Opponents fancy they refute us when they repeat their own opinion and pay no attention to ours. 382 People who contradict and dispute should now and then remember that not every mode of speech is intelligible to every one. 383 Every man hears only what he understands. 384 I am quite prepared to find that many a reader will disagree with me; but when he has a thing before him in black and white, he must let it stand. Another reader may perhaps take up the very same copy and agree with me. 385 The truest liberality is appreciation. 386 For the strenuous man the difficulty is to recognise the merits of elder contemporaries and not let himself be hindered by their defects. 387 Some men think about the defects of their friends, and there is nothing to be gained by it. I have always paid attention to the merits of my enemies, and found it an advantage. 388 There are many men who fancy they understand whatever they experience. 389 The public must be treated like women: they must be told absolutely nothing but what they like to hear. 390 Every age of man has a certain philosophy answering to it. The child comes out as a realist: he finds himself as convinced that pears and apples exist as that he himself exists. The youth in a storm of inner passion is forced to turn his gaze within, and feel in advance what he is going to be: he is changed into an idealist. But the man has every reason to become a sceptic: he does well to doubt whether the means he has chosen to his end are the right ones. Before and during action he has every reason for keeping his understanding mobile, that he may not afterwards have to grieve over a false choice. Yet when he grows old he will always confess himself a mystic: he sees that so much seems to depend on chance; that folly succeeds and wisdom fails; that good and evil fortune are brought unexpectedly to the same level; so it is and so it has been, and old age acquiesces in that which is and was and will be. 391 When a man grows old he must consciously remain at a certain stage. 392 It does not become an old man to run after the fashion, either in thought or in dress. But he must know where he is, and what the others are aiming at. What is called fashion is the tradition of the moment. All tradition carries with it a certain necessity for people to put themselves on a level with it. 393 We have long been busy with the critique of reason. I should like to see a critique of common-sense. It would be a real benefit to mankind if we could convincingly prove to the ordinary intelligence how far it can go; and that is just as much as it fully requires for life on this earth. 394 The thinker makes a great mistake when he asks after cause and effect: they both together make up the indivisible phenomenon. 395 All practical men try to bring the world under their hands; all thinkers, under their heads. How far each succeeds, they may both see for themselves. 396