas anzugehn! werde objektiv!"—Und Sokrates?—Und der "wissenschaftliche Mensch"?—
81 Es ist furchtbar, im Meere vor Durst zu sterben. Müsst ihr denn gleich eure Wahrheit so salzen, dass sie nicht einmal mehr—den Durst löscht?
82 "Mitleiden mit Allen"—wäre Härte und Tyrannei mit dir, mein Herr Nachbar!—
83 Der Instinkt.—Wenn das Haus brennt, vergisst man sogar das Mittagsessen.—Ja: aber man holt es auf der Asche nach.
84 Das Weib lernt hassen, in dem Maasse, in dem es zu bezaubern—verlernt.
85 Die gleichen Affekte sind bei Mann und Weib doch im Tempo verschieden: deshalb hören Mann und Weib nicht auf, sich misszuverstehn.
86 Die Weiber selber haben im Hintergrunde aller persönlichen Eitelkeit immer noch ihre unpersönliche Verachtung—für "das Weib".
87 Gebunden Herz, freier Geist.—Wenn man sein Herz hart bindet und gefangen legt, kann man seinem Geist viele Freiheiten geben: ich sagte das schon Ein Mal. Aber man glaubt mir's nicht, gesetzt, dass man's nicht schon weiss…
88 Sehr klugen Personen fängt man an zu misstrauen, wenn sie verlegen werden.
89 Fürchterliche Erlebnisse geben zu rathen, ob Der, welcher sie erlebt, nicht etwas Fürchterliches ist.
90 Schwere, Schwermüthige Menschen werden gerade durch das, was Andre schwer macht, durch Hass und Liebe, leichter und kommen zeitweilig an ihre Oberfläche.
91 So kalt, so eisig, dass man sich an ihm die Finger verbrennt! Jede Hand erschrickt, die ihn anfasst!—Und gerade darum halten Manche ihn für glühend.
92 Wer hat nicht für seinen guten Ruf schon einmal—sich selbst geopfert?—
93 In der Leutseligkeit ist Nichts von Menschenhass, aber eben darum allzuviel von Menschenverachtung.
94 Reife des Mannes: das heisst den Ernst wiedergefunden haben, den man als Kind hatte, beim Spiel.
95 Sich seiner Unmoralität schämen: das ist eine Stufe auf der Treppe, an deren Ende man sich auch seiner Moralität schämt.
96 Man soll vom Leben scheiden wie Odysseus von Nausikaa schied,—mehr segnend als verliebt.
97 Wie? Ein grosser Mann? Ich sehe immer nur den Schauspieler seines eignen Ideals.
98 Wenn man sein Gewissen dressirt, so küsst es uns zugleich, indem es beisst.
99 Der Enttäuschte spricht.—"Ich horchte auf Widerhall, und ich hörte nur Lob -"
100 Vor uns selbst stellen wir uns Alle einfältiger als wir sind: wir ruhen uns so von unsern Mitmenschen aus.
101 Heute möchte sich ein Erkennender leicht als Thierwerdung Gottes fühlen.
102 Gegenliebe entdecken sollte eigentlich den Liebenden über das geliebte Wesen ernüchtern. "Wie? es ist bescheiden genug, sogar dich zu lieben? Oder dumm genug? Oder—oder -"
103 Die Gefahr im Glücke.—"Nun gereicht mir Alles zum Besten, nunmehr liebe ich jedes Schicksal:—wer hat Lust, mein Schicksal zu sein?"
104 Nicht ihre Menschenliebe, sondern die Ohnmacht ihrer Menschenliebe hindert die Christen von heute, uns—zu verbrennen.
105 Dem freien Geiste, dem "Frommen der Erkenntniss"—geht die pia fraus noch mehr wider den Geschmack (wider seine "Frömmigkeit") als die impia fraus. Daher sein tiefer Unverstand gegen die Kirche, wie er zum Typus "freier Geist" gehört,—als seine Unfreiheit.
106 Vermöge der Musik geniessen sich die Leidenschaften selbst.
107 Wenn der Entschluss einmal gefasst ist, das Ohr auch für den besten Gegengrund zu schliessen: Zeichen des starken Charakters. Also ein gelegentlicher Wille zur Dummheit.
108 Es giebt gar keine moralischen Phänomene, sondern nur eine moralische Ausdeutung von Phänomenen…
109 Der Verbrecher ist häufig genug seiner That nicht gewachsen: er verkleinert und verleumdet sie.
110 Die Advokaten eines Verbrechers sind selten Artisten genug, um das schöne Schreckliche der That zu Gunsten ihres Thäters zu wenden.
111 Unsre Eitelkeit ist gerade dann am schwersten zu verletzen, wenn eben unser Stolz verletzt wurde.
112 Wer sich zum Schauen und nicht zum Glauben vorherbestimmt fühlt, dem sind alle Gläubigen zu lärmend und zudringlich: er erwehrt sich ihrer.
113 "Du willst ihn für dich einnehmen? So stelle dich vor ihm verlegen -"
114 Die ungeheure Erwartung in Betreff der Geschlechtsliebe, und die Scham in dieser Erwartung, verdirbt den Frauen von vornherein alle Perspektiven.
115 Wo nicht Liebe oder Hass mitspielt, spielt das Weib mittelmässig.
116 Die grossen Epochen unsres Lebens liegen dort, wo wir den Muth gewinnen, unser Böses als unser Bestes umzutaufen.
117 Der Wille, einen Affekt zu überwinden, ist zuletzt doch nur der Wille eines anderen oder mehrer anderer Affekte.
118 Es giebt eine Unschuld der Bewunderung: Der hat sie, dem es noch nicht in den Sinn gekommen ist, auch er könne einmal bewundert werden.
119 Der Ekel vor dem Schmutze kann so gross sein, dass er uns hindert, uns zu reinigen,—uns zu "rechtfertigen".
120 Die Sinnlichkeit übereilt oft das Wachsthum der Liebe, so dass die Wurzel schwach bleibt und leicht auszureissen ist.
121 Es ist eine Feinheit, dass Gott griechisch lernte, als er Schriftsteller werden wollte—und dass er es nicht besser lernte.
122 Sich über ein Lob freuen ist bei Manchem nur eine Höflichkeit des Herzens—und gerade das Gegenstück einer Eitelkeit des Geistes.
123 Auch das Concubinat ist corrumpirt worden:—durch die Ehe.
124 Wer auf dem Scheiterhaufen noch frohlockt, triumphirt nicht über den Schmerz, sondern darüber, keinen Schmerz zu fühlen, wo er ihn erwartete. Ein Gleichniss.
125 Wenn wir über Jemanden umlernen müssen, so rechnen wir ihm die Unbequemlichkeit hart an, die er uns damit macht.
126 Ein Volk ist der Umschweif der Natur, um zu sechs, sieben grossen Männern zu kommen.—Ja: und um dann um sie herum zu kommen.
127 Allen rechten Frauen geht Wissenschaft wider die Scham. Es ist ihnen dabei zu Muthe, als ob man damit ihnen unter die Haut,—schlimmer noch! unter Kleid und Putz gucken wolle.
128 Je abstrakter die Wahrheit ist, die du lehren willst, um so mehr musst du noch die Sinne zu ihr verführen.
129 Der Teufel hat die weitesten Perspektiven für Gott, deshalb hält er sich von ihm so fern:—der Teufel nämlich als der älteste Freund der Erkenntniss.
130 Was jemand ist, fängt an, sich zu verrathen, wenn sein Talent nachlässt,—wenn er aufhört, zu zeigen, was er kann. Das Talent ist auch ein Putz; ein Putz ist auch ein Versteck.
131 Die Geschlechter täuschen sich über einander: das macht, sie ehren und lieben im Grunde nur sich selbst (oder ihr eigenes ideal, um es gefälliger auszudrücken -). So will der Mann das Weib friedlich,—aber gerade das Weib ist wesentlich unfriedlich, gleich der Katze, so gut es sich auch auf den Anschein des Friedens eingeübt hat.
132 Man wird am besten für seine Tugenden bestraft.
133 Wer den Weg zu seinem Ideale nicht zu finden weiss, lebt leichtsinniger und frecher, als der Mensch ohne Ideal.
134 Von den Sinnen her kommt erst alle Glaubwürdigkeit, alles gute Gewissen, aller Augenschein der Wahrheit.
135 Der Pharisäismus ist nicht eine Entartung am guten Menschen: ein gutes Stück davon ist vielmehr die Bedingung von allem Gut-sein.
136 Der Eine sucht einen Geburtshelfer für seine Gedanken, der Andre Einen, dem er helfen kann: so entsteht ein gutes Gespräch.
137 Im Verkehre mit Gelehrten und Künstlern verrechnet man sich leicht in umgekehrter Richtung: man findet hinter einem merkwürdigen Gelehrten nicht selten einen mittelmässigen Menschen, und hinter einem mittelmässigen Künstler sogar oft—einen sehr merkwürdigen Menschen.
138 Wir machen es auch im Wachen wie im Traume: wir erfinden und erdichten erst den Menschen, mit dem wir verkehren—und vergessen es sofort.
139 In der Rache und in der Liebe ist das Weib barbarischer, als der Mann.
140 Rath als Räthsel.—"Soll das Band nicht reissen,—musst du erst drauf beissen."
141 Der Unterleib ist der Grund dafür, dass der Mensch sich nicht so leicht für einen Gott hält.
142 Das züchtigste Wort, das ich gehört habe: "Dans le véritable amour c'est l'âme, qui enveloppe le corps."
143 Was wir am besten thun, von dem möchte unsre Eitelkeit, dass es grade als Das gelte, was uns am schwersten werde. Zum Ursprung mancher Moral.
144 Wenn ein Weib gelehrte Neigungen hat, so ist gewöhnlich Etwas an ihrer Geschlechtlichkeit nicht in Ordnung. Schon Unfruchtbarkeit disponirt zu einer gewissen Männlichkeit des Geschmacks; der Mann ist nämlich, mit Verlaub, "das unfruchtbare Thier".
145 Mann und Weib im Ganzen verglichen, darf man sagen: das Weib hätte nicht das Genie des Putzes, wenn es nicht den Instinkt der zweiten Rolle hätte.
146 Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein.
147 Aus alten florentinischen Novellen, überdies—aus dem Leben: buona femmina e mala femmina vuol bastone. Sacchetti Nov. 86.
148 Den Nächsten zu einer guten Meinung verführen und hinterdrein an diese Meinung des Nächsten gläubig glauben: wer thut es in diesem Kunststück den Weibern gleich?—
149 Was eine Zeit als böse empfindet, ist gewöhnlich ein unzeitgemässer Nachschlag dessen, was ehemals als gut empfunden wurde,—der Atavismus eines älteren Ideals.
150 Um den Helden herum wird Alles zur Tragödie, um den Halbgott herum Alles zum Satyrspiel; und um Gott herum wird Alles—wie? vielleicht zur "Welt"?—
151 Ein Talent haben ist nicht genug: man muss auch eure Erlaubniss dazu haben,—wie? meine Freunde?
152 "Wo der Baum der Erkenntniss steht, ist immer das Paradies": so reden die ältesten und die jüngsten Schlangen.
153 Was aus Liebe gethan wird, geschieht immer jenseits von Gut und Böse.
154 Der Einwand, der Seitensprung, das fröhliche Misstrauen, die Spottlust sind Anzeichen der Gesundheit: alles Unbedingte gehört in die Pathologie.
155 Der Sinn für das Tragische nimmt mit der Sinnlichkeit ab und zu.
156 Der Irrsinn ist bei Einzelnen etwas Seltenes,—aber bei Gruppen, Parteien, Völkern, Zeiten die Regel.
157 Der Gedanke an den Selbstmord ist ein starkes Trostmittel: mit ihm kommt man gut über manche böse Nacht hinweg.
158 Unserm stärksten Triebe, dem Tyrannen in uns, unterwirft sich nicht nur unsre Vernunft, sondern auch unser Gewissen.
159 Man muss vergelten, Gutes und Schlimmes: aber warum gerade an der Person, die uns Gutes oder Schlimmes that?
160 Man liebt seine Erkenntniss nicht genug mehr, sobald man sie mittheilt.
161 Die Dichter sind gegen ihre Erlebnisse schamlos: sie beuten sie aus.
162 "Unser Nächster ist nicht unser Nachbar, sondern dessen Nachbar"—so denkt jedes Volk.
163 Die Liebe bringt die hohen und verborgenen Eigenschaften eines Liebenden an's Licht,—sein Seltenes, Ausnahmsweises: insofern täuscht sie leicht über Das, was Regel an ihm ist.
164 Jesus sagte zu seinen Juden: "das Gesetz war für Knechte,—liebt Gott, wie ich ihn liebe, als sein Sohn! Was geht uns Söhne Gottes die Moral an!"—
165 Angesichts jeder Partei.—Ein Hirt hat immer auch noch einen Leithammel nöthig,—oder er muss selbst gelegentlich Hammel sein.
166 Man lügt wohl mit dem Munde; aber mit dem Maule, das man dabei macht, sagt man doch noch die Wahrheit.
167 Bei harten Menschen ist die Innigkeit eine Sache der Scham—und etwas Kostbares.
168 Das Christenthum gab dem Eros Gift zu trinken:—er starb zwar nicht daran, aber entartete, zum Laster.
169 Viel von sich reden kann auch ein Mittel sein, sich zu verbergen.
170 Im Lobe ist mehr Zudringlichkeit, als im Tadel.
171 Mitleiden wirkt an einem Menschen der Erkenntniss beinahe zum Lachen, wie zarte Hände an einem Cyklopen.
172 Man umarmt aus Menschenliebe bisweilen einen Beliebigen (weil man nicht Alle umarmen kann): aber gerade Das darf man dem Beliebigen nicht verrathen…
173 Man hasst nicht, so lange man noch gering schätzt, sondern erst, wenn man gleich oder höher schätzt.
174 Ihr Utilitarier, auch ihr liebt alles utile nur als ein Fuhrwerk eurer Neigungen,—auch ihr findet eigentlich den Lärm seiner Räder unausstehlich?
175 Man liebt zuletzt seine Begierde, und nicht das Begehrte.
176 Die Eitelkeit Andrer geht uns nur dann wider den Geschmack, wenn sie wider unsre Eitelkeit geht.
177 Über Das, was "Wahrhaftigkeit" ist, war vielleicht noch Niemand wahrhaftig genug.
178 Klugen Menschen glaubt man ihre Thorheiten nicht: welche Einbusse an Menschenrechten!
179 Die Folgen unsrer Handlungen fassen uns am Schopfe, sehr gleichgültig dagegen, dass wir uns inzwischen "gebessert" haben.
180 Es giebt eine Unschuld in der Lüge, welche das Zeichen des guten Glaubens an eine Sache ist.
181 Es ist unmenschlich, da zu segnen, wo Einem geflucht wird.
182 Die Vertraulichkeit des überlegenen erbittert, weil sie nicht zurückgegeben werden darf.—
183 "Nicht dass du mich belogst, sondern dass ich dir nicht mehr glaube, hat mich erschüttert."—
184 Es giebt einen Übermuth der Güte, welcher sich wie Bosheit ausnimmt.
185 "Er missfällt mir."—Warum?—"Ich bin ihm nicht gewachsen."—Hat je ein Mensch so geantwortet?
Musean translation
Complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from the German and reviewed against it.
Fourth Main Division:
Maxims and Interludes.
63 Someone who is a teacher to the core takes everything seriously only in relation to his pupils—even himself.
64 “Knowledge for its own sake”—that is the last snare morality lays: with it we become completely entangled in morality once again.
65 The attraction of knowledge would be slight if there were not so much shame to overcome on the way to it.
65a We are most dishonest toward our god: he may not sin!
66 The inclination to lower oneself, to let oneself be robbed, lied to, and exploited, could be the shame of a god among human beings.
67 Love of one is a barbarism: for it is practiced at the expense of everyone else. Love of God too.
68 “I did that,” says my memory. “I cannot have done that”—says my pride, and remains inexorable. At last—memory yields.
69 We have watched life badly if we have not also seen the hand that gently—kills.
70 If we have character, we also have our typical experience, which keeps recurring.
71 The wise man as astronomer.—As long as you still feel the stars as something “above you,” you still lack the eye of the knower.
72 Not the strength but the duration of high feeling makes high human beings.
73 Whoever reaches his ideal goes beyond it in that very act.
73a Many a peacock hides his peacock's tail from everyone's eyes—and calls that his pride.
74 A person with genius is unbearable unless he possesses at least two other things as well: gratitude and cleanliness.
75 The degree and kind of a person's sexuality reach up to the very last summit of his spirit.
76 In peaceful circumstances, the warlike person falls upon himself.
77 With our principles we want to tyrannize over our habits or justify or honor or abuse or conceal them—two people with the same principles probably still want something fundamentally different from them.
78 Someone who despises himself still respects himself in doing so as one who despises.
79 A soul that knows itself loved but does not love reveals its sediment—its bottommost part rises.
80 A thing that becomes clear ceases to concern us.—What did that god mean who advised: “Know yourself”! Did it perhaps mean: “Cease to concern yourself! Become objective!”—And Socrates?—And the “scientific human being”?—
81 It is terrible to die of thirst at sea. Must you salt your truth so much at once that it no longer even—quenches thirst?
82 “Pity for everyone”—would be harshness and tyranny toward you, my dear neighbor!—
83 Instinct.—When the house is burning, we forget even our midday meal.—Yes: but we make up for it on the ashes.
84 Woman learns to hate to the extent that she—unlearns how to enchant.
85 The same affects in man and woman nevertheless differ in tempo: that is why man and woman never stop misunderstanding each other.
86 Behind all their personal vanity, women themselves still always have their impersonal contempt—for “woman.”
87 Bound heart, free spirit.—If we bind our heart fast and take it captive, we can give our spirit many freedoms: I said that once before. But people do not believe me, unless they know it already…
88 We begin to distrust very clever people when they become embarrassed.
89 Terrible experiences give us cause to wonder whether the person who experiences them is not something terrible.
90 Heavy, melancholy people grow lighter precisely through what makes others heavy, through hatred and love, and for a time come to their surface.
91 So cold, so icy, that you burn your fingers on him! Every hand that touches him recoils!—And precisely for that reason some people think him burning hot.
92 Who has not at some time sacrificed—himself for his good name?—
93 There is nothing of hatred of humanity in affability, but for that very reason all too much contempt for humanity.
94 A man's maturity: that means having rediscovered the seriousness one had as a child at play.
95 To be ashamed of one's immorality: that is a step on the stairway at whose end one is also ashamed of one's morality.
96 We should take leave of life as Odysseus took leave of Nausicaa—more blessing than in love.
97 What? A great man? I always see only the actor of his own ideal.
98 If we train our conscience, it kisses us even as it bites.
99 The disappointed man speaks.—“I listened for an echo, and heard only praise—”
100 Before ourselves we all present ourselves as simpler than we are: in this way we rest from our fellow human beings.
101 Today a knower might easily feel himself to be God incarnate as an animal.
102 Discovering that his love is returned ought really to sober the lover about the beloved. “What? Is it modest enough to love even you? Or stupid enough? Or—or—”
103 The danger in happiness.—“Now everything turns out for my best, now I love every fate—who would like to be my fate?”
104 Not their love of humanity but the impotence of their love of humanity prevents Christians today from—burning us.
105 For the free spirit, the “devotee of knowledge,” pious fraud offends his taste (his “piety”) even more than impious fraud does. Hence his profound incomprehension of the Church, which belongs to the type “free spirit”—as his unfreedom.
106 Through music the passions enjoy themselves.
107 Once the decision is made, to close one's ears even to the best counterargument: a sign of strong character. Thus an occasional will to stupidity.
108 There are no moral phenomena at all, only a moral interpretation of phenomena…
109 The criminal is often enough no match for his deed: he belittles and slanders it.
110 A criminal's lawyers are rarely artists enough to turn the beautiful terror of the deed to its perpetrator's advantage.
111 Our vanity is hardest to wound precisely when our pride has just been wounded.
112 For anyone who feels predestined to see and not to believe, all believers are too noisy and importunate: he fends them off.
113 “You want to win him over? Then act embarrassed in front of him—”
114 The immense expectation concerning sexual love, and the shame in this expectation, spoil every perspective for women from the outset.
115 Where love or hatred does not play a part, woman plays a mediocre part.
116 The great epochs of our lives lie where we gain the courage to rename our evil as our best.
117 The will to overcome an affect is, in the end, only the will of another affect or of several others.
118 There is an innocence of admiration: it belongs to someone to whom it has not yet occurred that he too might someday be admired.
119 Disgust at dirt can be so great that it prevents us from cleansing ourselves—from “justifying” ourselves.
120 Sensuality often outruns the growth of love, so that the root stays weak and is easily torn out.
121 It is a subtle touch that God learned Greek when he wanted to become a writer—and that he did not learn it better.
122 For some people, taking pleasure in praise is only a courtesy of the heart—and precisely the opposite of vanity of the mind.
123 Even concubinage has been corrupted—by marriage.
124 Someone who still rejoices at the stake triumphs not over pain but over feeling no pain where he expected it. A parable.
125 When we have to revise our understanding of someone, we hold the inconvenience he causes us in doing so strongly against him.
126 A people is nature's roundabout way of arriving at six or seven great men.—Yes: and then of getting around them.
127 For all true women, science offends their sense of shame. They feel as though someone wanted to use it to look beneath their skin—worse still! Beneath their clothes and finery.
128 The more abstract the truth you want to teach, the more you must also seduce the senses toward it.
129 The devil has the widest perspectives on God, which is why he keeps so far away from him—the devil, that is, as the oldest friend of knowledge.
130 What someone is begins to reveal itself when his talent wanes—when he stops showing what he can do. Talent is also finery; finery is also a hiding place.
131 The sexes deceive themselves about each other: the reason is that at bottom they honor and love only themselves (or their own ideal, to put it more pleasingly—). Thus man wants woman to be peaceable—but precisely woman is essentially unpeaceable, like the cat, however well she has practiced the appearance of peace.
132 We are punished most thoroughly for our virtues.
133 Someone who cannot find the way to his ideal lives more recklessly and brazenly than someone without an ideal.
134 All credibility, all good conscience, all visible evidence of truth come only from the senses.
135 Pharisaism is not a degeneration in the good person: rather, a good portion of it is the condition of all being good.
136 One person seeks a midwife for his thoughts, another someone whom he can help: that is how a good conversation arises.
137 In dealings with scholars and artists, we easily miscalculate in opposite directions: behind a remarkable scholar we not infrequently find a mediocre human being, and behind a mediocre artist often even—a very remarkable human being.
138 Waking, we do as we do in dreams: first we invent and compose the person we are dealing with—and immediately forget it.
139 In revenge and in love, woman is more barbaric than man.
140 Advice as riddle.—“If you don't want the band to split—first you have to bite on it.”
141 The lower belly is the reason human beings do not so easily take themselves for gods.
142 The most chaste words I have heard: “In true love it is the soul that envelops the body.”
143 Our vanity would like what we do best to count as precisely what comes hardest to us. On the origin of many a morality.
144 When a woman has scholarly inclinations, there is usually something out of order in her sexuality. Infertility alone predisposes to a certain masculinity of taste; for man is, if you will pardon me, “the infertile animal.”
145 Comparing man and woman as a whole, we may say: woman would not have the genius for adornment if she did not have the instinct for the second role.
146 Whoever fights with monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster in the process. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks into you too.
147 From old Florentine novellas, and moreover—from life: good woman and bad woman need the stick. Sacchetti Nov. 86.
148 To seduce one's neighbor into a good opinion, and afterward believe devoutly in this opinion of one's neighbor: who can match women in this feat?—
149 What an age feels to be evil is usually an untimely aftereffect of what was formerly felt to be good—the atavism of an older ideal.
150 Around the hero everything becomes tragedy, around the demigod everything becomes a satyr play; and around God everything becomes—what? Perhaps “world”?—
151 Having a talent is not enough: one must also have your permission for it—isn't that so, my friends?
152 “Where the tree of knowledge stands is always paradise”: so say the oldest and the youngest serpents.
153 What is done out of love always happens beyond good and evil.
154 Objection, a leap to the side, cheerful distrust, delight in mockery are signs of health: everything unconditional belongs in pathology.
155 The sense for the tragic wanes and waxes with sensuality.
156 Madness is something rare in individuals—but in groups, parties, peoples, ages, the rule.
157 The thought of suicide is a powerful comfort: with it one gets safely through many an evil night.
158 Not only our reason but also our conscience submits to our strongest drive, the tyrant in us.
159 We must repay good and ill: but why precisely to the person who did us good or ill?
160 We no longer love our knowledge enough as soon as we communicate it.
161 Poets are shameless toward their experiences: they exploit them.
162 “Our nearest is not our neighbor, but our neighbor's neighbor”—so thinks every people.
163 Love brings a lover's high and hidden qualities to light—what is rare, exceptional in him: to that extent it easily deceives us about what is the rule in him.
164 Jesus said to his Jews: “The law was for servants—love God as I love him, as his son! What does morality concern us sons of God!”—
165 In the face of every party.—A shepherd always needs a bellwether as well—or he must occasionally be a ram himself.
166 We may lie with the mouth; but with the face we make in doing so, we still tell the truth.
167 In hard people, tenderness of feeling is a matter of shame—and something precious.
168 Christianity gave Eros poison to drink—he did not die of it, to be sure, but degenerated into vice.
169 Talking much about oneself can also be a means of concealing oneself.
170 There is more intrusiveness in praise than in blame.
171 Pity in a person of knowledge looks almost laughable, like delicate hands on a Cyclops.
172 Out of love for humanity we sometimes embrace someone at random (because we cannot embrace everyone): but precisely this we must not betray to that someone…
173 We do not hate as long as we still esteem someone little, but only when we esteem him equally or more highly.
174 You utilitarians, you too love everything useful only as a wagon for your inclinations—you too actually find the noise of its wheels unbearable?
175 In the end we love our desire, and not what is desired.
176 Other people's vanity offends our taste only when it offends our vanity.
177 Perhaps no one has yet been truthful enough about what “truthfulness” is.
178 Clever people are not believed capable of their follies: what a loss of human rights!
179 The consequences of our actions seize us by the hair, quite indifferent to the fact that we have meanwhile “improved.”
180 There is an innocence in lying that is the sign of good faith in a cause.
181 It is inhuman to bless where one is cursed.
182 The familiarity of a superior embitters us because it must not be returned.—
183 “Not that you lied to me, but that I no longer believe you, has shaken me.”—
184 There is an exuberance of goodness that looks like malice.
185 “I dislike him.”—Why?—“I am no match for him.”—Has any human being ever answered that way?
Plain English translation
Complete machine-assisted Plain English translation, made independently and directly from the German and reviewed against it.
Fourth Main Part:
Maxims and Interludes.
63 Someone who is a teacher through and through takes everything seriously only in relation to his students—even himself.
64 “Knowledge for its own sake”—this is the last trap morality sets. It gets you completely entangled in morality once again.
65 Knowledge would have little attraction if there were not so much shame to overcome on the way to it.
65a We are most dishonest toward our God: he is not allowed to sin!
66 The inclination to belittle yourself, to let yourself be robbed, lied to, and exploited, could be the shame of a god among human beings.
67 Loving one person is barbaric: it is practiced at everyone else’s expense. The same goes for loving God.
68 “I did that,” says my memory. “I cannot have done that,” says my pride, and remains unyielding. Finally—memory gives in.
69 You have observed life poorly if you have not also seen the hand that kills—in a gentle way.
70 If you have character, you also have your typical experience, which keeps coming back.
71 The wise person as astronomer.—As long as you still feel the stars as something “above you,” you still lack the eye of someone who knows.
72 It is not the strength but the lasting power of high feelings that makes high human beings.
73 Someone who reaches his ideal goes beyond it in that very act.
73a Many a peacock hides his tail from everyone’s eyes—and calls it his pride.
74 A person with genius is unbearable unless he also has at least two other things: gratitude and cleanliness.
75 The degree and kind of a person’s sexuality reach right up to the highest peak of his mind.
76 In peaceful circumstances the warlike person attacks himself.
77 With our principles we want to tyrannize over our habits, or justify, honor, insult, or hide them. Two people with the same principles probably still want fundamentally different things from them.
78 Someone who despises himself still respects himself as the one doing the despising.
79 A soul that knows it is loved but does not love reveals its sediment: what is at the bottom rises to the top.
80 Something that becomes clear stops being our concern.—What did that god mean when he advised: “Know yourself”? Perhaps he meant: “Stop being your own concern! Become objective!”—And Socrates?—And the “scientific person”?—
81 It is terrible to die of thirst at sea. Must you salt your truth so heavily that it no longer even—quenches thirst?
82 “Pity for everyone”—that would be harshness and tyranny toward you, my dear neighbor!—
83 Instinct.—When the house is burning, you even forget lunch.—Yes, but you make up for it on the ashes.
84 A woman learns to hate to the extent that she unlearns how—to charm.
85 The same emotions still have a different tempo in man and woman: that is why man and woman never stop misunderstanding each other.
86 Behind all their personal vanity, women themselves still have their impersonal contempt—for “woman.”
87 A bound heart, a free spirit.—If you bind your heart tightly and imprison it, you can give your spirit many freedoms. I said that once before. But people don’t believe me, unless they already know it…
88 We begin to distrust very clever people when they become embarrassed.
89 Terrible experiences leave us wondering whether the person who goes through them is something terrible himself.
90 Heavy, gloomy people are lightened by the very things that weigh others down, by hatred and love, and for a while rise to their own surface.
91 So cold, so icy, that you burn your fingers on him! Every hand that touches him recoils in fear!—And that is precisely why some people think he is burning hot.
92 Who has not at some point sacrificed—himself for his good reputation?—
93 There is no hatred of humanity in easy friendliness, but for that very reason far too much contempt for humanity.
94 A man’s maturity means having found again the seriousness he had as a child at play.
95 Being ashamed of your immorality is a step on the staircase that ends with being ashamed of your morality too.
96 We should leave life as Odysseus left Nausicaa—with more blessing than love.
97 What? A great man? I always see only the actor playing his own ideal.
98 If you train your conscience, it kisses you even as it bites.
99 The disappointed man speaks.—“I listened for an echo, and heard only praise—”
100 We all present ourselves to ourselves as simpler than we are: this is how we take a rest from other people.
101 Today a person seeking knowledge could easily feel like God become animal.
102 Discovering that love is returned should really sober up the lover about the beloved. “What? Is it modest enough to love even you? Or stupid enough? Or—or—”
103 Danger in happiness.—“Now everything turns out for my good; now I love every fate.—Who would like to be my fate?”
104 It is not their love of humanity but the powerlessness of their love of humanity that stops today’s Christians from—burning us.
105 The free spirit, the “devout seeker of knowledge,” finds pious fraud even more offensive to his taste—to his “devotion”—than impious fraud. Hence his deep failure to understand the Church, which belongs to the type “free spirit”—as his lack of freedom.
106 Through music the passions enjoy themselves.
107 Once a decision has been made, to close your ears even to the best counterargument is a sign of strong character. So, an occasional will to stupidity.
108 There are no moral phenomena at all, only a moral interpretation of phenomena…
109 Often enough the criminal is not equal to his deed: he belittles and slanders it.
110 A criminal’s lawyers are rarely artists enough to turn the beautiful horror of the deed to its doer’s advantage.
111 Our vanity is hardest to wound just when our pride has been wounded.
112 Someone who feels destined to see, not to believe, finds all believers too noisy and intrusive: he fends them off.
113 “You want to win him over? Then act embarrassed in front of him—”
114 The enormous expectation of sexual love, and the shame within that expectation, spoil every perspective for women from the start.
115 Where love or hatred is not in play, a woman gives a mediocre performance.
116 The great turning points in our lives come when we gain the courage to rename our evil as our best.
117 The will to overcome an emotion is ultimately only the will of another emotion, or of several others.
118 There is an innocence of admiration. It belongs to someone who has never yet thought that he too might one day be admired.
119 Disgust at dirt can be so great that it stops us from cleaning ourselves—from “justifying” ourselves.
120 Sensuality often rushes ahead of love’s growth, so that the root stays weak and can easily be pulled out.
121 There is a certain subtlety in God’s having learned Greek when he wanted to become a writer—and in his not having learned it better.
122 For some people, taking pleasure in praise is only a courtesy of the heart—and the very opposite of vanity of mind.
123 Even living together unmarried has been corrupted—by marriage.
124 Someone who still rejoices on the burning stake is not triumphing over pain, but over not feeling pain where he expected it. A parable.
125 When we have to change what we have learned about someone, we hold the inconvenience he causes us heavily against him.
126 A people is nature’s roundabout way of arriving at six or seven great men.—Yes, and then of getting around them.
127 For all true women, scholarship offends their sense of shame. It makes them feel as if someone wanted to look under their skin—worse still! Under their clothes and finery.
128 The more abstract the truth you want to teach, the more you must also seduce the senses into accepting it.
129 The devil has the widest perspectives on God, which is why he stays so far away from him—the devil, that is, as the oldest friend of knowledge.
130 What someone is begins to show when his talent weakens—when he stops showing what he can do. Talent is also finery; finery is also a hiding place.
131 The sexes deceive themselves about each other. This is because, at bottom, they honor and love only themselves—or their own ideal, to put it more pleasantly. Thus a man wants a woman to be peaceful. But a woman in particular is essentially unpeaceful, like a cat, however well she has trained herself in the appearance of peace.
132 We get punished most thoroughly for our virtues.
133 Someone who cannot find the path to his ideal lives more recklessly and shamelessly than someone without an ideal.
134 All credibility, all good conscience, all visible evidence of truth come first from the senses.
135 Pharisaic self-righteousness is not a degeneration in a good person. A substantial amount of it is, rather, a condition of all being good.
136 One person seeks a midwife for his thoughts, another seeks someone he can help: that is how a good conversation begins.
137 In dealing with scholars and artists, it is easy to miscalculate in opposite directions. Behind a remarkable scholar we often find a mediocre person; behind a mediocre artist we actually often find—a very remarkable person.
138 Awake, we do just as we do in dreams: first we invent and imagine the person we are dealing with—and immediately forget we have done it.
139 In revenge and in love, woman is more barbaric than man.
140 Advice as a riddle.—“If the bond must not break, first bite on it.”
141 The lower belly is the reason people do not so easily take themselves for gods.
142 The most chaste words I have heard: “In true love it is the soul that envelops the body.”
143 Our vanity wants what we do best to be considered precisely what is hardest for us. On the origin of many a morality.
144 When a woman has scholarly inclinations, something is usually wrong with her sexuality. Infertility alone encourages a certain masculinity of taste; for man is, if you’ll excuse me, “the infertile animal.”
145 Comparing man and woman as a whole, we may say: woman would not have her genius for adornment if she did not have the instinct for the second role.
146 Someone fighting monsters should take care not to become a monster in the process. And when you look into an abyss for a long time, the abyss also looks into you.
147 From old Florentine tales—and, besides, from life: a good woman and a bad woman need the stick. Sacchetti Nov. 86.
148 To seduce a neighbor into a good opinion and then faithfully believe in that neighbor’s opinion: who can match women at this trick?—
149 What an age feels to be evil is usually an ill-timed aftereffect of what was once felt to be good—the return of an older ideal.
150 Around the hero everything becomes tragedy; around the demigod everything becomes a satyr play; and around God everything becomes—what? Perhaps the “world”?—
151 Having a talent is not enough: a person also needs your permission for it—isn’t that so, my friends?
152 “Where the tree of knowledge stands, there is always paradise”: that is how the oldest and the youngest snakes speak.
153 What is done out of love always happens beyond good and evil.
154 Objection, a leap to the side, cheerful distrust, delight in mockery are signs of health. Everything unconditional belongs to pathology.
155 The sense of tragedy rises and falls with sensuality.
156 Madness is rare in individuals—but in groups, parties, peoples, and ages it is the rule.
157 The thought of suicide is a powerful comfort: it gets us through many a bad night.
158 Not only our reason but also our conscience submits to our strongest drive, the tyrant in us.
159 We must repay good and bad—but why to the very person who did us good or bad?
160 As soon as we communicate our knowledge, we no longer love it enough.
161 Poets are shameless toward their experiences: they exploit them.
162 “Our neighbor is not the person next door, but the person next door to him”—that is how every people thinks.
163 Love brings a lover’s high and hidden qualities to light—what is rare and exceptional in him. To that extent it easily misleads us about what is usual in him.
164 Jesus said to his Jews: “The law was for servants—love God as I love him, as his son! What does morality have to do with us sons of God!”—
165 Facing any party.—A shepherd always needs a lead ram too—or he must occasionally be a ram himself.
166 We may lie with our mouths, but the face we make while doing it still tells the truth.
167 For hard people, tenderness is a matter of shame—and something precious.
168 Christianity gave Eros poison to drink. He did not die of it, but degenerated into vice.
169 Talking a lot about yourself can also be a way to hide yourself.
170 There is more intrusiveness in praise than in blame.
171 Pity looks almost ridiculous on a person devoted to knowledge, like delicate hands on a Cyclops.
172 Out of love for humanity, we sometimes embrace some random person, because we cannot embrace everyone. But that is precisely what we must not reveal to the random person…
173 We do not hate while we still look down on someone, but only when we consider him equal or superior.
174 You utilitarians, you too love everything useful only as a wagon for your inclinations—you too actually find the noise of its wheels unbearable?
175 In the end we love our desire, not the thing desired.
176 Other people’s vanity offends our taste only when it offends our vanity.
177 Perhaps no one has yet been truthful enough about what “truthfulness” is.
178 People do not believe clever people capable of their foolish acts: what a loss of human rights!
179 The consequences of our actions grab us by the hair, quite indifferent to our having “improved” in the meantime.
180 There is an innocence in lying that is a sign of good faith in a cause.
181 It is inhuman to bless where you are being cursed.
182 A superior’s familiarity embitters us because we are not allowed to return it.—
183 “What has shaken me is not that you lied to me, but that I no longer believe you.”—
184 There is an exuberance of goodness that looks like malice.
185 “I dislike him.”—Why?—“I am not equal to him.”—Has anyone ever answered that way?
About this section
Part IV — Maxims and Interludes is part of Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche. This page sets the German original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is part 5 of 11 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
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