PREFACE To the Second Edition, 1886 1.

One should speak only when one may not remain silent; and then speak only of tha t which one has overcomeeverything else is chatter, literature," lack of breeding. My writings speak only of my overcomings: I" am in them, together with everythin g that was hostile to me, ego ipsissimus, indeed, even if a yet prouder expressi on be permitted, ego ipsissimum [ego ipsissimus": my very own self; ego ipsissimum ": my innermost self]. One will surmise: I already have muchbeneath me ... But st ill it always required time, recovery, detachment, distance, until the desire st irred within me to exploit, reveal, expose, exhibit" (or whatever one wants to ca ll it) for the sake of knowledge something experienced and survived, possibly so me fact or fatum of my life. To that extent all my writings, with a single, thou gh substantial exception, are to be back-datedthey always speak of something behin d me"some, like the first three Untimely Meditations, even back before the emerge nce and experience of the time of a previously published book (The Birth of Trag edy in the given case: as a subtler observer and comparer may uncover). That sud den outburst against Germanomania, complacency and beggarly speech found in the old David Strauss, the content of the first Meditation, gave vent to feelings fr om a long time ago when I, as a student, had sat in the midst of German culture and cultural philistinism (I make claim on the paternity of the now much used an d abused expression cultural philistine); and what I said against the historical di sease," I said as one who had slowly, laboriously learned to recover from it and who was not at all willing to renounce history," because he had once suffered fr om it. When I then, in the third Untimely Meditation, expressed my reverence for my first and only educator, for the great Arthur Schopenhauereven now I would ex press it much more strongly, also more personallyI was myself already in the mids t of moral skepticism and dissolution, that is to say just as much in the critiq ue as in the depths of all pessimism hithertoand already believed in nothing any m ore," as people say, not even in Schopenhauer: just at that time I produced the unpublished essay On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense." Even my commemorativ e victory speech in honor of Richard Wagner, on the occasion of his victory cele bration at Bayreuth in 1876Bayreuth signifies the greatest victory which an artis t has ever achieveda work which itself bears the strongest appearance of being upto-date," was in its background an homage and a gratitude set against a piece of my past, against the fairest but also most dangerously calm seas of my voyage . .. and actually a liberation, a farewell. (Perhaps Richard Wagner was deceived a bout it? I do not think so. As long as one still loves, one certainly does not p aint such pictures; one does not yet contemplate," one does not place oneself at a distance, as the contemplator must do. Even contemplation involves a secret ant agonism, that of the contrary view"it is stated in Chapter 7, on page 342 of the work itself [Richard Wagner in Bayreuth], with a telltale and melancholy idiom, wh ich was perhaps intended but for few ears.) The composure needed to be able to s peak about the innermost solitude and self-restraint over long intervening years , first came to me with the book Human, All Too Human, to which this second fore word and forward [Fr- und Vorwort] is to be dedicated, too. As a book for free spiri ts," something lies upon it from the almost cheerful and inquisitive coldness of the psychologist, who has a lot of painful things beneath him, behind him, yet subsequently identifies and as it were jabs firmly at them with the point of a n eedle: is it any wonder if, with such pointed and ticklish work, a little blood occasionally flows as well, if during this the psychologist has blood on his fin gers and not always onlyon his fingers? ... 2. The Mixed Opinions and Maxims were published individually, just like The Wandere r and His Shadow, first as continuations and appendices of that human-all-too-hu

man book for free spirits": at the same time as a continuation and duplication of a spiritual cure, namely of the anti-romantic self-treatment, as my healthy ins tinct had itself discovered and prescribed for me against a temporary illness of the most dangerous form of romanticism. At this point, after six years of conva lescence, may these same writings stand united, as the second volume of Human, A ll Too Human: perhaps they, taken together, will teach their precepts more stron gly and more clearlyprecepts of health, which may be recommended to the more spir itual natures of the yet upcoming generation as disciplina voluntatis. A pessimi st speaks out of them, who often enough jumped out of his skin but always knew h ow to jump back in again, hence a pessimist with goodwill toward pessimismthus in any case no longer a romantic: what? should a spirit, who understands the serpe nts cleverness in changing his skin, not be allowed to give the pessimists of tod ay a lesson, who are one and all still in danger of romanticism? And at least sh ow them how it isdone? ... 3. At the time it was indeed high time to say farewell: soon after, I received the proof. Richard Wagner, most triumphant, but in truth a decaying and despairing r omantic, suddenly sank down, helpless and broken, before the Christian cross ... At the time, did no German have eyes in his head, empathy in his conscience, fo r this dreadful spectacle? Was I the only one whomit pained? Enough, this unexpec ted event struck me like lightning and gave me clarity about the place I had lef tand also that horror which everybody feels after he has unconsciously passed thr ough a tremendous danger. As I proceeded alone, I trembled; soon after I was sic k, more than sick, namely weary from the inevitable disappointment about everyth ing that remained to inspire us modern men, about the universally wasted energy, work, hope, youth, love; weary with disgust at the femininity and ill-bred rapt urousness of this romanticism, at the whole idealistic deception and pampering o f the conscience that had here triumphed once again over one of the bravest; wea ry, finally and not least of all, from the grief aroused by an inexorable suspic ionthat, after this disappointment, I was condemned to mistrust more profoundly, to despise more profoundly, to be more profoundly alone than ever before. My tas kwhere was it? What? did it not seem as if my task had now withdrawn itself from meas if now, for a long time, I would have no more right to it? What could I do i n order to endure this greatest deprivation? I began by forbidding myself, thoro ughly and in principle, all romantic music, this ambiguous, inflated, stifling a rt that deprives the spirit of its severity and cheerfulness and fosters every k ind of vague longing and spongy, exploitative desire. Even today cave musicam" [be ware music] is still my advice to all who are man enough to insist on cleanliness in things of the spirit; such music unnerves, softens, feminizes, its eternal wo manly" draws usdownwards! ... At that time I was first and foremost suspicious an d circumspect towards romantic music; and if I hoped for something at all from m usic anymore, it was the prospect that a musician might comebold, subtle, malicio us, southerly, superhealthy enough to confront that music and in an immortal fas hion take revenge on it. 4. Henceforth alone and sorely mistrustful of myself, I thus, and not without a sul len wrathfulness, took sides against myself and for everything painful and diffi cult precisely for me:thus I again found my way to that courageous pessimism that is the antithesis of all romantic mendacity, and also, as it seems to me today, the way to myself," to my task. The hidden imperious something, for which we for long have no name until at last it proves itself to be our taskthis tyrant in us exacts a terrible price for every attempt that we make to escape it or give it the slip, for every premature act of self-constraint, for every reconciliation w ith those to whom we do not belong, for every activity, however respectable, whi ch turns us aside from our main purpose, even indeed for every virtue that would like to protect us from the severity of our most personal responsibility. Illnes

s" is always the answer when we begin to doubt our right to our taskevery time we begin to make things easier for ourselves. How strange and how terrible! It is our alleviations for which we have to make the severest atonement! And if we aft erwards want to return to health, we have no choicewe must burden ourselves more heavily than we have ever been burdened before ... 5. It was only then that I learned the hermitical habit of speech understood by onl y the most silent and suffering. I spoke without witnesses, or rather indifferen t to the presence of witnesses, so as not to suffer from silence, I spoke of var ious things that did not concern me in a style that gave the impression that the y did. It was then that I learned the art of appearing cheerful, objective, inqu isitive, above all that is healthy and maliciousis this, in an invalid, as it see ms to me, his good taste"? Nevertheless, a subtler eye and empathy will not miss what perhaps constitutes the charm of this writingthe fact that here one who has suffered and abstained speaks in such a way as if he had never suffered or absta ined. Here there is a determination to preserve an equilibrium and composure in the face of life and even a sense of gratitude towards it, here rules a vigorous , proud, ever vigilant, and sensitive will, which has undertaken the task of def ending life against pain and striking down all those inferences that, like poiso nous fungi, flourish by virtue of pain, disappointment, ill-humor, solitude and other morasses. Perhaps this gives our pessimists a signpost to their own self-e xamination?for it was then that I hit upon the proposition: a sufferer has no righ t to pessimism because he suffers!", and that I engaged in a tedious, patient ca mpaign against the unscientific basic tendency of all romantic pessimism, which seeks to magnify and interpret individual, personal experiences into universal j udgments, indeed into condemnations of the world ... in short, it was then that I turned my perspective around. Optimism for the sake of restoration, in order a t some future time to have the right to be a pessimistdo you understand that? Jus t as a physician transfers his patient to totally strange surroundings, in order to displace him from his entire hitherto," from his cares, friends, letters, dut ies, stupidities and painful memories, and teaches him to stretch out hands and senses to new nourishment, a new sun, a new future, so I, as physician and patie nt in one, compelled myself to an utterly different and unexplored clime of the soul, and especially to a curative journey into strange parts, into strangeness itself, to an inquisitiveness for every kind of strange thing ... A long process of roaming, seeking, changing followed from this, a repugnance towards all stay ing still, towards every blunt affirmation and denial; likewise a dietetic and d iscipline designed to make it as easy as possible for the spirit to run long dis tances, to fly to great heights, above all again and again to fly away. In fact a minimum of life, an unfettering from all coarser desires, an independence in t he midst of all kinds of unfavorable outward circumstances, together with the pr ide in being able to live surrounded by these unfavorable circumstances: a littl e cynicism perhaps, a little of the barrel" [Diogenes the Cynic (400-325 BC), rep uted to have lived in a barrel.], but just as surely a great deal of capricious happiness, capricious cheerfulness, much calm, light, subtler folly, hidden enth usiasmall this produced in the end a great spiritual strengthening, an increasing joy and abundance of health. Life itself rewards us for our tenacious will to l ife, for such a long war as I waged against the pessimistic weariness of life, e ven for every attentive glance our gratitude accords to even the smallest, most delicate, most fleeting gift that life gives us. Finally our reward is the great est of lifes gifts, perhaps the greatest thing it is able to give of any kindwe ar e given our task back. 6. Shall my experiencethe history of an illness and a convalescence, for it resulted in a convalescencehave been my personal experience alone? And only my human, all -too-human? Today I would like to believe the reverse, for I am becoming more an

d more confident that my travel books were not penned solely for myself, as some times seems to be the case. May I now, after six years of growing confidence, se nd them once more on a journey for an experiment? May I commend them particularl y to the ears and hearts of those who are burdened with some sort of past," and h ave enough spirit left still to suffer from the spirit of their past too? But ab ove all would I commend them to you whose burden is heaviest, you rare, most imp eriled, most spiritual, most courageous ones who must be the conscience of the m odern soul and as such must possess its knowledge, in whom is concentrated all t hat exists today of sickness, poison and dangerwhose lot it is that you must be s icker than any other kind of individual because you are not only individuals" ... whose comfort it is to know the way to a new health, and alas! to go along it, a health of tomorrow and the day after, you predestined ones, you victorious one s, overcomers of your age, you healthiest ones, you strongest ones, you good Eur opeans! 7. Finally to reduce my opposition to romantic pessimism, that is to say the pessim ism of the renunciators, the failed and defeated, to a formula: there is a will to the tragic and to pessimism that is as much a sign of severity and of strengt h of intellect (taste, feeling, conscience). With this will in ones heart one has no fear of the fearful and questionable that characterizes all existence; one e ven seeks it out. Behind such a will there stands courage, pride, the longing fo r a great enemy. This has been my pessimistic perspective from the beginninga nov el perspective, is it not? a perspective that even today is novel and strange? T o this moment I continue to adhere to it and, if you will believe me, just as mu ch for myself as, occasionally at least, against myself ... Do you want me to pr ove this to you? But what else does this long prefaceprove? Sils-Maria, Upper Engadine, September 1886

1. To the disappointed of philosophy. If you have hitherto believed that life was on e of the highest value and now see yourselves disappointed, do you at once have to reduce it to the lowest possible price? 6. Against fantasists. The fantasist denies reality to himself, the liar does so onl y to others. 12. Knapsack of the metaphysicians. Those who boast so mightily of the scientificalit y of their metaphysics should receive no answer; it is enough to pluck at the bu ndle which, with a certain degree of embarrassment, they keep concealed behind t heir back; if one succeeds in opening it, the products of that scientificality c ome to light, attended by their blushes: a dear little Lord God, a nice little i mmortality, perhaps a certain quantity of spiritualism, and in any event a whole tangled heap of wretched poor sinner" and Pharisee arrogance. 23.

Incurable. An idealist is incorrigible: if he is thrown out of his heaven he make s an ideal of his hell. Let him be disillusioned and behold!he will embrace this disillusionment just as fervently as a little while before he embraced his hopes . Insofar as his tendency is among the great incurable tendencies of human natur e he is able to give rise to tragic destinies and afterwards become the subject of tragedies: for tragedies have to do with precisely what is incurable, ineluct able, inescapable in the fate and character of man. 26. From the thinkers innermost experience. Nothing is more difficult for man than to apprehend a thing impersonally: I mean to see it as a thing, not as a person: on e might question, indeed, whether it is at all possible for him to suspend the c lockwork of this person-constructing, person-inventing drive even for a moment. He traffics even with ideas, though they be the most abstract, as if they were i ndividuals with whom one has to struggle, to whom one has to ally oneself, whom one has to tend, protect and nourish. We have only to spy on ourselves at that m oment when we hear or discover a proposition new to us. Perhaps it displeases us because of its defiant and autocratic bearing; we unconsciously ask ourselves w hether we shall not set a counter-proposition as an enemy beside it, whether we can append to it a perhaps," a sometimes"; even the little word probably" does us g ood, because it breaks the personally burdensome tyranny of the unconditional. I f, on the other hand, this new proposition approaches in a milder shape, nice an d tolerant, humble, and sinking as it were into the arms of contradiction, we tr y another way of testing our autocracy: what, can we not come to the assistance of this weak creature, stroke and feed it, give it strength and fullness, indeed truth and even unconditionality? Can we possibly be parental or knightly or pit ying towards it? Then again, we behold a judgment there, separated from one anoth er, not regarding one another, making no impression one upon the other: and we a re tickled by the thought of whether here a marriage might not be arranged, a co nclusion drawn, in the presentiment that, if a consequence should proceed from t his conclusion, the honor of it will fall not only to the two married judgments but also to those who arranged the marriage. If, however, one can get hold of th at idea neither by means of defiance and ill-will nor by means of good-will (if one holds it for true), then one yields and pays it homage as a prince and leader , accords it a seat of honor and speaks of it with pomp and pride: for in its gl itter one glitters too. Woe to him who seeks to darken it; unless it itself shou ld one day become suspicious to us:then, unwearying king-makers in the history of the spirit that we are, we hurl it from the throne and immediately raise its op ponent in its place. Let one ponder this and then think on a little further: cer tainly no one will then speak of a drive to knowledge in and for itself"! Why then does man prefer the true to the untrue in this secret struggle with idea-person s, in this usually hidden idea-meaning, idea-state founding, idea pedagogy, idea -tending of the sic and poor? For the same reason as he practices justice in tra ffic with real persons: now out of habit, heredity and training, originally beca use the trueas also the fair and justis more useful and more productive of honor t han the untrue. For in the realm of thought, power and fame are hard to maintain if erected on the basis of errors or lies: the feeling that such a building cou ld at some time or other fall down is humiliating to the self-conceit of its arc hitect; he is ashamed of the fragility of his material and, because he takes him self more seriously than he does the rest of the world, wants to do nothing that is not more enduring than the rest of the world. It is as a consequence of his demand for truth that he embraces belief in personal immortality, that is to say the most arrogant and defiant idea that exists, united as it is with the hidden thought pereat mundus, dum ego salvus sim!" [Let the world perish so long as I am safe.] His work has become for him his ego, he transforms himself into the intra nsitory, the all-defiant. It is his immeasurable pride which wants to employ onl y the finest, hardest stones for its work, that is to say truths or what it take s for truths. At all times arrogance has rightly been designated the vice of the

intellectual"yet without the motive power of this vice truth and the respect acco rded it would be miserably accommodated on this earth. That we are afraid of our own ideas, concepts, words, but also honor ourselves in them and involuntarily ascribe to them the capacity to instruct, despise, praise and censure us, that w e thus traffic with them as with free intelligent persons, with independent powe rs, as equals with equals it is in this that the strange phenomenon I have called intellectual conscience" has its roots. Thus here too something moral of the hig hest sort has blossomed out of a black root. 29. In Gethsemane. The most grievous thing the thinker can say to the artists is: What , could ye not watch with me one hour? 31. In the desert of science. To the man of science on his unassuming and laborious t ravels, which must often enough be journeys through the desert, there appear tho se glittering mirages called philosophical systems": with bewitching, deceptive p ower they show the solution of all enigmas and the freshest draught of the true water of life to be near at hand; his heart rejoices, and it seems to the weary traveler that his lips already touch the goal of all the perseverance and sorrow s of the scientific life, so that he involuntarily presses forward. There are ot her natures, to be sure, which stand still, as if bewildered by the fair illusio n: the desert swallows them up and they are dead to science. Other natures again , which have often before experienced this subjective solace, may well grow exce edingly ill-humored and curse the salty taste which these apparitions leave behi nd in the mouth and from which arises a raging thirstwithout ones having been brou ght so much as a single step nearer to any kind of spring. 33. The desire to be just and the desire to be a judge. Schopenhauer, whose great kno wledgeability about the human and all-too-human, whose native sense of reality w as not a little dimmed by the motley leopard-skin of his metaphysics (which one must first remove from him if one is to discover the real moralist genius beneat h it)Schopenhauer makes that striking distinction which is very much more justifi ed than he really dared to admit to himself: the insight into the strict necessit y of human actions is the boundary line which divides philosophical heads from t he others." This mighty insight, which from time to time he publicly avowed, he nonetheless counteracted in his own mind with that prejudice which he still had in common with moral men (not with the moralists) and which, quite innocuously a nd credulously, he expressed as: the ultimate and true elucidation of the inner n ature of the whole of things must necessarily hang closely together with that of the ethical significance of human behavior"which is absolutely not necessary" but , on the contrary, has been rejected by precisely that proposition of the strict necessity of human actions, that is to say, the unconditonal unfreedom and unac countability of the will. Philosophical heads will thus distinguish themselves f rom the others through their unbelief in the metaphysical significance of morali ty: and that may establish a gulf between them of whose depth and unbridgeabilit y the so much lamented gulf between the cultured" and the uncultured," as it now e xists, gives hardly any idea. Many more backdoors, to be sure, which philosophica l heads" have, like Schopenhauer himself, left open must be recognized as useles s: none leads outside, into the air of free will: every one which has hitherto b een slipped through reveals behind it every time a brazen wall of fate: we are i n prison, we can only dream ourselves free, not make ourselves free. That this k nowledge cannot for very much longer be resisted is indicated by the despairing and incredible postures and contortions of those who assail it, who still contin ue to wrestle with it. This, approximately, is how they go on: What, is no man ac countable? And is everything full of guilt and feeling of guilt? But someone or

other has to be the sinner, if it is impossible and no longer permissible to acc use and to judge the individual, the poor wave in the necessary wave-play of bec omingvery well: then let the wave-play itself, becoming, be the sinner: here is f ree will, here there can be accusing, condemning, atonement and expiation: then let God be the sinner and man his redeemer: then let world history be guilt, sel f-condemnation and suicide; thus will the offender become his own judge, the jud ge his own executioner." This Christianity stood on its headfor what else is it?is the final lunge in the struggle of the theory of unconditional morality with th at of unconditional freedoma horrible thing if it were anything more than a logic al grimace, more than an ugly gesture on the part of the defeated ideaperhaps the death-throes of the despairing and salvation-thirsty heart to which madness whi spers: Behold, thou art the lamb that beareth the sins of God." The error lies no t only in the feeling I am accountable," but equally in that antithesis I am not, but somebody has to be." This is, in fact, not true: teh philosopher thus has to say, as Christ did, judge not!" and the ultimate distinction between philosophic al heads and the others would be that the former desire to be just, the others t o be a judge. 50. Power without victories. The strongest knowledge (that of the total unfreedom of the human will) is nonetheless the poorest in successes: for it always has the s trongest opponent, human vanity. 58. Dangerous books. Somebody remarked: I can tell by my own reaction to it that this book is harmful." But let him only wait and perhaps one day he will admit to him self that this same book has done him a great service by bringing out the hidden sickness of his heart and making it visible. Altered opinions do not alter a mans character (or do so very little); but they do illuminate individual aspects of the constellation of his personality which with a different constellation of opi nions had hitherto remained dark and unrecognizable. 76. Interpreting by dreams. That which we sometimes do not know or feel precisely whi le awakewhether we have a good or a bad conscience towards a particular personthe dream informs us of without any ambiguity. 85. Making plans. To make plans and project designs brings with it many good sensatio ns; and whoever had the strength to be nothing but a forger of plans his whole l ife long would be a very happy man: but he would occasionally have to take a res t from this activity by carrying out a planand then comes the vexation and the so bering up. 88. How one dies is a matter of indifference. The whole way in which a person thinks of death during the high tide of his life and strength bears, to be sure, very e loquent witness as to that which is called his character; but the hour of death itself, his bearing on his deathbed, hardly does so at all. The exhaustion of ex piring existence, especially when old people die, the irregular or insufficient nourishment of the brain during this last period, the occasional very bad attack s of pain, the new and untried nature of the whole condition and all too often t he coming and going of superstitious impressions and fears, as if dying were a v ery important thing and bridges of the most terrible description are here being crossedall this does not permit us to employ dying as evidence as to the living.

It is, moreover, not true that the dying are in general more honest than the liv ing: almost everyone is, rather, tempted by the solemn bearing of the bystanders , the streams of tears and feeling held back or let flow, into a now conscious, now unconscious comedy of vanity. The seriousness with which every dying person is treated has certainly been for many a poor despised devil the most exquisite pleasure of his entire life and a kind of indemnification and part-payment for m any deprivations. 89. Mores and their victim. The origin of mores lies in two ideas: society is worth mo re than the individual" and an enduring advantage is to be preferred to ephemeral advantage"from which it follows that the enduring advantage of society must be g iven precedence, unconditionally, over the advantage of the individual, especial ly over his momentary well-being but also over his enduring advantage and even h is continued existence. Whether the individual suffers from an institution that is good for the whole, whether it causes him to atrophy or perishmores must be pr eserved, sacrifices must be made. But such an attitude originates only in those who are not its victimsfor they claim in their behalf that the individual may be worth more than many, also that present enjoyment, the moment in paradise, may h ave to be valued higher than a pallid continuation of painless or complacent sta tes. The philosophy of the sacrificial animal, however, is always sounded too la te; and so we retain mores and moralitywhich is no more than the feeling for the whole quintessence of mores under which one lives and has been brought upbrought up not as an individual but as a member of a whole, as a digit of a majority. Thu s it happens constantly that an individual brings to bear upon himself, by means of his morality, the tyranny of the majority. 90. The good and the good conscience. Do you think that every good thing has always h ad a good conscience? Science, which is certainly something good, entered the wo rld without one, and quite destitute of pathos, but did so rather in secret, by crooked and indirect paths, hooded or masked like a criminal and at least always with the feeling of dealing in contraband. The good conscience has as a prelimi nary stage the bad consciencethe latter is not its opposite: for everything good was once new, consequently unfamiliar, contrary to custom, immoral, and gnawed a t the heart of its fortunate inventor like a worm. 95. "Love" The subtlest artifice which Christianity has over the other religions is a word: it spoke of love. Thus it became the lyrical religion (whereas in their t wo other creations the Semites have given the world heroic-epic religions). Ther e is in the word love something so ambiguous and suggestive, something which spe aks to the memory and to future hope, that even the meanest intelligence and the coldest heart still feels something of the luster of this word. The shrewdest w oman and the commonest man think when they hear it of the relatively least selfi sh moments of their whole life, even if Eros has only paid them a passing visit; and those countless numbers who never experience love, of parents, or children, or lovers, especially however the men and women of sublimated sexuality, have m ade their find in Christianity. 98. Honesty and play-acting among unbelievers. There exists no book that expresses s o candidly or contains such an abundance of that which does everybody good once in a whilethe joyful enthusiasm, ready for any sacrifice, which we feel when we b elieve in and behold our truth"than does the book that speaks of Christ: a perspic acious man can learn from it all the expedients by which a book can be made into

a universal book, a friend of everyone, and especially that master expedient of representing everything as having already been discovered, with nothing still o n the way and as yet uncertain. All influential books try to leave behind this k ind of impression: the impression that the widest spiritual and psychical horizo n has here been circumscribed and that every star visible now or in the future w ill have to revolve around the sun that shines here. Must it therefore not be th e case that the causes that make such books as this influential will render ever y purely scientific book poor in influence? Is the latter not condemned to live a lowly existence among the lowly, and finally to be crucified, never to rise ag ain? Are all honest men of science not poor in spirit" by comparison with that wh ich religious men proclaim of their knowledge," of their holy" spirit? Can any rel igion demand more renunciation, draw the egoistic more inexorably out of themsel ves, than science does? Thus and in similar ways, and in any event with a certai n amount of play-acting, may we speak if we have to defend ourselves before beli evers; for it is hardly possible to conduct a defense without employing some deg ree of play-acting. Among ourselves, however, we must speak more honestly: here we may employ a freedom which, in their own interests, everyone is not permitted even to understand. Away, therefore, with the monks cowl of renunciation! with t he humble mien! Much more and much better: that is how our truth sounds! If scie nce were not united with the joy of knowledge and the utility of what is known, what interest would we have in science? If a little faith, hope and charity did not lead our soul towards knowledge, what else would draw us to science? And if the ego does indeed have no place in science, the happy, inventive ego, even tha t honest and industrious ego already mentioned, has a very considerable place in the republic of scientific men. Respect, the pleasure of those we wish well or revere, sometimes fame and a modest personal immortality are the achievable rewa rds of this depersonalization, not to speak of lesser objectives and remuneratio ns, even though it is on their account that most have sworn and continue to swea r allegiance to the laws of that republic and of science in general. If we had n ot remained to some extent unscientific men what meaning could science possibly have for us? Taken as a whole and expressed without qualification: to a purely c ognitive being knowledge would be a matter of indifference. What distinguishes u s from the pious and the believers is not the quality but the quantity of belief and piety; we are contented with less. But if the former should challenge us: t hen be contented and appear to be contented!then we might easily reply: We are, in deed, not among the least contented. You, however, if your belief makes you bles sed then appear to be blessed! Your faces have always been more injurious to you r belief than our objections have! If those glad tidings of your Bible were writ ten in your faces you would not need to insist so obstinately on the authority o f that book: your works, your actions ought continually to render the Bible supe rfluous, through you a new Bible ought to be continually in course of creation! As things are, however, all your apologies for Christianity have their roots in your lack of Christianity; with your defense plea you inscribe your own bill of indictment. But if you should wish to emerge out of this insufficiency of Christ ianity, then ponder the experience of two millennia: which, clothed in the modes ty of a question, speaks thus: if Christ really intended to redeem the world, mus t he not be said to have failed? 122. Good memory. Many a man fails as an original thinker simply because his memory is too good. 137. The worst readers. The worst readers are those who behave like plundering troops: they take away a few things they can use, dirty and confound the remainder, and revile the whole. 138.

Marks of the good writer. Good writers have two things in common; they prefer to be understood rather than admired; and they do not write for knowing and over-ac ute readers. 140. Shutting his mouth. When his work opens its mouth, the author has to shut his. 164. In favor of critics. Insects sting, not from malice, but because they want to liv e. It is the same with criticsthey desire our blood, not our pain. 168. Praise of aphorisms. A good aphorism is too hard for the tooth of time and is not consumed by all millennia, although it serves every time for nourishment: this it is the great paradox of literature, the intransitory amid the changing, the f ood that always remains esteemed, like salt, and never loses its savor, as even that does. 185. Genius of humanity. If genius consists, according to Schopenhauers observation, in the connected and lively recollection of experience, then in the striving for k nowledge of the entire historical pastwhichever more mightily distinguishes the m odern age from all others and has for the first time demolished the ancient wall s between nature and spirit, man and animal, morality and the physical worldit ma y be possible to recognize a striving for the genius of mankind as a whole. Hist ory perfect and complete would be cosmic self-consciousness. 201. Error of philosophers. The philosopher believes that the value of his philosophy lies in the whole, in the building: posterity discovers it in the bricks with wh ich he built and which are then often used again for better building: in the fac t, that is to say, that that building can be destroyed and nonetheless possess v alue as material. 224. Balm and poison. This fact can never be sufficiently pondered: Christianity is th e religion of antiquity grown old, its presupposition is degenerated ancient cul tures; on these it could and can act as a balm. In ages in which eyes and ears a re filled with mud," so that they are no longer capable of hearing the voice of r eason and philosophy, or of seeing wisdom in bodily form, whether it bear the na me of Epictetus or of Epicurus: in such ages the cross of martyrdom and the trump et of the last judgment" may perhaps still move the peoples to live a decent lif e. If one thinks of the Rome of Juvenal [Roman satirical poet (60 to 140 AD)], t hat poison-toad with the eyes of Venus, one learns what it means to confront the world with a Cross, one comes to respect the quiet Christian community and is gra teful that it overran the Graeco-Roman world. When most people were born as thou gh with the souls of slaves and the sensuality of old men, what a blessing it mu st have been to encounter beings who were more soul than body and seemed to be a n actualization of the Greek condeption of the shades of Hades: modest, elusive, benevolent figures living in expectation of a better life" and thereby become so undemanding, so silently contemptuous, so proudly patient! This Christianity as the evening-bell of good antiquity, a bell broken and weary yet still sweet-sou nding, is a balm to the ears even for him who now wanders through these centurie

s only as a historian: what must it have been for the men of these centuries the mselves! On the other hand, for youthful, vigorous barbarians Christianity is po ison; to implant the teaching of sinfulness and damnation into the heroic, child ish and animal soul of the ancient German, for example, is nothing than to poiso n it; a quite tremendous chemical fermentation and decomposition, a confusion of feelings and judgments, a rank exuberance of every kind of fantasy must have be en the outcome, and thus in the longer run a fundamental enfeeblement of such ba rbarians. One must, to be sure, ask what, without this enfeeblement, there would have been left to us of Greek culture! of the entire cultural past of the human race!for the barbarian races untouched by Christianity were capable of doing awa y with ancient cultures altogether: as, for example, was demonstrated with fearf ul clarity by the pagan conquerors of Romanized Britain. Christianity was oblige d against its will to assist in making the world" of antiquity immoral. Here too there still remains another counter-question and the possibility of a counter-re ckoning: if it had not been enfeebled by the poison referred to, would one or ot her of these vigorous peoples, the German possibly, have perhaps been capable of gradually finding a higher culture for themselves, one of their own, a new one?o f which, as things are, mankind has not now the remotest conception? Thus it is the same here as everywhere: one does not know, to speak the language of Christi anity, whether God owes more gratitude to the Devil or the Devil more gratitude to God for everything having turned out as it has. 251. In parting. Not how one soul comes close to another but how it moves away shows m e their kinship and how much they belong together. 313. When asses are needed. You will never get the crowd to cry Hosanna until you ride into town on an ass. 340. To one who is praised. So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another. 362. On spiritual order of rank. It ranks you far beneath him that you seek to establi sh the exceptions while he seeks to establish the rule. 366. "Will a self." Active, successful natures act, not according to the dictum know th yself," but as if there hovered before them the commandment: will a self and tho u shalt become a self. Fate seems to have left the choice still up to them; where as the inactive and contemplative cogitate on what they have already chosen, on one occasion, when they entered into life. 378. What is genius? To will an exalted end and the means to it. 385. Anti-theses. The most senile thing ever thought about man is contained in the cel ebrated saying the ego is always hateful"; the most childish is the even more cel ebrated love thy neighbor as thyself." In the former, knowledge of human nature ha s ceased, in the latter it has not yet even begun.

408. The journey to Hades. I, too, have been in the underworld, like Odysseus, and sha ll be there often yet; and not only rams have I sacrificed to be able to speak w ith a few of the dead, but I have not spared my own blood. Four pairs it was tha t did not deny themselves to my sacrifice: Epicurus and Montaigne, Goethe and Sp inoza, Plato and Rousseau, Pascal and Schopenhauer. With these I must come to te rms when I have long wandered alone; they may call me right and wrong; to them w ill I listen when in the process they call each other right and wrong. Whatsoeve r I say, resolve, or think up for myself and otherson these eight I fix my eyes a nd see their eyes fixed on me. May the living forgive me that occasionally they appear to me and somber, so restless and, alas, so lusting for lifewhile so alive to me as if now, after death, they could never again . But eternal aliveness is what counts: what matters eternal as shades, so pale these men then seem grow weary of life life" or any life!