PREFACE
APOPHTHEGMS: A short pithy instructive saying. [All meanings from The Sage by Sequence Publishing]
TYRONISM:The state of being a tyro, or beginner [Thanks to The Free Dictionary (TFD)]
"...we owe to it [astrology], and to its "super-terrestrial" pretensions in India and Egypt, the grand style of architecture."
So "wakefulness" is our duty, as "heirs of all the strength which the struggle against this error [Plato's invention of Pure Spirit and the Good in Itself] has fostered." "Perspective" is the fundamental condition of life, and he acknowledges mass media - "liberty of the press and newspaper-reading" - for its characteristic of being, well, mass media. This is his beginning towards developing his notion of high culture being a manifestation of cruelty.
CHAPTER I. PREJUDICES OF PHILOSOPHERS
He totally disses Kant's "'Thing-in-itself'". I agree with him that philosophizing should be intuitive; it need not follow structure or rules of any sort, and completely, whole-heartedly endorse this statement: "...a constant counterfeiting of the world by means of numbers...".
IMPUGN: Attack as false or wrong [The Sage]
Aha! "...and a philosophy which ventures to do so ["to impugn the traditional ideas of value"], has thereby alone placed itself beyond good and evil." Is self-reference inescapable?
He minces no words in personally condemning Spinoza, and previous philosophers in general as well.
"For every impulse is imperious, and as SUCH, attempts to philosophize."
The highlighting of individuality is present in his view that the vocation or job that a person does or performs in society does not define his character. A person's "morality furnishes a decided and decisive testimony as to WHO HE IS,--that is to say, in what order the deepest impulses of his nature stand to each other."
Regarding the surgence [similaarly, why is there nothing called dulating? I repeat myself from some earlier writings: I love making up words. I think I wrote that in Notebook Two or Three. Can't seem to recall that train of thought, instead am reminded of my Sch notes] of philosophers at any arbitrary point in history:
Adventavit asinus, Pulcher et fortissimus:
The ass arrived
Beautiful and most valiant. [courtesy http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/nietzsche/beyondgoodandevil1.htm]While moving on to diss Stoics by saying "Is not living valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different?", I feel he slightly undermines the importance of non-conformity that he seemed to endorse earlier. In hindsight we know that he went mad, but then again, who isn't? He calls them [Stoics] false, self-tyrannical; he has been using Sch's "will" quite a lot, sort of like the result of a free-association session: "...Will to Power, the will to "creation of the world," the will to the causa prima.", a couple of senences later, "..."Will to Truth"".
He praises nihilism as having "the courageous bearing such a virtue may display." Again the individual focus: "...(for what does one at present believe in more firmly than in one's body?)". Interesting word choice for "reality-philosophasters", if that is a word. He labels Kant's writing as overly long and being a "display of German profundity and verbal flourishes." In comparison and perhaps competition, he answers Kant's question "How are synthetic judgments a priori POSSIBLE?" in 5 words: "BY MEANS OF A MEANS (faculty)", and replaces it with his own: "Why is belief in such judgments necessary?". Everyone's entitled to their opinion.
It seems to me that he replaces "self-preservation" with "economy of principles" as "the cardinal instinct of an organic being." Perhaps the "principles" are yet to come. I find it unsettling how he easily says that "we really ought to free ourselves from the misleading significance of words!", while using words!! This is a trait other philosophers also possess. The reasons they are driven to trash their medium of communication may be varied and obscure.
Romanticism is labeled "the malicious fairy". Atomism, soul concepts et cetera all are mocked in not a few words.
ATAVISM: A reappearance of an earlier characteristic [The Sage]
The "Ural-Altaic" language philosophers are identified as the ones amongst whom the concept of philosophy is "least developed". He dismisses Locke as superficial.
CAUSA SUI: self-caused cause [Google search; and of course it's a "logical violation and unnaturalness"]
"...one should use "cause" and "effect" only as pure CONCEPTIONS, that is to say, as conventional fictions for the purpose of designation and mutual understanding,--NOT for explanation."
"...in real life it is only a question of STRONG and WEAK wills."
"..."la religion de la souffrance humaine"": the religion of human suffering [Google Translate]; this is, in his own words, "the fatalism of the weak-willed".
He calls himself a philologist, i.e. a humanist specializing in classical scholarship [The Sage], and more things are shown the dust: physicists [they made and continue to make mistaken interpretations], psychology,[instead of being "aground on moral prejudices and timidities", Nietzsche wants it to be "the Morphology and DEVELOPMENT-DOCTRINE OF THE WILL TO POWER, as I conceive of it."
"...the general economy of life (which must, therefore, be further developed if life is to be further developed)..."
Maybe I have under-estimated his vision for psychology: "...psychology shall once more be recognized as the queen of the sciences, for whose service and equipment the other sciences exist. For psychology is once more the path to the fundamental problems."
Munchausen: teller of tall tales; Eminem used Munchausen's syndrome in Cleanin' Out My Closet, but he probably means the 'by proxy' version of the affliction]
CHAPTER II. THE FREE SPIRIT
Tartuffe, or, The Impostor, by Moliere. I haven't figured out (or tried to) how to put in diacritics.
"..--as though "the Truth" were such an innocent and incompetent creature as to require protectors!" He's right, the truth or whatever doesn't require protectors, hence philosophizing shouldn't be an excuse to do or not do stuff. If you get paid for doing stuff which is philosophizing, good for you! :)
"...not to speak of the stupidity of moral indignation, which is the unfailing sign in a philosopher that the sense of philosophical humour has left him."
"Every select man strives instinctively for a citadel and a privacy, where he is FREE from the crowd, the many, the majority--where he may forget "men who are the rule," as their exception;..."
When the word 'vanity' crosses my mind as I read "Cynicism is the only form in which base souls approach what is called honesty; and the higher man must open his ears to all the coarser or finer cynicism, ...", I wonder if I'm right in assuming it as a trait of the people whose works I'm reading, and not mine. Maybe it is, maybe it is...
Coincidentally, he uses 'vanity' just after: "...whenever any one sees, seeks, and WANTS to see only hunger, sexual instinct, and vanity as the real and only motives of human actions; in short, when any one speaks "badly"--and not even "ill"--of man, then ought the lover of knowledge to hearken attentively and diligently;..."
It is a privilege to be independent [and know it, presumably], and this privilege is a sign of the "strong".
"Books for the general reader are always ill-smelling books,..." Discrimination between lower-higher, inferior-powerful...complete hatred, I'm inclined to imagine: "Where the populace eat and drink, and even where they reverence, it is accustomed to stink. One should not go into churches if one wishes to breathe PURE air."
"...NUANCE [A subtle difference in meaning or opinion or attitude: The Sage], which is the best gain of life,..."
This acknowledging and subsequent discrediting, or vice-versa, of things [e.g. soul: "Later on, when the young soul, tortured by continual disillusions, finally turns suspiciously against itself..."] can't go on if Nietzsche wants me to take him seriously. Else, these are just rants of a pissed off guy, although I do identify with the last quote.
Time flies, one of my favorite thoughts, is borne out by "A decade later, and one comprehends that all this was also still--youth!"
In regard to how morality and "self"-awareness came to the fore "In the last ten thousand years...people were agreed in the belief that the value of an action lay in the value of its intention."
He includes himself in "us immoralists", bringing humanity as a whole "...on the threshold of a period which to begin with, would be distinguished negatively as ULTRA-MORAL: ..."
He claims for himself (and, presumably, others like himself - immoralists) "...the long-secret labour which has been reserved for the most refined, the most upright, and also the most wicked consciences of today, as the living touchstones of the soul.", the "labour" being "The surmounting of morality, in a certain sense even the
self-mounting of morality...".
While scrolling down to resume where I last
left off, felt that this line: (Ch. I, 16) "There are still harmless
self-observers who believe that there are "immediate certainties";
for instance, "I think," or as the superstition of Schopenhauer puts
it, "I will"; as though cognition here got hold of its object purely
and simply as "the thing in itself," without any falsification taking
place either on the part of the subject or the object. I would repeat it,
however, a hundred times, that "immediate certainty," as well as
"absolute knowledge" and the "thing in itself," involve a
CONTRADICTIO IN ADJECTO; we really ought to free ourselves from the misleading
significance of words!" - was a summary of dissing everyone and everything
(philosophical); Wittgenstein saw the "misleading significance of
words" bit, though.
Resuming from Ch. II, 34: "In all
seriousness, the innocence of thinkers has something touching and
respect-inspiring in it, which even nowadays permits them to wait upon
consciousness with the request that it will give them HONEST answers: for
example, whether it be "real" or not, and why it keeps the outer
world so resolutely at a distance, and other questions of the same description.
The belief in "immediate certainties" is a MORAL NAIVETE which does
honour to us philosophers; but--we have now to cease being "MERELY
moral" men! ...such belief is a folly”
“…for I myself have long ago learned to
think and estimate differently with regard to deceiving and being deceived…”
“Might not the philosopher elevate himself
above faith in grammar?” Yes, Nietzsche, he should.
il ne cherche le vrai que pour faire le
bien [he seeks the truth only to do good - from records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/nietzsche/beyondgoodandevil2.htm ]
Getting around to his point-in-the-making:
“…we MUST make the attempt to posit hypothetically the causality of the will as
the only causality.” And, coming straight to it (as I was beginning to
suspect): “…explaining our entire instinctive life as the development and
ramification of one fundamental form of will--namely, the Will to Power, as my
thesis puts it; granted that all organic functions could be traced back to this
Will to Power, and that the solution of the problem of generation and nutrition--it
is one problem--could also be found therein: one would thus have acquired the
right to define ALL active force unequivocally as WILL TO POWER. The world seen
from within, the world defined and designated according to its
"intelligible character"--it would simply be "Will to
Power," and nothing else.”
A glimpse into how his philosophy can be
taken to bolster the ‘more negative’ aspects of humans: “Perhaps severity and
craft are more favourable conditions for the development of strong, independent
spirits and philosophers than the gentle, refined, yielding good-nature, and
habit of taking things easily, which are prized, and rightly prized in a
learned man. Presupposing always, to begin with, that the term
"philosopher" be not confined to the philosopher who writes books, or
even introduces HIS philosophy into books!”; Stendhal is given as an example of
a “free-spirited philosopher”, and he does “not omit to underline” a quote of
his: “Pour etre bon philosophe, il faut etre sec, clair, sans illusion. Un
banquier, qui a fait fortune, a une partie du caractere requis pour faire des
decouvertes en philosophie, c'est-a-dire pour voir clair dans ce qui est.”
He is not vain to assume that all his thought is original/
inconceivable by others: “…it would be strange if some mystic has not already
ventured on the same kind of thing.” The “thing” here is the question: “Should
not the CONTRARY only be the right disguise for the shame of a God to go about
in?”
I think all should agree to "...shame is inventive."
I'm sure the "profound spirits" among us (or, at least, those of us who recognize in ourselves such a spirit) will identify with: "Every profound spirit needs a mask; nay, more, around every profound spirit there continually grows a mask, owing to the constantly false, that is to say, SUPERFICIAL interpretation of every word he utters, every step he takes, every sign of life he manifests."
He encourages us to test ourselves for our own judgment, "Not to cleave to any person...a fatherland...a sympathy...a science...one's own liberation...our own virtues..." Just to clarify, the not to cleave to part precedes each of these things for the sake of which we should not test ourselves. "One must know how TO CONSERVE ONESELF--the best test of independence."
He hits upon the motive of every philosopher - I make this over-generalization knowingly, since Nietzsche makes a distinction (dogmatic efforts): "...that their truth should still be truth for every one--that which has hitherto been the secret wish and ultimate purpose of all dogmatic efforts."
There can be no "common good", since "In the end things must be as they are and have always been--the great things remain for the great, the abysses for the profound, the delicacies and thrills for the refined, and, to sum up shortly, everything rare for the rare."
"...Will to Life had to be increased to the unconditioned Will to Power...that everything wicked, terrible, tyrannical, predatory, and serpentine in man, serves as well for the elevation of the human species as its opposite..."
"And as to the import of the dangerous formula, "Beyond Good and Evil," with which we at least avoid confusion, we ARE something else than "libres-penseurs," "liben pensatori" "free-thinkers," and whatever these honest advocates of "modern ideas" like to call themselves."
An example of Nietzsche's excellent prose, here regarding "we free spirits": "...full of malice against the seductions of dependency which he concealed in honours, money, positions, or exaltation of the senses, grateful even for distress and the vicissitudes of illness, because they always free us from some rule, and its "prejudice," grateful to the God, devil, sheep, and worm in us, inquisitive to a fault, investigators to the point of cruelty, with unhesitating fingers for the intangible, with teeth and stomachs for the most indigestible, ready for any business that requires sagacity and acute senses, ready for every adventure, owing to an excess of "free will" [emphasis mine; learnt this trick from NNT, in his The Black Swan - its dog-ears will follow shortly (or maybe before) this reading of BGAE], with anterior and posterior souls, into the ultimate intentions of which it is difficult to pry, with foregrounds and backgrounds to the end of which no foot may run, hidden ones under the mantles of light, appropriators, although we resemble heirs and spendthrifts, arrangers and collectors from morning till night, misers of our wealth and our full-crammed drawers, economical in learning and forgetting, inventive in scheming, sometimes proud of tables of categories, sometimes pedants, sometimes night-owls of work even in full day, yea, if necessary, even scarecrows--and it is necessary nowadays, that is to say, inasmuch as we are the born, sworn, jealous friends of SOLITUDE, of our own profoundest midnight and midday solitude--such kind of men are we, we free spirits!"
CHAPTER III. THE RELIGIOUS MOOD
CHAPTER III. THE RELIGIOUS MOOD
At last (or first!), a sentence hinting at praise: "...as profound, as bruised, as immense an experience as the intellectual conscience of Pascal..."
My wholehearted agreement with "Eventually one must do everything ONESELF in order to know something; which means that one has MUCH to do!"
Followed immediately with sarcasm or humor or both: "--But a curiosity like
mine is once for all the most agreeable of vices--pardon me! I mean to
say that the love of truth has its reward in heaven, and already upon
earth."
Building up to his (in)famous there-is-no-god view, he writes "The Christian faith from the beginning, is sacrifice the sacrifice of all freedom, all pride, all self-confidence of spirit, it is at
the same time subjection, self-derision, and self-mutilation."
"Wherever the religious neurosis has appeared on the earth so far,
we find it connected with three dangerous prescriptions as to regimen:
solitude, fasting, and sexual abstinence..."
His take on the origin of Sch as a philo: "How is the negation of will POSSIBLE? how is the
saint possible?--that seems to have been the very question with which
Schopenhauer made a start and became a philosopher."
He quotes Ernest Renan after calling him fat (seriously: "...the merest touch of religious thrill throws his refined voluptuous and comfortably couching soul off its balance!") so that he can abuse him further: "These sentences are so extremely ANTIPODAL
to my ears and habits of thought, that in my first impulse of rage
on finding them, I wrote on the margin, "LA NIAISERIE RELIGIEUSE PAR
EXCELLENCE!"--until in my later rage I even took a fancy to them, these
sentences with their truth absolutely inverted! It is so nice and such a
distinction to have one's own antipodes!
Literature reviews?: "In the Jewish "Old Testament," the book of divine justice, there are
men, things, and sayings on such an immense scale, that Greek and Indian
literature has nothing to compare with it."
"...God is thoroughly refuted;...Also his "free will": he does
not hear--and even if he did, he would not know how to help."
"Modern philosophy, as epistemological skepticism...": does NNT echo this? Will have to check while revisiting The Black Swan...
"KANT really wished to prove that, starting from the subject, the subject could not be proved--nor
the object either...", regarding inverting I think (from cogito ergo sum).
FESTAL: offering fun and gaiety [from TheSage]
Wo-ho-ho-ho-ho...attacking Sch as stupid: "Whoever, like myself, prompted by some enigmatical desire, has longendeavoured to go to the bottom of the question of pessimism and free it
from the half-Christian, half-German narrowness and stupidity in which
it has finally presented itself to this century, namely, in the form of
Schopenhauer's philosophy..."
bgae appears again, III 56.
A glimpse of the Ubermensch?: "...the ideal of the most world-approving, exuberant, and vivacious man, who has not only learnt to compromise and arrange with that which was and
is, but wishes to have it again AS IT WAS AND IS, for all eternity,
insatiably calling out da capo, not only to himself, but to the whole
piece and play; and not only the play, but actually to him who requires
the play--and makes it necessary; because he always requires
himself anew--and makes himself necessary."
A scathing attack on German Protestants, people in general and religious men in particular.
"Whoever has seen deeply into the world has doubtless divined what
wisdom there is in the fact that men are superficial. It is their
preservative instinct which teaches them to be flighty, lightsome, and
false."
"The Brahmins...secured to themselves the power of nominating kings for the people, while their
sentiments prompted them to keep apart and outside, as men with a higher
and super-regal mission."
Maybe the Nazis who took Niet to be in their favor missed (or misinterpreted) "Asceticism and Puritanism are almost indispensable means of educating and ennobling a race which seeks to rise above its hereditary
baseness and work itself upwards to future supremacy."
"There is perhaps nothing so admirable in Christianity
and Buddhism as their art of teaching even the lowest to elevate
themselves by piety to a seemingly higher order of things, and thereby
to retain their satisfaction with the actual world in which they find it
difficult enough to live--this very difficulty being necessary."
Must email this to NNT (along with my takes on TBS, he'll (probably) dig it): "The higher the type a man represents, the
greater is the improbability that he will SUCCEED; the accidental, the
law of irrationality in the general constitution of mankind, manifests
itself most terribly in its destructive effect on the higher orders of
men, the conditions of whose lives are delicate, diverse, and difficult
to determine."
"...does it not actually seem that some single will
has ruled over Europe for eighteen centuries in order to make a SUBLIME
ABORTION of man?" [referring to the Church; Pascal is praised again some way after this]
CHAPTER IV. APOPHTHEGMS AND INTERLUDES
sentiments prompted them to keep apart and outside, as men with a higher
and super-regal mission."
Maybe the Nazis who took Niet to be in their favor missed (or misinterpreted) "Asceticism and Puritanism are almost indispensable means of educating and ennobling a race which seeks to rise above its hereditary
baseness and work itself upwards to future supremacy."
"There is perhaps nothing so admirable in Christianity
and Buddhism as their art of teaching even the lowest to elevate
themselves by piety to a seemingly higher order of things, and thereby
to retain their satisfaction with the actual world in which they find it
difficult enough to live--this very difficulty being necessary."
Must email this to NNT (along with my takes on TBS, he'll (probably) dig it): "The higher the type a man represents, the
greater is the improbability that he will SUCCEED; the accidental, the
law of irrationality in the general constitution of mankind, manifests
itself most terribly in its destructive effect on the higher orders of
men, the conditions of whose lives are delicate, diverse, and difficult
to determine."
"...does it not actually seem that some single will
has ruled over Europe for eighteen centuries in order to make a SUBLIME
ABORTION of man?" [referring to the Church; Pascal is praised again some way after this]
CHAPTER IV. APOPHTHEGMS AND INTERLUDES
APOPHTHEGMS : A short pithy instructive saying, from TheSage
"The charm of knowledge would be small, were it not so much shame has
to be overcome on the way to it."
""I did that," says my memory. "I could not have done that," says my
pride, and remains inexorable. Eventually--the memory yields."
"It is not the strength, but the duration of great sentiments that
makes great men."
"A man of genius is unbearable, unless he possess at least two things
besides: gratitude and purity."
This one I really wonder how he came up with, and its relevance here - except, maybe, as a stand-alone thought from an interlude between sittings: "Woman learns how to hate in proportion as she--forgets how to charm."
A 'heavy' quote - "Heavy, melancholy men turn lighter, and come temporarily to their
surface, precisely by that which makes others heavy--by hatred and love."
I've written something like this before, that we think best when we're children: "The maturity of man--that means, to have reacquired the seriousness that one had as a child at play."
Reminder to attempt Ulysses, sometime, again: "One should part from life as Ulysses parted from Nausicaa--blessing it rather than in love with it."
"By means of music the very passions enjoy themselves."
Modern lawyers have successfully negated this apophthegm: "The advocates of a criminal are seldom artists enough to turn the beautiful terribleness of the deed to the advantage of the doer."
Advice for the corporate slaves of our times (and, regretfully, I shall join their ranks soon enough): ""You want to prepossess him in your favour? Then you must be embarrassed before him.""
I can vouch for the validity of "The will to overcome an emotion, is ultimately only the will of
another, or of several other, emotions."
Again, humor? Sarcasm? Both? "It is a curious thing that God learned Greek when he wished to turn
author--and that he did not learn it better."
"The more abstract the truth you wish to teach, the more must you allure the senses to it." Hence the audio-visual aids in classes? :p kidding...please, go on, teach the young 'uns and big 'uns to behave better than in Lord of the Flies.
Empiricism? "From the senses originate all trustworthiness, all good conscience, all evidence of truth."
Umm...err... "ADVICE AS A RIDDLE.--"If the band is not to break, bite it
first--secure to make!""
Truth: "The belly is the reason why man does not so readily take himself for a God."
"He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby
become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will
also gaze into thee."
Another bgae: "What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil."; IV 153
Way to be dichotomous: "Objection, evasion, joyous distrust, and love of irony are signs of
health; everything absolute belongs to pathology."
"Insanity in individuals is something rare--but in groups, parties,
nations, and epochs it is the rule." - groups starting with membership of two.
Suicide: "The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one
gets successfully through many a bad night."
Self-inflicting criticism/acknowledgment of weakness?: "One no longer loves one's knowledge sufficiently after one has communicated it."
Golden advice for marketing MBAs: "One loves ultimately one's desires, not the thing desired."; and also the next line: "The vanity of others is only counter to our taste when it is
counter to our vanity."
I could say this to some people I know: ""I am affected, not because you have deceived me, but because I can no longer believe in you.""
CHAPTER V. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS
counter to our vanity."
CHAPTER V. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS
A diatribe (not at all surprising) against everything regarding morals - philosophers, definition (of morality), other things I have yet to read:
"All the philosophers,...demanded of themselves something very much higher, more pretentious, and
ceremonious, when they concerned themselves with morality as a science:..."
"...moral philosophers' knowing the moral facts imperfectly..."
Ooh! "Zeitgeist" appears - never thought that word existed at his time! [1886]
"In every "Science of Morals" hitherto, strange as it may sound, the problem of morality itself
has been OMITTED: there has been no suspicion that there was anything
problematic there!"
"...in a world whose essence is Will to Power, may be reminded that Schopenhauer, although a pessimist,
ACTUALLY--played the flute... daily after dinner: one may read about
the matter in his biography."
"In short, systems of morals are only a SIGN-LANGUAGE OF THE EMOTIONS."
laisser-aller: letting go, lack of restraint [Merriam Webster online]
"One may look at every system of morals in this
light: it is "nature" therein which teaches to hate the laisser-aller,
the too great freedom, and implants the need for limited horizons, for
immediate duties--it teaches the NARROWING OF PERSPECTIVES, and thus, in
a certain sense, that stupidity is a condition of life and development."
intercalate: 1. To insert (a day or month) in a calendar. 2. To insert, interpose, or interpolate. [TFD]
While qoting the following, my first impulse was that e has missed out the love inherent in Indian mythology, but my reading is more limited than his, so I'll just quote his relation between love and sex: "Here also is a hint for the explanation of the paradox, why it was precisely in the most Christian period of European
history, and in general only under the pressure of Christian sentiments,
that the sexual impulse sublimated into love (amour-passion)."
"...the question whether, in respect to the
valuation of things, instinct deserves more authority than rationality,
which wants to appreciate and act according to motives, according to
a "Why," that is to say, in conformity to purpose and utility"
"...the noble Athenians, who were men of instinct, like all noble men, and could
never give satisfactory answers concerning the motives of their actions?"
plebeian: of or associated with the great masses of people [TheSage]
Praise, and immediately after, shooting down: "...Descartes, the father of
rationalism (and consequently the grandfather of the Revolution), who
recognized only the authority of reason: but reason is only a tool, and
Descartes was superficial."
A big and relevant (to me) quote: "As little as a reader nowadays reads all the single words
(not to speak of syllables) of a page--he rather takes about five out
of every twenty words at random, and "guesses" the probably appropriate
sense to them--just as little do we see a tree correctly and completely
in respect to its leaves, branches, colour, and shape; we find it so
much easier to fancy the chance of a tree. Even in the midst of the
most remarkable experiences, we still do just the same; we fabricate the
greater part of the experience, and can hardly be made to contemplate
any event, EXCEPT as "inventors" thereof. All this goes to prove
that from our fundamental nature and from remote ages we have
been--ACCUSTOMED TO LYING. Or, to express it more politely and
hypocritically, in short, more pleasantly--one is much more of an artist
than one is aware of.--In an animated conversation, I often see the face
of the person with whom I am speaking so clearly and sharply defined
before me, according to the thought he expresses, or which I believe to
be evoked in his mind, that the degree of distinctness far exceeds the
STRENGTH of my visual faculty--the delicacy of the play of the muscles
and of the expression of the eyes MUST therefore be imagined by me.
Probably the person put on quite a different expression, or none at all."
Quidquid luce fuit, tenebris agit: What occurred in the light, goes on in the dark [Google search and (subsequently) jonathanjames.deviantart.com/art/Quidquid-luce-fuit-78936980]
Not very convincing para on dreams, with the example of flying.
"The difference among men...manifests itself much more in what they regard as
actually HAVING and POSSESSING a desirable thing."
"Parents involuntarily make something like
themselves out of their children--they call that "education"; no mother
doubts at the bottom of her heart that the child she has borne is
thereby her property, no father hesitates about his right to HIS OWN
ideas and notions of worth."
More open-to-interpretation-by-Nazi-propagandists text: "The Jews...it is with THEM that
the SLAVE-INSURRECTION IN MORALS commences."
Some of his writing seems to be like entries in a journal, or notes written at random, to be included in or used for later, more pointed writing, e.g. "This for the chapter:
"Morals as Timidity.""; which recurs at the end of the subsequent para (198).
licentia morum:[freedom in behaviour, records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/nietzsche/beyondgoodandevil5.htm]
"...all sorts of commanders--parents, teachers, laws, class
prejudices, or public opinion. "
Things open to Nazi-way interpretation are immediately afterward deplored.
Double century [reminds me of the evening Sachin hit the first double ton in ODI history]
"...the conflict with themselves (that is to say, the faculty of self-control and
self-deception)..."
gregarious: seeking and enjoying the company of others [TheSage]
The Republic?: "A sympathetic action, for instance, is neither called good
nor bad, moral nor immoral, in the best period of the Romans; and should
it be praised, a sort of resentful disdain is compatible with this
praise, even at the best, directly the sympathetic action is compared
with one which contributes to the welfare of the whole, to the RES
PUBLICA. "
rapacity: reprehensible acquisitiveness; insatiable desire for wealth
calumny: a malicious attack
"... here again fear is the mother of morals."
"The lofty independent
spirituality, the will to stand alone, and even the cogent reason, are
felt to be dangers, everything that elevates the individual above the
herd, and is a source of fear to the neighbour, is henceforth called
EVIL, the tolerant, unassuming, self-adapting, self-equalizing
disposition, the MEDIOCRITY of desires, attains to moral distinction and
honour. "
Setting it up for Anthony Burgess?: "...it is certain that the idea of "punishment" and
"the obligation to punish" are then painful and alarming to people...."Is
it not sufficient if the criminal be rendered HARMLESS?"
And here we come to the uselessness of morality: "If one could at all do away with danger, the cause of fear,
one would have done away with this morality at the same time, it
would no longer be necessary, it WOULD NOT CONSIDER ITSELF any longer
necessary!"
"... our new insight is. We
have found that in all the principal moral judgments, Europe has become
unanimous, including likewise the countries where European influence
prevails [sic: lack of punctuation] in Europe people evidently KNOW what Socrates thought he
did not know, and what the famous serpent of old once promised to
teach--they "know" today what is good and evil."
Democracy, as "the inheritance of the Christian movement", is denounced, as are "...the anarchist dogs, who are now roving through the highways of European culture.", and Socialists, whose "formula" is Neither God nor master [everything2.com/title/Ni+Dieu+Ni+Maitre], are logically sounded off as "for when all are equal, no one needs "rights" any longer..."
Very rarely do I hear Buddhism called a threat, but Nietzsche posits it as one.
Inspiring stuff: "...fix our hopes? In
NEW PHILOSOPHERS--there is no other alternative: in minds strong and
original enough to initiate opposite estimates of value, to transvalue
and invert "eternal valuations"; in forerunners, in men of the future,
who in the present shall fix the constraints and fasten the knots which
will compel millenniums to take NEW paths. "
"...he knows with all the knowledge of his conviction how
unexhausted man still is for the greatest possibilities..."
CHAPTER VI. WE SCHOLARS
history, and in general only under the pressure of Christian sentiments,
that the sexual impulse sublimated into love (amour-passion)."
"...the question whether, in respect to the
valuation of things, instinct deserves more authority than rationality,
which wants to appreciate and act according to motives, according to
a "Why," that is to say, in conformity to purpose and utility"
"...the noble Athenians, who were men of instinct, like all noble men, and could
never give satisfactory answers concerning the motives of their actions?"
plebeian: of or associated with the great masses of people [TheSage]
Praise, and immediately after, shooting down: "...Descartes, the father of
rationalism (and consequently the grandfather of the Revolution), who
recognized only the authority of reason: but reason is only a tool, and
Descartes was superficial."
A big and relevant (to me) quote: "As little as a reader nowadays reads all the single words
(not to speak of syllables) of a page--he rather takes about five out
of every twenty words at random, and "guesses" the probably appropriate
sense to them--just as little do we see a tree correctly and completely
in respect to its leaves, branches, colour, and shape; we find it so
much easier to fancy the chance of a tree. Even in the midst of the
most remarkable experiences, we still do just the same; we fabricate the
greater part of the experience, and can hardly be made to contemplate
any event, EXCEPT as "inventors" thereof. All this goes to prove
that from our fundamental nature and from remote ages we have
been--ACCUSTOMED TO LYING. Or, to express it more politely and
hypocritically, in short, more pleasantly--one is much more of an artist
than one is aware of.--In an animated conversation, I often see the face
of the person with whom I am speaking so clearly and sharply defined
before me, according to the thought he expresses, or which I believe to
be evoked in his mind, that the degree of distinctness far exceeds the
STRENGTH of my visual faculty--the delicacy of the play of the muscles
and of the expression of the eyes MUST therefore be imagined by me.
Probably the person put on quite a different expression, or none at all."
Quidquid luce fuit, tenebris agit: What occurred in the light, goes on in the dark [Google search and (subsequently) jonathanjames.deviantart.com/art/Quidquid-luce-fuit-78936980]
Not very convincing para on dreams, with the example of flying.
"The difference among men...manifests itself much more in what they regard as
actually HAVING and POSSESSING a desirable thing."
"Parents involuntarily make something like
themselves out of their children--they call that "education"; no mother
doubts at the bottom of her heart that the child she has borne is
thereby her property, no father hesitates about his right to HIS OWN
ideas and notions of worth."
More open-to-interpretation-by-Nazi-propagandists text: "The Jews...it is with THEM that
the SLAVE-INSURRECTION IN MORALS commences."
Some of his writing seems to be like entries in a journal, or notes written at random, to be included in or used for later, more pointed writing, e.g. "This for the chapter:
"Morals as Timidity.""; which recurs at the end of the subsequent para (198).
licentia morum:[freedom in behaviour, records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/nietzsche/beyondgoodandevil5.htm]
"...all sorts of commanders--parents, teachers, laws, class
prejudices, or public opinion. "
Things open to Nazi-way interpretation are immediately afterward deplored.
Double century [reminds me of the evening Sachin hit the first double ton in ODI history]
"...the conflict with themselves (that is to say, the faculty of self-control and
self-deception)..."
gregarious: seeking and enjoying the company of others [TheSage]
The Republic?: "A sympathetic action, for instance, is neither called good
nor bad, moral nor immoral, in the best period of the Romans; and should
it be praised, a sort of resentful disdain is compatible with this
praise, even at the best, directly the sympathetic action is compared
with one which contributes to the welfare of the whole, to the RES
PUBLICA. "
rapacity: reprehensible acquisitiveness; insatiable desire for wealth
calumny: a malicious attack
"... here again fear is the mother of morals."
"The lofty independent
spirituality, the will to stand alone, and even the cogent reason, are
felt to be dangers, everything that elevates the individual above the
herd, and is a source of fear to the neighbour, is henceforth called
EVIL, the tolerant, unassuming, self-adapting, self-equalizing
disposition, the MEDIOCRITY of desires, attains to moral distinction and
honour. "
Setting it up for Anthony Burgess?: "...it is certain that the idea of "punishment" and
"the obligation to punish" are then painful and alarming to people...."Is
it not sufficient if the criminal be rendered HARMLESS?"
And here we come to the uselessness of morality: "If one could at all do away with danger, the cause of fear,
one would have done away with this morality at the same time, it
would no longer be necessary, it WOULD NOT CONSIDER ITSELF any longer
necessary!"
"... our new insight is. We
have found that in all the principal moral judgments, Europe has become
unanimous, including likewise the countries where European influence
prevails [sic: lack of punctuation] in Europe people evidently KNOW what Socrates thought he
did not know, and what the famous serpent of old once promised to
teach--they "know" today what is good and evil."
Democracy, as "the inheritance of the Christian movement", is denounced, as are "...the anarchist dogs, who are now roving through the highways of European culture.", and Socialists, whose "formula" is Neither God nor master [everything2.com/title/Ni+Dieu+Ni+Maitre], are logically sounded off as "for when all are equal, no one needs "rights" any longer..."
Very rarely do I hear Buddhism called a threat, but Nietzsche posits it as one.
Inspiring stuff: "...fix our hopes? In
NEW PHILOSOPHERS--there is no other alternative: in minds strong and
original enough to initiate opposite estimates of value, to transvalue
and invert "eternal valuations"; in forerunners, in men of the future,
who in the present shall fix the constraints and fasten the knots which
will compel millenniums to take NEW paths. "
"...he knows with all the knowledge of his conviction how
unexhausted man still is for the greatest possibilities..."
CHAPTER VI. WE SCHOLARS
"...one must have the right
out of one's own EXPERIENCE--experience, as it seems to me, always
implies unfortunate experience?..."
He scornfully speaks of artists, without (?) realizing he is an artist, of words, himself.
Sch comes in for a rebuking, as is his wont, this time for having "...succeeded in
severing the whole of the last generation of Germans from its connection
with German culture..."
I'd never heard of the "hotch-potch philosophers, who call themselves
"realists," or "positivists,"" - Eugen Duhring http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugen_D%C3%BChring and the amalgamist Eduard von Hartmann http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_von_Hartmann.
While rereading [intentionally; his diatribes are enwell-structured] to resume: "In short, systems of morals are only a
SIGN-LANGUAGE OF THE EMOTIONS." [187]
"Philosophy reduced to a "theory of knowledge,"..."
I agree with: "one might doubt whether this fruit ["the evolution of the philosopher"]
could still come to maturity. The extent and towering structure of the
sciences have increased enormously, and therewith also the probability
that the philosopher will grow tired even as a learner, or will attach
himself somewhere and "specialize" so that he will no longer attain to
his elevation, that is to say, to his superspection, his circumspection,
and his DESPECTION. " Knowing has no limits.
despection: A looking down; a despising. [TFD]
"It is perhaps just the refinement of his
intellectual conscience that makes him hesitate and linger on the
way, he dreads the temptation to become a dilettante, a millepede, a
milleantenna, he knows too well that as a discerner, one who has lost
his self-respect no longer commands, no longer LEADS, unless he should
aspire to become a great play-actor, a philosophical Cagliostro and
spiritual rat-catcher--in short, a misleader. This is in the last
instance a question of taste, if it has not really been a question of
conscience. "
"In fact [emphasis mine], the
philosopher has long been mistaken and confused by the multitude, either
with the scientific man and ideal scholar, or with the religiously
elevated, desensualized, desecularized visionary and God-intoxicated
man; and even yet when one hears anybody praised, because he lives
"wisely," or "as a philosopher," it hardly means anything more than
"prudently and apart." "
What sort of ambiguity is this?: "...either ENGENDERS or PRODUCES--both words understood in their fullest sense..."
A Thoreau-style para describing scientific men as ordinary folk contains "...Jesuitism of mediocrity...".
IPSISIMOSITY: prelim Google makes it a Niet-invented word
Somehow many fullstops have been missing in the last few portions of this e-text, I've started putting them in, maybe I'll send my Notepad file to Project Gutenberg...
"...the pessimist school, which has also in its turn good reasons for paying the
highest honours to "disinterested knowledge"."
"...the light footsteps and gliding-past of spiritual beings may not be lost..."
CAPUT MORTUUM : "
UN TOUR DE FORCE: “quite a feat.” [frenchfinest.wordpress.com/2011/05/06/un-tour-de-force/]
"He [the ideal man] is only genuine so far as he can be objective; only in his serene totality
is he still "nature" and "natural."
JE NE MEPRISE PRESQUE RIEN: "I despise almost nothing" [www.thenietzschechannel.com/works-pub/bge/bge6.htm]; presque means almost, and Niet asks his reader to "not overlook nor undervalue
the PRESQUE!"
We see why soon: "...but nothing in himself--PRESQUE RIEN!"
"The objective man is an instrument,
a costly, easily injured, easily tarnished measuring instrument and
mirroring apparatus, which is to be taken care of and respected; but he
is no goal, not outgoing nor upgoing, no complementary man in whom the
REST of existence justifies itself, no termination--and still less a
commencement, an engendering, or primary cause, nothing hardy, powerful,
self-centred, that wants to be master; but rather only a soft, inflated,
delicate, movable potter's-form, that must wait for some kind of content
and frame to "shape" itself thereto--for the most part a man without
frame and content, a "selfless" man."
oakum: Loose hemp or jute fiber, sometimes treated with tar, creosote, or asphalt, used chiefly for caulking seams in wooden ships and packing pipe joints. [TFD]
Skepticism and its practitioners - skeptics - are pitied, it seems to me, by Niet. How skepticism has been unavoidable in "the new generation" and society is assigned a reasoning.
"...the courageous feeling of pleasure in willing..."
The recent EU formation and its ongoing economic difficulties is almost predicted: "Our present-day Europe...blending of classes, and CONSEQUENTLY of races, is therefore skeptical in all its
heights and depths, sometimes exhibiting the mobile skepticism which
springs impatiently and wantonly from branch to branch, sometimes with
gloomy aspect, like a cloud over-charged with interrogative signs--and
often sick unto death of its will!", and, as is his wont, with none too pleasing results - for philosophy, at least.
"Paralysis of will, where do we not
find this cripple sitting nowadays!"
'we try to get what has been forbidden for us, and we always want whatever we have been refused' http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060821225312AAHti9X
True this: "...began
to entertain thoughts about matters which did not concern me--the first
symptom of political infection. "
Directly in opposition to Nazism: "...it would perhaps be useful
and fair to banish the anti-Semitic bawlers out of the country. "
English philosophers and philosophy - the lack of it - is sounded out unabashedly.
Again the ellipsis in the style I like and employ: "But I ask
too much..."
"realists," or "positivists,"" - Eugen Duhring http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugen_D%C3%BChring and the amalgamist Eduard von Hartmann http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_von_Hartmann.
While rereading [intentionally; his diatribes are enwell-structured] to resume: "In short, systems of morals are only a
SIGN-LANGUAGE OF THE EMOTIONS." [187]
"Philosophy reduced to a "theory of knowledge,"..."
I agree with: "one might doubt whether this fruit ["the evolution of the philosopher"]
could still come to maturity. The extent and towering structure of the
sciences have increased enormously, and therewith also the probability
that the philosopher will grow tired even as a learner, or will attach
himself somewhere and "specialize" so that he will no longer attain to
his elevation, that is to say, to his superspection, his circumspection,
and his DESPECTION. " Knowing has no limits.
despection: A looking down; a despising. [TFD]
"It is perhaps just the refinement of his
intellectual conscience that makes him hesitate and linger on the
way, he dreads the temptation to become a dilettante, a millepede, a
milleantenna, he knows too well that as a discerner, one who has lost
his self-respect no longer commands, no longer LEADS, unless he should
aspire to become a great play-actor, a philosophical Cagliostro and
spiritual rat-catcher--in short, a misleader. This is in the last
instance a question of taste, if it has not really been a question of
conscience. "
"In fact [emphasis mine], the
philosopher has long been mistaken and confused by the multitude, either
with the scientific man and ideal scholar, or with the religiously
elevated, desensualized, desecularized visionary and God-intoxicated
man; and even yet when one hears anybody praised, because he lives
"wisely," or "as a philosopher," it hardly means anything more than
"prudently and apart." "
What sort of ambiguity is this?: "...either ENGENDERS or PRODUCES--both words understood in their fullest sense..."
A Thoreau-style para describing scientific men as ordinary folk contains "...Jesuitism of mediocrity...".
IPSISIMOSITY: prelim Google makes it a Niet-invented word
Somehow many fullstops have been missing in the last few portions of this e-text, I've started putting them in, maybe I'll send my Notepad file to Project Gutenberg...
"...the pessimist school, which has also in its turn good reasons for paying the
highest honours to "disinterested knowledge"."
"...the light footsteps and gliding-past of spiritual beings may not be lost..."
CAPUT MORTUUM : "
UN TOUR DE FORCE: “quite a feat.” [frenchfinest.wordpress.com/2011/05/06/un-tour-de-force/]
"He [the ideal man] is only genuine so far as he can be objective; only in his serene totality
is he still "nature" and "natural."
JE NE MEPRISE PRESQUE RIEN: "I despise almost nothing" [www.thenietzschechannel.com/works-pub/bge/bge6.htm]; presque means almost, and Niet asks his reader to "not overlook nor undervalue
the PRESQUE!"
We see why soon: "...but nothing in himself--PRESQUE RIEN!"
"The objective man is an instrument,
a costly, easily injured, easily tarnished measuring instrument and
mirroring apparatus, which is to be taken care of and respected; but he
is no goal, not outgoing nor upgoing, no complementary man in whom the
REST of existence justifies itself, no termination--and still less a
commencement, an engendering, or primary cause, nothing hardy, powerful,
self-centred, that wants to be master; but rather only a soft, inflated,
delicate, movable potter's-form, that must wait for some kind of content
and frame to "shape" itself thereto--for the most part a man without
frame and content, a "selfless" man."
oakum: Loose hemp or jute fiber, sometimes treated with tar, creosote, or asphalt, used chiefly for caulking seams in wooden ships and packing pipe joints. [TFD]
Skepticism and its practitioners - skeptics - are pitied, it seems to me, by Niet. How skepticism has been unavoidable in "the new generation" and society is assigned a reasoning.
"...the courageous feeling of pleasure in willing..."
The recent EU formation and its ongoing economic difficulties is almost predicted: "Our present-day Europe...blending of classes, and CONSEQUENTLY of races, is therefore skeptical in all its
heights and depths, sometimes exhibiting the mobile skepticism which
springs impatiently and wantonly from branch to branch, sometimes with
gloomy aspect, like a cloud over-charged with interrogative signs--and
often sick unto death of its will!", and, as is his wont, with none too pleasing results - for philosophy, at least.
"Paralysis of will, where do we not
find this cripple sitting nowadays!"
Europe's
"disease" is found country-by-country, not exhaustively but
whimsically, almost stereotypically. Russia's scientific temperament is
referred to. More missing fullstops...he expresses: "...in my heart I
should rather prefer the
contrary--I mean such
an increase in the threatening attitude of
Russia, that Europe
would have to make up its mind to become equally
threatening--namely,
TO ACQUIRE ONE WILL, by means of a new caste to
rule over the
Continent, a persistent, dreadful will of its own, that
can set its aims
thousands of years ahead; so that the long spun-out
comedy of its
petty-statism, and its dynastic as well as its democratic
many-willed-ness,
might finally be brought to a close. "
"...MEN WERE
LACKING..."
"...Fredericianism...",
a Niet-coined word?
Positivity and
negativity in one sentence combined, is that an oxymoronic sentence?
"...the great German philologists and historical critics (who,
rightly estimated,
were also all of them artists of destruction
and
dissolution)..."
CET ESPRIT FATALISTE,
IRONIQUE, MEPHISTOPHELIQUE - Michelet
"...the
philosophers of the
future...might
call themselves
critics, and assuredly they will be men of experiments."
Reminiscent of
Phaedrus'/Pirsig's kinfe of Quality: "...a certain considerate cruelty,
which knows
how to handle the
knife surely and deftly, even when the heart bleeds."
I wonder, if Niet knew
so much about the philosophers of the future, why he didn't become one. Did he
go mad trying to? The truth is out there (X-Files -- I don't know why I
suddenly feel about these copyright things, maybe it's because of the
Rushdie ruckus).
Times do not change
much, even if technology does: "...our very uncertain and
consequently very
conciliatory century...".
I wonder who he
quotes: ""philosophy itself is
criticism and critical
science--and nothing else whatever!" "
Titles of Kant's
principal works:
"Even the great
Chinaman of
Konigsberg was only a
great critic."
Ah! I agree (or Niet
agreed with me, in the past) that experience counts. A factotum, to apply a
word I admire.
"THE REAL
PHILOSOPHERS,
HOWEVER, ARE
COMMANDERS AND LAW-GIVERS; they say: "Thus SHALL it be!"...they grasp
at the future with a creative
hand, and whatever is
and was, becomes for them thereby a means, an
instrument, and a
hammer. Their "knowing" is CREATING, their creating
is a law-giving, their
will to truth is--WILL TO POWER." And at the end of this para [211] he
uses the ellipsis (or this e-text version does; either way).
aggrandizement: The
act of increasing the wealth or prestige or power or scope of something.
[TheSage]
dissemble: Make
believe with the intent to deceive; behave unnaturally or affectedly; hide
under a false appearance [TheSage]
plenipotence
"...beyond
good and evil..."
He has no faith on his
contemporaries. My view on experience is further cemented - "It is
difficult to learn what a philosopher is, because it cannot
be taught: one must
"know" it by experience --or one should have the
pride NOT to know
it."
Another word I've
encountered after a long time, moreover one with happy after-thoughts - presto.
"...the highest
problems repel ruthlessly every one who
ventures too near
them, without being predestined for their solution
by the loftiness and
power of his spirituality. "
Mis-interpretable
thoughts, again: "People have always
to be born to a high
station, or, more definitely, they have to be BRED
for it: a person has
only a right to philosophy--taking the word in
its higher
significance--in virtue of his descent; the ancestors, the
"blood,"
decide here also. "
This resonates what I
feel these days: "...the feeling of separation from the multitude with
their duties and
virtues..."
This writing reminds
me of Ginsberg's ranting, with its punctuation, continuous accursedness,
unrelenting tirades and a far-better-than-the-world-around-me standpoint.
CHAPTER VII. OUR
VIRTUES
"...so many
things get quite lost! "; yes, quite, completely lost even though they had
been there some time in the newly recent past. Material things that I don't
remember giving away nor them being in any conceivable threat from theft. The
unsolved mysteries of life...
Good conscience comes
in for a hammering: "..."good conscience," that long, respectable
pigtail of an idea,
which our grandfathers
used to hang behind their heads, and often enough
also behind their
understandings? "
Harbinger of revolution, albeit a
philosophical revolution: “Ah! if you only knew how
soon, so very soon--it will be different!”
Oh! Cosmic knowledge: "215. As in the stellar firmament there are
sometimes two suns which
determine the path of
one planet, and in certain cases suns of different
colours shine around a
single planet, now with red light, now with
green, and then
simultaneously illumine and flood it with motley
colours: so we modern
men, owing to the complicated mechanism of our
"firmament,"
are determined by DIFFERENT moralities; our actions shine
alternately in
different colours, and are seldom unequivocal--and there
are often cases, also,
in which our actions are MOTLEY-COLOURED."
"...Voltairean
bitterness against religion ..."
"Blessed are the
forgetful: for they "get the better" even of
their blunders."
And here, a question I
can answer! "The psychologists of France--and where else are there still
psychologists
nowadays?" America! By the by, Kafka's ever-present K. would have
benefited tremendously from one during his travail.
betise : a stupid
mistake [TheSage]
"..."instinct"
is the most intelligent
of all kinds of
intelligence which have hitherto been discovered. "
To coin a phrase from
Hindi, my native tongue, tera danda tere sur, meaning your stick on
your head, for psychologists: "In
short, you
psychologists, study the philosophy of the "rule" in its
struggle with the
"exception": there you have a spectacle fit for Gods
and godlike malignity!
Or, in plainer words, practise vivisection on
"good
people," on the "homo bonae voluntatis," ON YOURSELVES!"
Isn’t today’s world too full of these: “The
practice of judging and condemning morally, is the favourite
revenge of the intellectually shallow on
those who are less so, it is
also a kind of indemnity for their being
badly endowed by nature,
and finally, it is an opportunity for
acquiring spirit and BECOMING
subtle--malice spiritualises.”
Perhaps I see why Niet’s thoughts were
scandalous in their time. I do think that one can act “disinterestedly”,
though. Some rambling ensues.
This draws a smile from me: “And after all,
truth is a woman; one
must not use force with her.”
Something that might be inferred from Sch’s
how-to-win-an-argument tips? “But one should not be
too much in the right if one wishes to have
the laughers on ONE'S OWN
side; a grain of wrong pertains even to
good taste.” :D
“The man of
"modern ideas," the conceited
ape, is excessively dissatisfied with
himself--this is perfectly certain.”
The fullstops are back, a welcome change. “…moribus
et artibus…”
“…perhaps, though nothing
else of the present have a future, our
laughter itself may have a
future!” – a shout out to Comedy Central
for launching in India, and another to technology for making laughter (among
other things) permanent, as can be.
IGNOBLE: completely lacking nobility in
character or quality or purpose [TheSage]
Shakespeare makes an appearance to be
slandered: “…that marvelous
Spanish-Moorish-Saxon synthesis of taste,
over whom an ancient Athenian
of the circle of AEschylus would have
half-killed himself with laughter
or irritation: but we--accept precisely
this wild motleyness, this
medley of the most delicate, the most
coarse, and the most artificial,
with a secret confidence and cordiality; we
enjoy it as a refinement
of art reserved expressly for us, and allow
ourselves to be as little
disturbed by the repulsive fumes and the
proximity of the English
populace in which Shakespeare's art and
taste lives, as perhaps on
the Chiaja of Naples, where, with all our
senses awake, we go our way,
enchanted and voluntarily, in spite of the
drain-odour of the lower
quarters of the town.”
An echo of my desire for space exploration:
“PROPORTIONATENESS is strange to us, let us confess it
to ourselves; our itching is really the
itching for the infinite, the
immeasurable.”
Eudaemonism: in ethics, a self-realization theory that makes happiness or personal well-being the chief good for man. www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/194960/eudaemonism
“OUR sympathy is a loftier and
further-sighted sympathy:--we
see how MAN dwarfs himself, how YOU dwarf
him! and there are moments
when we view YOUR sympathy with an
indescribable anguish, when we resist
it,--when we regard your seriousness as
more dangerous than any kind
of levity.”
I, for one, do not quite understand the
“contrast”: “In man CREATURE and CREATOR
are united: in man there is not only
matter, shred, excess, clay, mire,
folly, chaos; but there is also the
creator, the sculptor, the hardness
of the hammer, the divinity of the
spectator, and the seventh day--do
ye understand this contrast?”
NITIMUR IN VETITUM: from ovid's fourth elegy and means:
'we try to get what has been forbidden for us, and we always want whatever we have been refused' http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060821225312AAHti9X
Avidiously: Eagerly; greedily [TFD]
“Every virtue inclines to stupidity, every
stupidity to virtue…”
A hundred times seconded: “Is not life
a hundred times too short for us--to bore
ourselves? One would have to
believe in eternal life in order to...”
[ellipsis not mine]
A study in diplomacy? A tad defensive? “I
hope to be forgiven for discovering that all moral philosophy
hitherto has been tedious and has belonged
to the soporific
appliances--and that "virtue," in
my opinion, has been MORE injured
by the TEDIOUSNESS of its advocates than by
anything else; at the same
time, however, I would not wish to overlook
their general usefulness.”
CE SENATEUR POCOCURANTE – Galiani - probably something from Voltaire to emphasize his point...
Through this, methinks, he dissuades people
from others’ writings – or instigating them to read them through reverse
psycho, just to coin a pop phrase – “…these moralists (whom one must certainly
read with an
eye to their motives if one MUST read
them)…”
Questions for the reader: “(Is not a
moralist the opposite of a Puritan?
That is to say, as a thinker who regards
morality as questionable,
as worthy of interrogation, in short, as a
problem? Is moralizing
not-immoral?)”
Hitting the nail on the head: “…the
requirement of one morality for all is really a detriment to
higher men…”
An attempt at poetry: “Hail, ye worthies,
barrow-wheeling,
"Longer--better," aye revealing,
Stiffer aye in head and knee;
Unenraptured, never jesting,
Mediocre everlasting,
SANS GENIE ET SANS ESPRIT!”
“"milk of pious sentiment"
[FOOTNOTE: An expression from Schiller's
William Tell, Act IV, Scene
3.]”
In para 229 he has used “cruelty” quite a
few times, seeking to establish it as an ultimate ulterior masochistic motive
for human actions, “…by the dangerous thrill of cruelty TOWARDS
HIMSELF… even in every desire for knowledge
there
is a drop of cruelty.”
At the outset of 230 he explains he is
going to elaborate on "fundamental will of the
spirit", and truthfully proceeds to do
so. “"the spirit,"… has the will of a multiplicity for a
simplicity, a binding, taming, imperious,
and essentially ruling will… everything that lives, grows, and multiplies.”
Humour? Sarcasm? “…its "digestive
power," to speak figuratively (and
in fact "the spirit" resembles a
stomach more than anything else).”
Cruelty slides in again, and I agree with
the overall tone of the sentence – half-mocking, half-daring for the free
spirits he keeps including himself in: “In fact, it would sound nicer, if,
instead of our cruelty, perhaps
our "extravagant honesty" were
talked about, whispered about, and
glorified--we free, VERY free spirits--and
some day perhaps SUCH will
actually be our--posthumous glory!
Meanwhile--for there is plenty of
time until then--we should be least
inclined to deck ourselves out in
such florid and fringed moral verbiage; our
whole former work has
just made us sick of this taste and its
sprightly exuberance.”
Frippery: something of little value or
significance [TheSage]
HOMO NATURA; I guess it means human beings as nature made us.
Admitting his failure to solve (moral)
philosophical questions? “
"Why knowledge at all?" Every one
will ask us about this. And thus
pressed, we, who have asked ourselves the
question a hundred times, have
not found and cannot find any better
answer....”
Saint Aristophanes; women get an
unrelenting rant directed at them: “…her great art is
falsehood, her chief concern is appearance
and beauty.”
mulier taceat in ecclesia/politicis/mulierel
– last one is women or woman, I’m guessing. [upon checking after regaining the Net, I find I'm wrong]
Let the woman be silent in church www.yuni.com/library/latin_4.html
/politics/ many(?) [G Trans]
Laughable, for me at least, having only the
very rudimentary culinary skills myself: “Woman does not understand what food
means, and she
insists on being cook!” And, surprise
surprise, a word of direct advice in so many words! “A word to High School
girls.”
"MON AMI, NE VOUS PERMETTEZ JAMAIS QUE
DES FOLIES,
QUI VOUS FERONT GRAND PLAISIR" -
Madame de
Lambert - Google Translate: MY FRIEND, DO NOT LET THAT follies, which will make GREAT PLEASURE
Ennui: the feeling of being bored by
something tedious [TheSage]
What’s a jenny-ass?
After going on for some length in denying
women equality, “…in a word, woman is
losing modesty. And let us immediately add
that she is also losing
taste. She is unlearning to FEAR man: but
the woman who "unlearns to
fear" sacrifices her most womanly
instincts.”
Loquacious: full of trivial conversation
[TheSage]
:D “…the learned asses of the masculine sex…”
I feel certain he is only alienating women
from his perceptibly limited readership. Bad-mouthing people is tough enough,
here he strikes off almost half of the total sample (assuming men are greater
in number than women).
I wonder who his contemporaries were in
music: “…the most morbid and dangerous kind of music
(our latest German music)…”, and another
extreme viewpoint: “…her first and last function, that of
bearing robust children.”
CHAPTER VIII. PEOPLES AND COUNTRIES
Oxymoron sentence (not that I mind)? “…once
again for the first time…”
An ode to verbosity in giving odes: “It
impresses us at one time as ancient, at
another time as foreign, bitter,
and too modern, it is as arbitrary as it is
pompously traditional, it
is not infrequently roguish, still oftener
rough and coarse--it has fire
and courage, and at the same time the
loose, dun-coloured skin of fruits
which ripen too late. It flows broad and
full: and suddenly there is a
moment of inexplicable hesitation, like a
gap that opens between cause
and effect, an oppression that makes us
dream, almost a nightmare; but
already it broadens and widens anew, the
old stream of delight--the most
manifold delight,--of old and new
happiness; including ESPECIALLY
the joy of the artist in himself, which he
refuses to conceal, his
astonished, happy cognizance of his mastery
of the expedients here
employed, the new, newly acquired,
imperfectly tested expedients of art
which he apparently betrays to us.”
“This kind of music
expresses best what I think of the Germans:
they belong to the day
before yesterday and the day after
tomorrow--THEY HAVE AS YET NO TODAY.”
Oh, so the preceding extolling para was “…a
warm-hearted patriotism, a plunge and
relapse into old loves and narrow
views…”
“…while digressing on this possibility…” –
digress as much as you want, old fellow, it is a trait of all philosophers,
methinks. How else could you get so much written down?
I wonder if the ‘i’ in politicis is
intentional or a typo.
Proclivities – natural inclinations
[TheSage]
While listening to a conversation: “…in my
happiness and apartness…”
Panegyrist – an orator who delivers
eulogies or formal expressions of praise [TheSage]
He accurately forecasts some traits of present (2012) people:
“…the STRONG man will necessarily in individual and
exceptional cases, become stronger and
richer than he has perhaps ever
been before--owing to the unprejudicedness
of his schooling, owing to
the immense variety of practice, art, and
disguise.”
Mis-interpretable words: “…a
preponderance of the pre-Aryan element as
the "people of the centre" in
every sense of the term, the Germans are
more intangible, more ample,
more contradictory, more unknown, more
incalculable, more surprising,
and even more terrifying than other peoples
are to themselves:--they
escape DEFINITION, and are thereby alone
the despair of the French.”
Kotzebue en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_von_Kotzebue
Goethe en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe
Jean Paul en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Paul
Fichte en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Gottlieb_Fichte
C’mon, about which people is this not true? “…it is
characteristic of Germans that one is
seldom entirely wrong about them.”
crepuscular – like twilight; dim [TheSage]
Uncannily accurate forecasting, again:
“"Development" is
therefore the essentially German discovery
and hit in the great domain
of philosophical formulas,--a ruling idea,
which, together with German
beer and German music, is labouring to
Germanise all Europe.”
ad oculos: by eye; visually [Wiktionary]
Are they? “…we are not called the
"TIUSCHE VOLK" (deceptive people) for
nothing....”
NOLI ME TANGERE: touch me not, from the Bible
My thanks to the translator: “What a
torture are books written in German to a reader who has a
THIRD ear!”
Musicians in general he praises; writers
not so much.
Should I act on his advice and start
reading aloud to myself, “…with all the swellings, inflections, and
variations of key and changes of TEMPO, in
which the ancient PUBLIC
world took delight.”? I’ve never read aloud
to myself, only when others are around. I don’t see the point, so I won’t. Even
regarding his power of lungs point, I’d rather get my exercise from Eminem.
Path to becoming a “…dilettanti in
speaking, consequently
connoisseurs, consequently critics…”?
Clear dichotomy: “There are two kinds of
geniuses: one which above all engenders and
seeks to engender, and another which
willingly lets itself be fructified
and brings forth.”
Completely non-misinterpretable words: “…we artists among the
spectators and philosophers, are--grateful to
the Jews.” And not sarcastically, either, followed, in a turnaround, by
defaming words, and then again with praise as being able to survive (even better) under adverse conditions.True this: "...began
to entertain thoughts about matters which did not concern me--the first
symptom of political infection. "
Directly in opposition to Nazism: "...it would perhaps be useful
and fair to banish the anti-Semitic bawlers out of the country. "
English philosophers and philosophy - the lack of it - is sounded out unabashedly.
Again the ellipsis in the style I like and employ: "But I ask
too much..."
"It
would be an error to consider the highly developed and independently
soaring minds as specially qualified for determining and collecting many
little common facts, and deducing conclusions from them; as exceptions,
they are rather from the first in no very favourable position towards
those who are "the rules.""
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Heine
"There are, however, three things which the
French can still boast of with pride as their heritage and possession...the capacity for artistic emotion...their ancient, many-sided, MORALISTIC
culture...in the French character there is a
successful half-way synthesis of the North and South..."
We've encountered this name before as Stendahl, I think: Henry Beyle en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stendhal
"There is also still in France a pre-understanding and
ready welcome for those rarer and rarely gratified men, who are too
comprehensive to find satisfaction in any kind of fatherlandism, and
know how to love the South when in the North and the North when in the
South--the born Midlanders, the "good Europeans." "
I wonder if the use of "o'erspreads" is at the translator's discretion.
More forecasting the European Union: "...the most unmistakable signs that EUROPE WISHES TO BE ONE,
are now overlooked, or arbitrarily and falsely misinterpreted. "
Some people he has been kind to: Napoleon, Goethe, Beethoven, Stendhal, Heinrich Heine, Schopenhauer...Wagner. Elaboration of the shortcomings of people resumes and leads us into the next chapter.
CHAPTER IX. WHAT IS NOBLE?
"...a long scale of gradations of rank and differences of worth among human
beings, and requiring slavery in some form or other. "
"...in short, just the elevation of the type "man,"
the continued "self-surmounting of man," to use a moral formula in
a supermoral sense. "
Notions of socialism (equality of men) are dispelled, followed by: "...life IS precisely Will to
Power. "
"...the intrinsic Will to Power, which is precisely the Will to
Life--Granting that as a theory this is a novelty--as a reality it is
the FUNDAMENTAL FACT of all history ..."
"There is MASTER-MORALITY and
SLAVE-MORALITY,--I would at once add, however, that in all higher and
mixed civilizations, there are also attempts at the reconciliation of
the two moralities, but one finds still oftener the confusion and
mutual misunderstanding of them, indeed sometimes their close
juxtaposition--even in the same man, within one soul. "
PLENITUDE: 1. An ample amount or quantity; an abundance
2. The condition of being full, ample, or complete.[TFD]
DESINTERESSEMENT: disinterest, disinterestedness, unselfishness, detachment [en.wiktionary.org/wiki/désintéressement]
RAFFINEMENT :refinement in Ger. [http://www.dict.cc/german-english/Raffinement.html]
"Slave-morality is essentially the morality of utility.Here is the seat of the origin of the famous antithesis "good" and
"evil":--power and dangerousness are assumed to reside in the evil,
a certain dreadfulness, subtlety, and strength, which do not admit of
being despised. "
un bonhomme: a guy [ :D Google Translate, I tell you]
artifice: a deceptive maneuver (especially to avoid capture) [The Sage]
gai saber [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gai_Saber]
atavism [again]: Atavism is the tendency to revert to ancestral type. [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atavism]
Does he (perhaps unknowingly/unintentionally) acknowledge genetics and heredity? "...the blending of the blood
of masters and slaves..."
[Later it becomes clear he DOES]
"--And to repeat it again: vanity is
an atavism."
"The most varied experience teaches it [a species]
what are the qualities to which it principally owes the fact that
it still exists, in spite of all Gods and men, and has hitherto been
victorious: these qualities it calls virtues, and these virtues alone
it develops to maturity. "
"He whose task and practice it is to investigate souls,
will avail himself of many varieties of this very art to determine the
ultimate value of a soul, the unalterable, innate order of rank to which
it belongs: he will test it by its INSTINCT FOR REVERENCE. DIFFERENCE
ENGENDRE HAINE: the vulgarity of many a nature spurts up suddenly like
dirty water, when any holy vessel, any jewel from closed shrines, any
book bearing the marks of great destiny, is brought before it; while
on the other hand, there is an involuntary silence, a hesitation of the
eye, a cessation of all gestures, by which it is indicated that a soul
FEELS the nearness of what is worthiest of respect. "
"...books of such profoundness
and supreme significance require for their protection an external
tyranny of authority, in order to acquire the PERIOD of thousands of
years which is necessary to exhaust and unriddle them. " Does he aspire his works to attain this?
Haww..."...the boobies of every kind..."
DEMIMONDE : Demi-monde refers to a group of people who live hedonistic lifestyles, usually in a flagrant and conspicuous manner. [Wiki]
"It is quite impossible for a man NOT to have
the qualities and predilections of his parents and ancestors in his
constitution, whatever appearances may suggest to the contrary. This is
the problem of race. "
"...any kind
of offensive incontinence, any kind of sordid envy, or of clumsy
self-vaunting--the three things which together have constituted the
genuine plebeian type in all times..."
"One must appeal to immense opposing forces,
in order to thwart this natural, all-too-natural PROGRESSUS IN SIMILE,
the evolution of man to the similar, the ordinary, the average, the
gregarious--to the IGNOBLE--!"
beings, and requiring slavery in some form or other. "
"...in short, just the elevation of the type "man,"
the continued "self-surmounting of man," to use a moral formula in
a supermoral sense. "
Notions of socialism (equality of men) are dispelled, followed by: "...life IS precisely Will to
Power. "
"...the intrinsic Will to Power, which is precisely the Will to
Life--Granting that as a theory this is a novelty--as a reality it is
the FUNDAMENTAL FACT of all history ..."
"There is MASTER-MORALITY and
SLAVE-MORALITY,--I would at once add, however, that in all higher and
mixed civilizations, there are also attempts at the reconciliation of
the two moralities, but one finds still oftener the confusion and
mutual misunderstanding of them, indeed sometimes their close
juxtaposition--even in the same man, within one soul. "
PLENITUDE: 1. An ample amount or quantity; an abundance
2. The condition of being full, ample, or complete.[TFD]
DESINTERESSEMENT: disinterest, disinterestedness, unselfishness, detachment [en.wiktionary.org/wiki/désintéressement]
RAFFINEMENT :refinement in Ger. [http://www.dict.cc/german-english/Raffinement.html]
"Slave-morality is essentially the morality of utility.Here is the seat of the origin of the famous antithesis "good" and
"evil":--power and dangerousness are assumed to reside in the evil,
a certain dreadfulness, subtlety, and strength, which do not admit of
being despised. "
un bonhomme: a guy [ :D Google Translate, I tell you]
artifice: a deceptive maneuver (especially to avoid capture) [The Sage]
gai saber [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gai_Saber]
atavism [again]: Atavism is the tendency to revert to ancestral type. [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atavism]
Does he (perhaps unknowingly/unintentionally) acknowledge genetics and heredity? "...the blending of the blood
of masters and slaves..."
[Later it becomes clear he DOES]
"--And to repeat it again: vanity is
an atavism."
"The most varied experience teaches it [a species]
what are the qualities to which it principally owes the fact that
it still exists, in spite of all Gods and men, and has hitherto been
victorious: these qualities it calls virtues, and these virtues alone
it develops to maturity. "
"He whose task and practice it is to investigate souls,
will avail himself of many varieties of this very art to determine the
ultimate value of a soul, the unalterable, innate order of rank to which
it belongs: he will test it by its INSTINCT FOR REVERENCE. DIFFERENCE
ENGENDRE HAINE: the vulgarity of many a nature spurts up suddenly like
dirty water, when any holy vessel, any jewel from closed shrines, any
book bearing the marks of great destiny, is brought before it; while
on the other hand, there is an involuntary silence, a hesitation of the
eye, a cessation of all gestures, by which it is indicated that a soul
FEELS the nearness of what is worthiest of respect. "
"...books of such profoundness
and supreme significance require for their protection an external
tyranny of authority, in order to acquire the PERIOD of thousands of
years which is necessary to exhaust and unriddle them. " Does he aspire his works to attain this?
Haww..."...the boobies of every kind..."
DEMIMONDE : Demi-monde refers to a group of people who live hedonistic lifestyles, usually in a flagrant and conspicuous manner. [Wiki]
"It is quite impossible for a man NOT to have
the qualities and predilections of his parents and ancestors in his
constitution, whatever appearances may suggest to the contrary. This is
the problem of race. "
"...any kind
of offensive incontinence, any kind of sordid envy, or of clumsy
self-vaunting--the three things which together have constituted the
genuine plebeian type in all times..."
"One must appeal to immense opposing forces,
in order to thwart this natural, all-too-natural PROGRESSUS IN SIMILE,
the evolution of man to the similar, the ordinary, the average, the
gregarious--to the IGNOBLE--!"
"Alas, he who knows the heart finds out how poor,
helpless, pretentious, and blundering even the best and deepest love
is--he finds that it rather DESTROYS than saves!"
"Profound suffering makes noble:
it separates."
Epicurism: 1. the cultivation of a refined taste, as in food, art, music, etc.; connoisseurship.
2. a devotion or adaptation to luxurious tastes, especially in drinking and eating, or to indulgence in sensual pleasures. [TFD]
"...it is the part of a more refined humanity to have reverence "for the mask,"
and not to make use of psychology and curiosity in the wrong place."
"THE PROBLEM OF THOSE WHO WAIT.--Happy chances are necessary, and
many incalculable elements, in order that a higher man in whom the
solution of a problem is dormant, may yet take action, or "break forth,"
as one might say--at the right moment. On an average it DOES NOT happen;
and in all corners of the earth there are waiting ones sitting who
hardly know to what extent they are waiting, and still less that they
wait in vain. Occasionally, too, the waking call comes too late--the
chance which gives "permission" to take action--when their best youth,
and strength for action have been used up in sitting still; and how many
a one, just as he "sprang up," has found with horror that his limbs are
benumbed and his spirits are now too heavy! "It is too late," he has
said to himself--and has become self-distrustful and henceforth for ever
useless."
"There must be a sort of repugnance
in me to BELIEVE anything definite about myself."
"...an unconquerable distrust of the
POSSIBILITY of self-knowledge..."
"...one's four virtues, courage,
insight, sympathy, and solitude."
Scientific/astronomical knowledge: "The light of the furthest stars is longest in reaching man..."
"There are men who are unavoidably intellectual..." - this, and the preceding para (287; "...this very NEED of nobleness is radically
different from the needs of the noble soul itself, and is in fact the
eloquent and dangerous sign of the lack thereof." ) cement my perception of myself as a) NOT a noble soul and b) intellectual. ;)
Disagree with the last part: "The recluse does not believe
that a philosopher--supposing that a philosopher has always in the first
place been a recluse--ever expressed his actual and ultimate opinions in
books: are not books written precisely to hide what is in us?" I put down my thoughts in words so that I can store them, save them, perhaps with the hoity-toity belief that they will be considered literary platinum some day.
"290. Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being
misunderstood. The latter perhaps wounds his vanity; but the former
wounds his heart, his sympathy, which always says: "Ah, why would you
also have as hard a time of it as I have?" "
helpless, pretentious, and blundering even the best and deepest love
is--he finds that it rather DESTROYS than saves!"
"Profound suffering makes noble:
it separates."
Epicurism: 1. the cultivation of a refined taste, as in food, art, music, etc.; connoisseurship.
2. a devotion or adaptation to luxurious tastes, especially in drinking and eating, or to indulgence in sensual pleasures. [TFD]
"...it is the part of a more refined humanity to have reverence "for the mask,"
and not to make use of psychology and curiosity in the wrong place."
"THE PROBLEM OF THOSE WHO WAIT.--Happy chances are necessary, and
many incalculable elements, in order that a higher man in whom the
solution of a problem is dormant, may yet take action, or "break forth,"
as one might say--at the right moment. On an average it DOES NOT happen;
and in all corners of the earth there are waiting ones sitting who
hardly know to what extent they are waiting, and still less that they
wait in vain. Occasionally, too, the waking call comes too late--the
chance which gives "permission" to take action--when their best youth,
and strength for action have been used up in sitting still; and how many
a one, just as he "sprang up," has found with horror that his limbs are
benumbed and his spirits are now too heavy! "It is too late," he has
said to himself--and has become self-distrustful and henceforth for ever
useless."
"There must be a sort of repugnance
in me to BELIEVE anything definite about myself."
"...an unconquerable distrust of the
POSSIBILITY of self-knowledge..."
"...one's four virtues, courage,
insight, sympathy, and solitude."
Scientific/astronomical knowledge: "The light of the furthest stars is longest in reaching man..."
"There are men who are unavoidably intellectual..." - this, and the preceding para (287; "...this very NEED of nobleness is radically
different from the needs of the noble soul itself, and is in fact the
eloquent and dangerous sign of the lack thereof." ) cement my perception of myself as a) NOT a noble soul and b) intellectual. ;)
Disagree with the last part: "The recluse does not believe
that a philosopher--supposing that a philosopher has always in the first
place been a recluse--ever expressed his actual and ultimate opinions in
books: are not books written precisely to hide what is in us?" I put down my thoughts in words so that I can store them, save them, perhaps with the hoity-toity belief that they will be considered literary platinum some day.
"290. Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being
misunderstood. The latter perhaps wounds his vanity; but the former
wounds his heart, his sympathy, which always says: "Ah, why would you
also have as hard a time of it as I have?" "
"Man, a COMPLEX, mendacious, artful, and inscrutable animal, uncanny
to the other animals by his artifice and sagacity, rather than by his
strength, has invented the good conscience in order finally to enjoy his
soul as something SIMPLE; and the whole of morality is a long, audacious
falsification, by virtue of which generally enjoyment at the sight of
the soul becomes possible."
"292. A philosopher: that is a man who constantly experiences, sees,
hears, suspects, hopes, and dreams extraordinary things; who is struck
by his own thoughts as if they came from the outside, from above and
below, as a species of events and lightning-flashes PECULIAR TO HIM; who
is perhaps himself a storm pregnant with new lightnings; a portentous
man, around whom there is always rumbling and mumbling and gaping and
something uncanny going on. A philosopher: alas, a being who often
runs away from himself, is often afraid of himself--but whose curiosity
always makes him "come to himself" again."
A screamer (of poor thinking/judgment/conclusion) by Hobbes is quoted by Niet: ""Laughing is a bad infirmity of human nature, which every
thinking mind will strive to overcome" (Hobbes),--I would even
allow myself to rank philosophers according to the quality of their
laughing--up to those who are capable of GOLDEN laughter. "
A disappointing rant glorifying Dionysus, followed by the end: "...sudden
sparks and marvels of my solitude, you, my old, beloved--EVIL thoughts!"
Phew...this post was in Draft mode for quite a while, glad to have read through Beyond Good And Evil.
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