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179.
Thoughts.—Thoughts are the shadows of our sentiments—always however obscurer, emptier and simpler.
180.
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.
181.
Following and Leading.—A: "Of the two, the one will always follow, the other will always lead, whatever be the course of their destiny. And yet the former is superior to the other in virtue and intellect." B: "And yet? And yet? That is spoken for the others; not for me, not for us!—Fit secundum regulam."
182.
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!
183.
The Music of the Best Future.—The first musician for me would be he who knew only the sorrow of the profoundest happiness, and no other sorrow: there has not hitherto been such a musician.
184.
Justice.—Better allow oneself to be robbed than have scarecrows around one—that is my taste. And under all circumstances it is just a matter of taste—and nothing more!
185.
Poor.—He is now poor, but not because everything has been taken from him, but because he has thrown everything away:—what does he care? He is accustomed to find new things.—It is the poor who misunderstand his voluntary poverty.
186.
Bad Conscience.—All that he now does is excellent and proper—and yet he has a bad conscience with it all. For the exceptional is his task.
187.
Offensiveness in Expression.—This artist offends me by the way in which he expresses his ideas, his very excellent ideas: so diffusely and forcibly, and with such gross rhetorical artifices, as if he were speaking to the mob. We feel always as if "in bad company" when devoting some time to his art.
188.
Work.—How closely work and the workers now stand even to the most leisurely of us! The royal courtesy in the words: "We are all workers," would have been a cynicism and an indecency even under Louis XIV.
189.
The Thinker.—He is a thinker: that is to say, he knows how to take things more simply than they are.
190.
Against Eulogisers.—A: "One is only praised by one's equals!" B: "Yes! And he who praises you says: 'You are my equal!'"
191.
Against many a Vindication.—The most perfidious manner of injuring a cause is to vindicate it intentionally with fallacious arguments.
192.
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." With them there follow in succession the wish to appropriate (they make little scruple about the person's worth), rapid appropriation, joy in the possession, and actions in favour of the person possessed.
193.
Kant's Joke.—Kant tried to prove, in a way that dismayed "everybody," that "everybody" was in the right:—that was his secret joke. He wrote against the learned, in favour of popular prejudice; he wrote, however, for the learned and not for the people.
194.
The "Open-hearted" Man.—That man acts probably always from concealed motives; for he has always communicable motives on his tongue, and almost in his open hand.
195.
Laughable!—See! See! He runs away from men—: they follow him, however, because he runs before them,—they are such a gregarious lot!
196.
The Limits of our Sense of Hearing.—We hear only the questions to which we are capable of finding an answer.
197.
Caution therefore!—There is nothing we are fonder of communicating to others than the seal of secrecy—together with what is under it.
198.
Vexation of the Proud Man.—The proud man is vexed even with those who help him forward: he looks angrily at his carriage-horses.
199.
Liberality.—Liberality is often only a form of timidity in the rich.
200.
Laughing.—To laugh means to love mischief, but with a good conscience.
201.
In Applause.—In applause there is always some kind of noise: even in self-applause.
202.
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.
203.
Hic niger est.—Usually he has no thoughts,—but in exceptional cases bad thoughts come to him.
204.
Beggars and Courtesy.—"One is not discourteous when one knocks at a door with a stone when the bell-pull is awanting"—so think all beggars and necessitous persons, but no one thinks they are in the right.
205.
Need.—Need is supposed to be the cause of things; but in truth it is often only the result of things.
206.
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; all of them, therefore, ready and anxious to give pain to one another, and thus provide themselves with a pitiable kind of comfort, even in bad weather. This, this only, is the poverty of the poor!
207.
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.
208.
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.
209.
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 really an artifice of tyrannical men!
210.
Moderation in Diligence.—One must not be anxious to surpass the diligence of one's father—that would make one ill.
211.
Secret Enemies.—To be able to keep a secret enemy—that is a luxury which the morality even of the highest-minded persons can rarely afford.
