so enormous, that the political growth of a nation almost necessarily entails an intellectual impoverishment and lassitude, a diminished capacity for the performance of works that require great concentration and specialisation. The question may finally be asked: "Does it then _pay,_ all this bloom and magnificence of the total (which indeed only manifests itself as the fear of the new Colossus in other nations, and as the compulsory favouring by them of national trade and commerce) when all the nobler, finer, and more intellectual plants and products, in which its soil was hitherto so rich, must be sacrificed to this coarse and opalescent flower of the nation?"[2] 482. REPEATED ONCE MORE.--Public opinion--private laziness. [Footnote 1: This aphorism may have been suggested by Nietzsche's observing the behaviour of his great contemporary, Bismarck, towards the dynasty.--J.M.K.] [Footnote 2: This is once more an allusion to modern Germany.--J.M.K.] NINTH DIVISION. MAN ALONE BY HIMSELF. 483. THE ENEMIES OF TRUTH.--Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies. 484. A TOPSY-TURVY WORLD.--We criticise a thinker more severely when he puts an unpleasant statement before us; and yet it would be more reasonable to do so when we find his statement pleasant. 485. DECIDED CHARACTER.--A man far oftener appears to have a decided character from persistently following his temperament than from persistently following his principles. 486. THE ONE THING NEEDFUL.--One thing a man must have: either a naturally light disposition or a disposition _lightened_ by art and knowledge. 487. THE PASSION FOR THINGS.--Whoever sets his passion on things (sciences, arts, the common weal, the interests of culture) withdraws much fervour from his passion for persons (even when they are the representatives of those things; as statesmen, philosophers, and artists are the representatives of their creations). 488. CALMNESS IN ACTION.--As a cascade in its descent becomes more deliberate and suspended, so the great man of action usually acts with _more_ calmness than his strong passions previous to action would lead one to expect. 489. NOT TOO DEEP.--Persons who grasp a matter in all its depth seldom remain permanently true to it. They have just brought the depth up into the light, and there is always much evil to be seen there. 490. THE ILLUSION OF IDEALISTS.--All idealists imagine that the cause which they serve is essentially better than all other causes, and will not believe that if their cause is really to flourish it requires precisely the same evil-smelling manure which all other human undertakings have need of. 491.