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290. Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being
misunderstood. The latter perhaps wounds his vanity; but the former
wounds his heart, his sympathy, which always says: "Ah, why would you
also have as hard a time of it as I have?"
291. Man, a COMPLEX, mendacious, artful, and inscrutable animal, uncanny
to the other animals by his artifice and sagacity, rather than by his
strength, has invented the good conscience in order finally to enjoy his
soul as something SIMPLE; and the whole of morality is a long, audacious
falsification, by virtue of which generally enjoyment at the sight of
the soul becomes possible. From this point of view there is perhaps much
more in the conception of "art" than is generally believed.
292. A philosopher: that is a man who constantly experiences, sees,
hears, suspects, hopes, and dreams extraordinary things; who is struck
by his own thoughts as if they came from the outside, from above and
below, as a species of events and lightning-flashes PECULIAR TO HIM; who
is perhaps himself a storm pregnant with new lightnings; a portentous
man, around whom there is always rumbling and mumbling and gaping and
something uncanny going on. A philosopher: alas, a being who often
runs away from himself, is often afraid of himself--but whose curiosity
always makes him "come to himself" again.
293. A man who says: "I like that, I take it for my own, and mean to
guard and protect it from every one"; a man who can conduct a case,
carry out a resolution, remain true to an opinion, keep hold of a woman,
punish and overthrow insolence; a man who has his indignation and his
sword, and to whom the weak, the suffering, the oppressed, and even the
animals willingly submit and naturally belong; in short, a man who is a
MASTER by nature--when such a man has sympathy, well! THAT sympathy has
value! But of what account is the sympathy of those who suffer! Or of
those even who preach sympathy! There is nowadays, throughout almost the
whole of Europe, a sickly irritability and sensitiveness towards pain,
and also a repulsive irrestrainableness in complaining, an effeminizing,
which, with the aid of religion and philosophical nonsense, seeks
to deck itself out as something superior--there is a regular cult of
suffering. The UNMANLINESS of that which is called "sympathy" by such
groups of visionaries, is always, I believe, the first thing that
strikes the eye.--One must resolutely and radically taboo this latest
form of bad taste; and finally I wish people to put the good amulet,
"GAI SABER" ("gay science," in ordinary language), on heart and neck, as
a protection against it.
294. THE OLYMPIAN VICE.--Despite the philosopher who, as a genuine
Englishman, tried to bring laughter into bad repute in all thinking
minds--"Laughing is a bad infirmity of human nature, which every
thinking mind will strive to overcome" (Hobbes),--I would even
allow myself to rank philosophers according to the quality of their
laughing--up to those who are capable of GOLDEN laughter. And supposing
that Gods also philosophize, which I am strongly inclined to believe,
owing to many reasons--I have no doubt that they also know how to laugh
thereby in an overman-like and new fashion--and at the expense of all
serious things! Gods are fond of ridicule: it seems that they cannot
refrain from laughter even in holy matters.