Human, All Too Human Volume Ii Part 32

380.

THE PHILOSOPHIC LIFE MISINTERPRETED.-At the moment when one is beginning to take philosophy seriously, the whole world fancies that one is doing the reverse.

381.

IMITATION.-By imitation, the bad gains, the good loses credit-especially in art.

382.

FINAL TEACHING OF HISTORY.-"Oh that I had but lived in those times!" is the exclamation of foolish and frivolous men. At every period of history that we seriously review, even if it be the most belauded era of the past, we shall rather cry out at the end, "Anything but a return to that! The spirit of that age would oppress you with the weight of a hundred atmospheres, the good and beautiful in it you would not enjoy, its evil you could not digest." Depend upon it, posterity will pa.s.s the same verdict on our own epoch, and say that it was unbearable, that life under such conditions was intolerable. "And yet every one can endure his own times?" Yes, because the spirit of his age not only lies _upon_ him but is _in_ him. The spirit of the age offers resistance to itself and can bear itself.

383.

GREATNESS AS A MASK.-By greatness in our comportment we embitter our foes; by envy that we do not conceal we almost reconcile them to us. For envy levels and makes equal; it is an unconscious, plaintive variety of modesty.-It may be indeed that here and there, for the sake of the above-named advantage, envy has been a.s.sumed as a mask by those who are not envious. Certainly, however, greatness in comportment is often used as the mask of envy by ambitious men who would rather suffer drawbacks and embitter their foes than let it be seen that they place them on an equal footing with themselves.

384.

UNPARDONABLE.-You gave him an opportunity of displaying the greatness of his character, and he did not make use of the opportunity. He will never forgive you for that.

385.

CONTRASTS.-The most senile thought ever conceived about men lies in the famous saying, "The ego is always hateful," the most childish in the still more famous saying, "Love thy neighbour as thyself."-With the one knowledge of men has ceased, with the other it has not yet begun.

386.

A DEFECTIVE EAR.-"We still belong to the mob so long as we always shift the blame on to others; we are on the track of wisdom when we always make ourselves alone responsible; but the wise man finds no one to blame, neither himself nor others."-Who said that? Epictetus, eighteen hundred years ago.-The world has heard but forgotten the saying.-No, the world has not heard and not forgotten it: everything is not forgotten. But we had not the necessary ear, the ear of Epictetus.-So he whispered it into his own ear?-Even so: wisdom is the whispering of the sage to himself in the crowded market-place.

387.

A DEFECT OF STANDPOINT, NOT OF VISION.-We always stand a few paces too near ourselves and a few paces too far from our neighbour. Hence we judge him too much in the lump, and ourselves too much by individual, occasional, insignificant features and circ.u.mstances.

388.

IGNORANCE ABOUT WEAPONS.-How little we care whether another knows a subject or not!-whereas he perhaps sweats blood at the bare idea that he may be considered ignorant on the point. Yes, there are exquisite fools, who always go about with a quiverful of mighty, excommunicatory utterances, ready to shoot down any one who shows freely that there are matters in which their judgment is not taken into account.

389.

AT THE DRINKING-TABLE OF EXPERIENCE.-People whose innate moderation leads them to drink but the half of every gla.s.s, will not admit that everything in the world has its lees and sediment.

390.

SINGING-BIRDS.-The followers of a great man often put their own eyes out, so that they may be the better able to sing his praise.

391.

BEYOND OUR KEN.-The good generally displeases us when it is beyond our ken.

392.