Human, All-Too-Human: A Book for Free Spirits, Part 1: Complete Works, Volume SixNietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm
PhilosophyPhilosophy
Human, All-Too-Human: A Book for Free Spirits, Part 1: Complete Works, Volume Six
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm
Human beings
THE MAN IN A PASSION.--We must beware of one who is in a passion
against us as of one who has once sought our life; for the fact that
we still live is due to the absence of power to kill,--if looks would
suffice, we should have been dead long ago. It is a piece of rough
civilisation to force some one into silence by the exhibition of
physical savageness and the inspiring of fear. That cold glance which
exalted persons employ towards their servants is also a relic of that
caste division between man and man, a piece of rough antiquity; women,
the preservers of ancient things, have also faithfully retained this
_survival_ of an ancient habit.
65.
WHITHER HONESTY CAN LEAD.--Somebody had the bad habit of occasionally
talking quite frankly about the motives of his actions, which were as
good and as bad as the motives of most men. He first gave offence,
then aroused suspicion, was then gradually excluded from society and
declared a social outlaw, until at last justice remembered such an
abandoned creature, on occasions when it would otherwise have had no
eyes, or would have closed them. The lack of power to hold his tongue
concerning the common secret, and the irresponsible tendency to see
what no one wishes to see--himself--brought him to a prison and an
early death.
66.
PUNISHABLE, BUT NEVER PUNISHED.--Our crime against criminals lies in
the fact that we treat them like rascals.
67.
_SANCTA SIMPLICITAS_ OF VIRTUE.--Every virtue has its privileges; for
example, that of contributing its own little faggot to the scaffold of
every condemned man.
68.
MORALITY AND CONSEQUENCES.--It is not only the spectators of a deed
who frequently judge of its morality or immorality according to its
consequences, but the doer of the deed himself does so. For the motives
and intentions are seldom sufficiently clear and simple, and sometimes
memory itself seems clouded by the consequences of the deed, so that
one ascribes the deed to false motives or looks upon unessential
motives as essential. Success often gives an action the whole honest
glamour of a good conscience; failure casts the shadow of remorse
over the most estimable deed. Hence arises the well-known practice
of the politician, who thinks, "Only grant me success, with that I
bring all honest souls over to my side and make myself honest in my
own eyes." In the same way success must replace a better argument.
Many educated people still believe that the triumph of Christianity
over Greek philosophy is a proof of the greater truthfulness of
the former,--although in this case it is only the coarser and more
powerful that has triumphed over the more spiritual and delicate.
Which possesses the greater truth may be seen from the fact that the
awakening sciences have agreed with Epicurus' philosophy on point after
point, but on point after point have rejected Christianity.
69.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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