_Imitators._—A: "What? You don't want to have imitators?" B: "I don't want people to do anything _after_ me; I want every one to do something _before_ himself (as a pattern to himself)—just as _I_ do." A: "Consequently—?" 256. _Skinniness._—All profound men have their happiness in imitating the flying-fish for once, and playing on the crests of the waves; they think that what is best of all in things is their surface: their skinniness—_sit venia verbo_. 257. _From Experience._—A person often does not know how rich he is, until he learns from experience what rich men even play the thief on him. 258. _The Deniers of Chance._—No conqueror believes in chance. 259. _From Paradise._—"Good and Evil are God's prejudices"—said the serpent. 260. _One times One._—One only is always in the wrong, but with two truth begins.—One only cannot prove himself right; but two are already beyond refutation. 261. _Originality._—What is originality? To _see_ something that does not yet bear a name, that cannot yet be named, although it is before everybody's eyes. As people are usually constituted, it is the name that first makes a thing generally visible to them.—Original persons have also for the most part been the namers of things. 262. _Sub specie aeterni._—A: "You withdraw faster and faster from the living; they will soon strike you out of their lists!"—B: "It is the only way to participate in the privilege of the dead." A: "In what privilege?"—B: "No longer having to die." 263. _Without Vanity._—When we love we want our defects to remain concealed,—not out of vanity, but lest the person loved should suffer therefrom. Indeed, the lover would like to appear as a God,—and not out of vanity either. 264. _What we Do._—What we do is never understood, but only praised and blamed. 265. _Ultimate Scepticism._—But what after all are man's truths?—They are his _irrefutable_ errors. 266. _Where Cruelty is Necessary._—He who is great is cruel to his second-rate virtues and judgments. 267. _With a high Aim._—With a high aim a person is superior even to justice, and not only to his deeds and his judges. 268. _What makes Heroic?_—To face simultaneously one's greatest suffering and one's highest hope. 269. _What dost thou Believe in?_—In this: That the weights of all things must be determined anew. 270. _What Saith thy Conscience?_—"Thou shalt become what thou art." 271.