Part 5

Common-sense is born pure in the healthy man, is self-developed, and is revealed by a resolute perception and recognition of what is necessary and useful. Practical men and women avail themselves of it with confidence. Where it is absent, both sexes find anything necessary when they desire it, and useful when it gives them pleasure.

218

All men, as they attain freedom, give play to their errors. The strong do too much, and the weak too little.

219

The conflict of the old, the existing, the continuing, with development, improvement, and reform, is always the same. Order of every kind turns at last to pedantry, and to get rid of the one, people destroy the other; and so it goes on for a while, until people perceive that order must be established anew. Classicism and Romanticism; close corporations and freedom of trade; the maintenance of large estates and the division of the land,--it is always the same conflict which ends by producing a new one. The best policy of those in power would be so to moderate this conflict as to let it right itself without the destruction of either element. But this has not been granted to men, and it seems not to be the will of God.

220

A great work limits us for the moment, because we feel it above our powers; and only in so far as we afterwards incorporate it with our culture, and make it part of our mind and heart, does it become a dear and worthy object.

221

It is no wonder that we all more or less delight in the mediocre, because it leaves us in peace: it gives us the comfortable feeling of intercourse with what is like ourselves.

222

There is no use in reproving vulgarity, for it never changes.

223

We cannot escape a contradiction in ourselves; we must try to resolve it. If the contradiction comes from others, it does not affect us: it is their affair.

224

There are many things in the world that are at once good and excellent, but they do not come into contact.

225

Which is the best government? That which teaches us to govern ourselves.

226

When men have to do with women, they get spun off like a distaff.

227

It may well be that a man is at times horribly threshed by misfortunes, public and private: but the reckless flail of Fate, when it beats the rich sheaves, crushes only the straw; and the corn feels nothing of it and dances merrily on the floor, careless whether its way is to the mill or the furrow.

228

However probable it is that a desire may be fulfilled, there is always a doubt; and so when the desire is realised, it is always surprising.

229

Absurdities presented with good taste rouse disgust and admiration.

230

Of the best society it used to be said: their speech instructs the mind, and their silence the feelings.

231

Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action.

232

Beauty and Genius must be kept afar if one would avoid becoming their slave.

233

We treat the aged with consideration, as we treat children.

234

An old man loses one of the greatest of human privileges: he is no more judged by his peers.

235

In the matter of knowledge, it has happened to me as to one who rises early, and in the dark impatiently awaits the dawn, and then the sun; but is blinded when it appears.

236

Great primeval powers, evolved in time or in eternity, work on unceasingly: whether to weal or to woe, is a matter of chance.

IV

237

People often say to themselves in life that they should avoid a variety of occupation, and, more particularly, be the less willing to enter upon new work the older they grow. But it is easy to talk, easy to give advice to oneself and others. To grow old is itself to enter upon a new business; all the circumstances change, and a man must either cease acting altogether, or willingly and consciously take over the new rôle.

238

Of the Absolute in the theoretical sense, I do not venture to speak; but this I maintain: that if a man recognises it in its manifestation, and always keeps his gaze fixed upon it, he will experience very great reward.

239

To live in a great idea means to treat the impossible as though it were possible. It is just the same with a strong character; and when an idea and a character meet, things arise which fill the world with wonder for thousands of years.

240

Napoleon lived wholly in a great idea, but he was unable to take conscious hold of it. After utterly disavowing all ideals and denying them any reality, he zealously strove to realise them. His clear, incorruptible intellect could not, however, tolerate such a perpetual conflict within; and there is much value in the thoughts which he was compelled, as it were, to utter, and which are expressed very peculiarly and with much charm.

241

He considered the idea as a thing of the mind, that had, it is true, no reality, but still, on passing away, left a residuum--a _caput mortuum_--to which some reality could not be altogether refused. We may think this a very perverse and material notion; but when he entertained his friends with the neverending consequences of his life and actions, in full belief and confidence in them, he expressed himself quite differently. Then, indeed, he was ready to admit that life produces life; that a fruitful act has effects to all time. He took pleasure in confessing that he had given a great impulse, a new direction, to the course of the world's affairs.

242

It always remains a very remarkable fact that men whose whole personality is almost all idea, are so extremely shy of all phantasy. In this case was Hamann, who could not bear the mention of "things of another world." He took occasion to express himself on this point in a certain paragraph, which he wrote in fourteen different ways; and still, apparently, he was never quite satisfied with it.

Two of these attempts have been preserved to us; a third we have ourselves attempted, which we are induced to print here by the preceding observations.

243

Man is placed as a real being in the midst of a real world, and endowed with such organs that he can perceive and produce the real and also the possible.

All healthy men have the conviction of their own existence and of an existence around them. However, even the brain contains a hollow spot, that is to say, a place in which no object is mirrored; just as in the eye itself there is a little spot that does not see. If a man pays particular attention to this spot and is absorbed in it, he falls into a state of mental sickness, has presentiments of "things of another world," which are, in reality, no things at all; possessing neither form nor limit, but alarming him like dark, empty tracts of night, and pursuing him as something more than phantoms, if he does not tear himself free from them.

244

To the several perversities of the day a man should always oppose only the great masses of universal history.

245

No one can live much with children without finding that they always react to any outward influence upon them.

246

With any specially childish nature the reaction is even passionate, while its action is energetic.

247

That is why children's lives are a series of refined judgments, not to say prejudices; and to efface a rapid but partial perception in order to make way for a more general one, time is necessary. To bear this in mind is one of the teacher's greatest duties.

248

Friendship can only be bred in practice and be maintained by practice. Affection, nay, love itself, is no help at all to friendship. True, active, productive friendship consists in keeping equal pace in life: in my friend approving my aims, while I approve his, and in thus moving forwards together steadfastly, however much our way of thought and life may vary.

V

249

In the world people take a man at his own estimate; but he must estimate himself at something. Disagreeableness is more easily tolerated than insignificance.

250

You can force anything on society so long as it has no sequel.

251

We do not learn to know men if they come to us; we must go to them to find out what they are.

252

That we have many criticisms to make on those who visit us, and that, as soon as they depart, we pass no very amiable judgment upon them, seems to me almost natural; for we have, so to speak, a right to measure them by our own standard. Even intelligent and fair-minded men hardly refrain from sharp censure on such occasions.

253

But if, on the contrary, we have been in their homes, and have seen them in their surroundings and habits and the circumstances which are necessary and inevitable for them; if we have seen the kind of influence they exert on those around them, or how they behave, it is only ignorance and ill-will that can find food for ridicule in what must appear to us in more than one sense worthy of respect.

254

What we call conduct and good manners obtains for us that which otherwise is to be obtained only by force, or not even by force.

255

Women's society is the element of good manners.

256

How can the character, the peculiar nature of a man, be compatible with good manners?

257

It is through his good manners that a man's peculiar nature should be made all the more conspicuous. Every one likes distinction, but it should not be disagreeable.

258

The most privileged position, in life as in society, is that of an educated soldier. Rough warriors, at any rate, remain true to their character, and as great strength is usually the cover for good nature, we get on with them at need.

259

No one is more troublesome than an awkward civilian. As his business is not with anything brutal or coarse, he might be expected to show delicacy of feeling.

260

When we live with people who have a delicate sense of what is fitting, we get quite anxious about them if anything happens to disturb this sense.

261

No one would come into a room with spectacles on his nose, if he knew that women at once lose any inclination to look at or talk to him.

262

A familiar in the place of a respectful demeanour is always ridiculous.

263

There is no outward sign of politeness that will be found to lack some deep moral foundation. The right kind of education would be that which conveyed the sign and the foundation at the same time.

264

A man's manners are the mirror in which he shows his portrait.

263

There is a politeness of the heart, and it is allied to love. It produces the most agreeable politeness of outward demeanour.

266

Voluntary dependence is the best state, and how should that be possible without love?

267

We are never further from our wishes than when we fancy we possess the object of them.

268

No one is more of a slave than he who thinks himself free without being so.

269

A man has only to declare himself free to feel at the same moment that he is limited. Should he venture to declare himself limited, he feels himself free.

270

Against the great superiority of another there is no remedy but love.

271

It is a terrible thing for an eminent man to be gloried in by fools.

272

It is said that no man is a hero to his valet. That is only because a hero can be recognised only by a hero. The valet will probably know how to appreciate his like,--his fellow-valet.

273

There is no greater consolation for mediocrity than that the genius is not immortal.

274

The greatest men are linked to their age by some weak point.

275

We generally take men to be more dangerous than they are.

276

Fools and wise folk are alike harmless. It is the half-wise, and the half-foolish, who are the most dangerous.

277

To see a difficult thing lightly handled gives us the impression of the impossible.

278

Difficulties increase the nearer we come to our aim.

279

Sowing is not so painful as reaping.

280

We are fond of looking to the future, because our secret wishes make us apt to turn in our favour the uncertainties which move about in it hither and thither.

281

It is not easy to be in any great assembly without thinking that the chance which brings so many people together will also make us meet our friends.

282

A man may live never so retired a life but he becomes a debtor or a creditor before he is aware of it.

283

If anyone meets us who owes us a debt of gratitude, it immediately crosses our mind. How often can we meet some one to whom we owe gratitude, without thinking of it!

284

To communicate oneself is Nature; to receive a communication as it is given is Culture.

285

No one would speak much in society if he were aware how often we misunderstand others.

286

It is only because we have not understood a thing that we cannot repeat it without alteration.

287

To make a long speech in the presence of others without flattering your audience, is to rouse dislike.

288

Every word that we utter rouses its contrary.

289

Contradiction and flattery make, both of them, bad conversation.

290

The pleasantest society is that in which there exists a genial deference amongst the members one towards another.

291

By nothing do men show their character more than by the things they laugh at.

292

The ridiculous springs from a moral contrast innocently presented to the senses.

293

The sensual man often laughs when there is nothing to laugh at. Whatever it is that moves him, he shows that he is pleased with himself.

294

An intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, a wise man hardly anything.

295

A man well on in years was reproved for still troubling himself about young women. 'It is the only means,' he replied, 'of regaining one's youth; and that is something every one wishes to do.'

296

A man does not mind being blamed for his faults, and being punished for them, and he patiently suffers much for the sake of them; but he becomes impatient if he is required to give them up.

297

Certain faults are necessary to the individual if he is to exist. We should not like old friends to give up certain peculiarities.

298

It is said of a man that he will soon die, when he acts in any way unlike himself.

299

What kind of faults in ourselves should we retain, nay, even cultivate? Those which rather flatter other people than offend them.

300

The passions are good or bad qualities, only intensified.

301

Our passions are, in truth, like the phoenix. When the old one burns away, the new one rises out of its ashes at once.

302

Great passions are hopeless diseases. That which could cure them is the first thing to make them really dangerous.

303

Passion is enhanced and tempered by avowal. In nothing, perhaps, is the middle course more desirable than in confidence and reticence towards those we love.

304

To sit in judgment on the departed is never likely to be equitable. We all suffer from life; who except God can call us to account? Let not their faults and sufferings, but what they have accomplished and done, occupy the survivors.

305

It is failings that show human nature, and merits that distinguish the individual; faults and misfortunes we all have in common; virtues belong to each one separately.

VI

306

The secret places in the way of life may not and cannot be revealed: there are rocks of offence on which every traveller must stumble. But the poet points to where they are.

307

It would not be worth while to see seventy years if all the wisdom of this world were foolishness with God.

308

The true is Godlike: we do not see it itself; we must guess at it through its manifestations.

309

The real scholar learns how to evolve the unknown from the known, and draws near the master.

310

In the smithy the iron is softened by blowing up the fire, and taking the dross from the bar. As soon as it is purified, it is beaten and pressed, and becomes firm again by the addition of fresh water. The same thing happens to a man at the hands of his teacher.

311

What belongs to a man, he cannot get rid of, even though he throws it away.

312

Of true religions there are only two: one of them recognises and worships the Holy that without form or shape dwells in and around us; and the other recognises and worships it in its fairest form. Everything that lies between these two is idolatry.

313

It is undeniable that in the Reformation the human mind tried to free itself; and the renaissance of Greek and Roman antiquity brought about the wish and longing for a freer, more seemly, and elegant life. The movement was favoured in no small degree by the fact that men's hearts aimed at returning to a certain simple state of nature, while the imagination sought to concentrate itself.

314

The Saints were all at once driven from heaven; and senses, thought, and heart were turned from a divine mother with a tender child, to the grown man doing good and suffering evil, who was later transfigured into a being half-divine in its nature, and then recognised and honoured as God himself. He stood against a background where the Creator had opened out the universe; a spiritual influence went out from him; his sufferings were adopted as an example, and his transfiguration was the pledge of everlastingness.

315

As a coal is revived by incense, so prayer revives the hopes of the heart.

316

From a strict point of view we must have a reformation of ourselves every day, and protest against others, even though it be in no religious sense.

317

It should be our earnest endeavour to use words coinciding as closely as possible with what we feel, see, think, experience, imagine, and reason. It is an endeavour which we cannot evade, and which is daily to be renewed.

Let every man examine himself, and he will find this a much harder task than he might suppose; for, unhappily, a man usually takes words as mere make-shifts; his knowledge and his thought are in most cases better than his method of expression.

False, irrelevant, and futile ideas may arise in ourselves and others, or find their way into us from without. Let us persist in the effort to remove them as far as we can, by plain and honest purpose.

318

As we grow older, the ordeals grow greater.

319

Where I cannot be moral, my power is gone.

320

A man is not deceived by others, he deceives himself.

321

Laws are all made by old people and by men. Youths and women want the exceptions, old people the rules.

322

It is not the intelligent man who rules, but intelligence; not the wise man, but wisdom.

323

To praise a man is to put oneself on his level.

324

It is not enough to know, we must also apply; it is not enough to will, we must also do.

325

Chinese, Indian, and Egyptian antiquities are never more than curiosities; it is well to make acquaintance with them; but in point of moral and æsthetic culture they can help us little.

326

The German runs no greater danger than to advance with and by the example of his neighbours. There is perhaps no nation that is fitter for the process of self-development; so that it has proved of the greatest advantage to Germany to have obtained the notice of the world so late.

327

Even men of insight do not see that they try to explain things which lie at the foundation of our experience, and in which we must simply acquiesce.

Yet still the attempt may have its advantage, as otherwise we should break off our researches too soon.

328

From this time forward, if a man does not apply himself to some art or handiwork, he will be in a bad way. In the rapid changes of the world, knowledge is no longer a furtherance; by the time a man has taken note of everything, he has lost himself.

329

Besides, in these days the world forces universal culture upon us, and so we need not trouble ourselves further about it; we must appropriate some particular culture.

330

The greatest difficulties lie where we do not look for them.

331

Our interest in public events is mostly the merest philistinism.

332

Nothing is more highly to be prized than the value of each day.

333

_Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt!_ This is so strange an utterance, that it could only have come from one who fancied himself autochthonous. The man who looks upon it as an honour to be descended from wise ancestors, will allow them at least as much common-sense as he allows himself.

334

Strictly speaking, everything depends upon a man's intentions; where these exist, thoughts appear; and as the intentions are, so are the thoughts.

335

If a man lives long in a high position, he does not, it is true, experience all that a man can experience; but he experiences things like them, and perhaps some things that have no parallel elsewhere.

VII

336

The first and last thing that is required of genius is love of truth.

337

To be and remain true to oneself and others, is to possess the noblest attribute of the greatest talents.

338

Great talents are the best means of conciliation.

339

The action of genius is in a way ubiquitous: towards general truths before experience, and towards particular truths after it.

340

An active scepticism is one which constantly aims at overcoming itself, and arriving by means of regulated experience at a kind of conditioned certainty.

341

The general nature of the sceptical mind is its tendency to inquire whether any particular predicate really attaches to any particular object; and the purpose of the inquiry is safely to apply in practice what has thus been discovered and proved.

342

The mind endowed with active powers and keeping with a practical object to the task that lies nearest, is the worthiest there is on earth.

343

Perfection is the measure of heaven, and the wish to be perfect the measure of man.

344

Not only what is born with him, but also what he acquires, makes the man.

345

A man is well equipped for all the real necessities of life if he trusts his senses, and so cultivates them that they remain worthy of being trusted.

346

The senses do not deceive; it is the judgment that deceives.

347

The lower animal is taught by its organs; man teaches his organs, and dominates them.

348

All direct invitation to live up to ideals is of doubtful value, particularly if addressed to women. Whatever the reason of it may be, a man of any importance collects round him a seraglio of a more or less religious, moral, and æsthetic character.

349

When a great idea enters the world as a Gospel, it becomes an offence to the multitude, which stagnates in pedantry; and to those who have much learning but little depth, it is folly.

350

Every idea appears at first as a strange visitor, and when it begins to be realised, it is hardly distinguishable from phantasy and phantastery.

351

This it is that has been called, in a good and in a bad sense, ideology; and this is why the ideologist is so repugnant to the hard-working, practical man of every day.

352

You may recognise the utility of an idea, and yet not quite understand how to make a perfect use of it.

353

_Credo Deum!_ That is a fine, a worthy thing to say; but to recognise God where and as he reveals himself, is the only true bliss on earth.

354

Kepler said: 'My wish is that I may perceive the God whom I find everywhere in the external world, in like manner also within and inside me.' The good man was not aware that in that very moment the divine in him stood in the closest connection with the divine in the Universe.

355

What is predestination? It is this: God is mightier and wiser than we are, and so he does with us as he pleases.

356

Toleration should, strictly speaking, be only a passing mood; it ought to lead to acknowledgment and appreciation. To tolerate a person is to affront him.

357

Faith, Love, and Hope once felt, in a quiet sociable hour, a plastic impulse in their nature; they worked together and created a lovely image, a Pandora in the higher sense, Patience.

358

'I stumbled over the roots of the tree which I planted.' It must have been an old forester who said that.

359

A leaf blown by the wind often looks like a bird.

360

Does the sparrow know how the stork feels?

361

Lamps make oil-spots, and candles want snuffing; it is only the light of heaven that shines pure and leaves no stain.