Maxims and Arrows
1. Idleness is the beginning
of all psychology. What? could psychology be - a vice?
2. Even the bravest of
us rarely has the courage for what he really knows ...
3. To live alone one
must be an animal or a god - says Aristotle.
There is yet a third case: one must be both - a philosopher.
4. 'All truth is
simple.' - Is this not a compound lie? -
5. Once and for all,
there is a great deal I do not want to know. - Wisdom sets bounds even
to knowledge.
6. It is by being
'natural' that one best recovers from one's unnaturalness, from one's spirituality ...
7. Which is it? is man only God's mistake or God only man's mistake? -
8. From
the military school of life. - What does not kill me makes me stronger.
9. Help thyself: then
everyone will help thee too. Principle of Christian charity.
10. Let us not be
cowardly in face of our actions! Let us
not afterwards leave them in the lurch! - Remorse of conscience is indecent.
11. Can an ass be
tragic? - To be crushed by a burden one can neither bear nor throw off? ... The case of the philosopher.
12. If we possess our why
of life we can put up with almost any how. - Man does not strive
after happiness; only the Englishman does that.
13. Man created woman -
but what out of? Out of a rib of his
God, of his 'ideal' ...
14. What? you are seeking? you want to
multiply yourself by ten, by a hundred? you are
seeking followers? - Seek noughts! ['Suche Nullen!' "Nullen"
means nobodies, ciphers, as well as noughts - 'Seek nobodies!' The aphorism is a pun: 'If you want to
multiply yourself by 100 (have followers) get noughts (nobodies) behind you!]
15. Posthumous men -
like me, for instance - are not so well understood as timely ['zeitgamasse'. Nietzsche's conception of himself as 'unzeitgamass' (untimely, inopportune, independent of the
age) is reflected in the chapter title 'Expeditions of an Untimely Man' ('Streifzuge eines Unzeitgemassen'), which itself refers back to 'Unzeitgemasse Betrachtungen'
(Untimely Meditations), the collective title of the four essays published
1873-6 and intended for others left incomplete.] men, but they are listened to better. More precisely: we are never understood - and
hence our authority ...
16. Among
women. - 'Truth? Oh, you don't know the truth, do
you! Is it not an outrage on all our pudeurs?' -
17. This is an artist as
an artist should be, modest in his requirements: there are only two things he
really wants, his bread and his art - panem
et Circen ... [bread and 'Circe', in place of 'panem et circenses' = bread and
circuses.]
18. He who does not know
how to put his will into things at least puts a meaning into them: that
is, he believes there is a will in them already (principle of 'belief').
19. What? you have chosen virtue and the heaving bosom, yet at the
same time look with envy on the advantages enjoyed by those who live for the
day? - But with virtue one renounces 'advantage' ... (laid
at the door of an anti-Semite).
20. The complete woman
perpetrates literature in the same way as she perpetrates a little sin: as an
experiment, in passing, looking around to see if someone notices and so that
someone may notice ...
21. To get into only
those situations in which illusory virtues are of no use, but in which, like
the tightrope-walker on his rope, one either falls or stands - or gets off ...
22. 'Bad men have no
songs'. [Refers
to a popular adage deriving from Johann Gottfried Seume's
poem 'Die Gesange'.] - How is it the
Russians have songs?
23. 'German spirit': ['Geist'. All the meanings contained in this word
cannot be conveyed in a single English word: what is meant is spirit, mind,
intellect, intelligence. I have
translated it as 'spirit', 'spiritual' when the most inclusive sense seems indicated,
as 'intellect', 'intellectual' when this seems more appropriate.] for eighteen
years [i.e. since the
establishment of the 'Reich'.]
a contradictio in adjecto.
[contradiction
in terms.]
24. In order to look for
beginnings one becomes a crab. The historian
looks backwards; at last he also believes backwards.
25. Contentment protects
one even from catching a cold. Has a
woman who knew she was well dressed every caught a cold? - I am assuming she
was hardly dressed at all.
26. I mistrust all systematizers and avoid them. The will to a system is a lack of integrity.
27. Women are considered
deep - why? because one can never discover any bottom
to them. Women are not even shallow.
28. If a woman possesses
manly virtues one should run away from her; and if she does not possess them
she runs away herself.
29. 'How much the
conscience formerly had to bite on! ['Gewisensbisse'
(conscience-bites) is the ordinary term for pangs of conscience.] what good teeth
it had! - And today? what's the trouble?' - A
dentist's question.
30. One seldom commits
only one rash act. In the first rash act
one always does too much. For just that
reason one usually commits a second - and then one does too little
...
31. When it is trodden
on a worm will curl up. ['Der getretene Wurm
krummt sich' plays upon the
German equivalent of 'Even a worm will turn'.] That is prudent. It
thereby reduces the chance of being trodden on again. In the language of morals: humility. -
32. Hatred of lies and
dissembling may arise out of a sensitive notion of honour; the same hatred may
arise out of cowardice, in as much as lying is forbidden by divine
command. Too cowardly to tell lies ...
33. How little is needed
for happiness! The
note of a bagpipe. - Without music life would be a mistake. The German even thinks of God as singing
songs. [Refers
to the traditional misreading of a line in Ernst Moritz Arndt's patriottic song 'Des deutschen Vaterland': "So weit die
deutsche Zunge klingt, Und Gott in Himmel Lieder singt". "Gott"
is dative: Wherever the German tongue resounds And
sings songs to God in Heaven - but is humorously understood as nominative: And
God in Heaven sings songs.]
34. On ne peut penser
et écrire qu'assis [One can think and write only when sitting down.] (G. Flaubert). - Now I have you,
nihilist! Assiduity ['das Sitzfleish': etymologically 'the posterior'
(sitting-flesh). "Assiduity",
from 'sedere' = to sit, is cognate. Hence the contrast with
'walking' ideas.] is the sin
against the holy spirit. Only ideas won
by walking have any value.
35. There are times when
we are like horses, we psychologists, and grow restive: we see our own shadow
moving up and down before us. The
psychologist has to look away from himself in order to see at all.
36. Whether we immoralists do virtue any harm? - As little as
anarchists do princes. Only since they
have been shot at do they again sit firmly on their thrones. Moral: one must shoot at morals.
37. You run on ahead?
- Do you do so as a herdsman? or as an exception? A third possibility would be as a
deserter.... First question of conscience.
38. Are you genuine? or only an actor? A representative? or that which is
represented? - Finally you are no more than an imitation of an actor.... Second question of conscience.
39. The disappointed
man speaks. - I sought great human beings, I never
found anything but the apes of their ideal.
40. Are you one who
looks on? or who sets to work? - or
who looks away, turns aside.... Third question of
conscience.
41. Do you want to
accompany? or go on ahead? or
go off alone? ... One must know what one wants and that one
wants. - Fourth question of conscience.
42. For me they were
steps, I have climbed up upon them - therefore I had to pass over them. But they thought I wanted to settle down on them ...
43. What does it matter
that I am proved right! I am too
much in the right. - And he who laughs best today will also laugh last.
44. Formula of my
happiness: a Yes, a No, a straight line, a goal ...