Maxims and Missiles - The Twilight of the Idols, by Friedrich Nietzsche

MAXIMS AND MISSILES
 1
Idleness is the parent of all psychology. What? Is psychology then a—vice?
 2
Even the pluckiest among us has but seldom the courage of what he really knows.
 3
Aristotle says that in order to live alone, a man must be either an animal or a god. The third alternative is lacking: a man must be both—a _philosopher._
 4
“All truth is simple.”—Is not this a double lie?
 5
Once for all I wish to be blind to many things.—Wisdom sets bounds even to knowledge.
 6
A man recovers best from his exceptional nature—his intellectuality—by giving his animal instincts a chance.
 7
Which is it? Is man only a blunder of God? Or is God only a blunder of man?
 8
_From the military school of life._—That which does not kill me, makes me stronger.
 9
Help thyself, then everyone will help thee. A principle of neighbour-love.
 10
A man should not play the coward to his deeds. He should not repudiate them once he has performed them. Pangs of conscience are indecent.
 11
Can a donkey be tragic?—To perish beneath a load that one can neither bear nor throw off? This is the case of the Philosopher.
 12
If a man knows the wherefore of his existence, then the manner of it can take care of itself. Man does not aspire to happiness; only the Englishman does that.
 13
Man created woman—out of what? Out of a rib of his god,—of his “ideal.”
 14
What? Art thou looking for something? Thou wouldst fain multiply thyself tenfold, a hundredfold? Thou seekest followers? Seek ciphers!
 15
Posthumous men, like myself, are not so well understood as men who reflect their age, but they are heard with more respect. In plain English: we are never understood—hence our authority.
 16
_Among women._—“Truth? Oh, you do not know truth! Is it not an outrage on all our _pudeurs?_”—
 17
There is an artist after my own heart, modest in his needs: he really wants only two things, his bread and his art—_panem et Circem._
 18
He who knows not how to plant his will in things, at least endows them with some meaning: that is to say, he believes that a will is already present in them. (A principle of faith.)
 19
What? Ye chose virtue and the heaving breast, and at the same time ye squint covetously at the advantages of the unscrupulous.—But with virtue ye renounce all “advantages” ... (to be nailed to an Antisemite’s door).
 20
The perfect woman perpetrates literature as if it were a petty vice: as an experiment, _en passant,_ and looking about her all the while to see whether anybody is noticing her, hoping that somebody _is_ noticing her.
 21
One should adopt only those situations in which one is in no need of sham virtues, but rather, like the tight-rope dancer on his tight rope, in which one must either fall or stand—or escape.
 22
“Evil men have no songs.”[1]—How is it that the Russians have songs?
 23
“German intellect”; for eighteen years this has been a _contradictio in adjecto._
 24
By seeking the beginnings of things, a man becomes a crab. The historian looks backwards: in the end he also _believes_ backwards.
 25
Contentment preserves one even from catching cold. Has a woman who knew that she was well-dressed ever caught cold?—No, not even when she had scarcely a rag to her back.
 26
I distrust all systematisers, and avoid them. The will to a system, shows a lack of honesty.
 27
Man thinks woman profound—why? Because he can never fathom her depths. Woman is not even shallow.
 28
When woman possesses masculine virtues, she is enough to make you run away. When she possesses no masculine virtues, she herself runs away.
29
“How often conscience had to bite in times gone by! What good teeth it must have had! And to-day, what is amiss?”—A dentist’s question.
 30
Errors of haste are seldom committed singly. The first time a man always docs too much. And precisely on that account he commits a second error, and then he does too little.
 31
The trodden worm curls up. This testifies to its caution. It thus reduces its chances of being trodden upon again. In the language of morality: Humility.—
 32
There is such a thing as a hatred of lies and dissimulation, which is the outcome of a delicate sense of humour; there is also the selfsame hatred but as the result of cowardice, in so far as falsehood is forbidden by Divine law. Too cowardly to lie....
 33
What trifles constitute happiness! The sound of a bagpipe. Without music life would be a mistake. The German imagines even God as a songster.
 34
_On ne peut penser et écrire qu’assis_ (G. Flaubert). Here I have got you, you nihilist! A sedentary life is the real sin against the Holy Spirit. Only those thoughts that come by walking have any value.
 35
There are times when we psychologists are like horses, and grow fretful. We see our own shadow rise and fall before us. The psychologist must look away from himself if he wishes to see anything at all.
 36
Do we immoralists injure virtue in any way? Just as little as the anarchists injure royalty. Only since they have been shot at do princes sit firmly on their thrones once more. Moral: _morality must be shot at._
 37
Thou runnest _ahead?_—Dost thou do so as a shepherd or as an exception? A third alternative would be the fugitive.... First question of conscience.
 38
Art thou genuine or art thou only an actor? Art thou a representative or the thing represented, itself? Finally, art thou perhaps simply a copy of an actor? ... Second question of conscience.
 39
_The disappointed man speaks:_—I sought for great men, but all I found were the apes of their ideal.
 40
Art thou one who looks on, or one who puts his own shoulder to the wheel?—Or art thou one who looks away, or who turns aside?... Third question of conscience.
 41
Wilt thou go in company, or lead, or go by thyself?... A man should know what he desires, and that he desires something.—Fourth question of conscience.
 42
They were but rungs in my ladder, on them I made my ascent:—to that end I had to go beyond them. But they imagined that I wanted to lay myself to rest upon them.
 43
What matters it whether I am acknowledged to be right! I am much too right. And he who laughs best to-day, will also laugh last.
 44
The formula of my happiness: a Yea, a Nay, a straight line, _goal...._
 [1] This is a reference to Seume’s poem “_Die Gesänge_,” the first verse of which is:—
    _“Wo man singet, lass dich ruhig nieder,_     _Ohne Furcht, was man im Lande glaubt_;     _Wo man singet, wird kein Mensch beraubt_:     _Bösewichter haben keine Lieder_.”
(Wherever people sing thou canst safely settle down without a qualm as to what the general faith of the land may be Wherever people sing, no man is ever robbed; _rascals_ have no songs.) Popular tradition, however, renders the lines thus:—
    _“Wo man singt, da lass dich ruhig nieder;_     _Base Menschen_ [evil men] _haben keine Lieder.”_