The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 258

It is then only that commerce would acquire nobility, and the noble would then perhaps occupy themselves just as readily with commerce as they have done hitherto with war and politics: while on the other hand the valuation of politics might then have entirely altered.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 231

In his time the individual is usually most mature, and consequently the "culture" is highest and most fruitful, but not on his account nor through him: although the men of highest culture love to flatter their Cæsar by pretending that they are _his_ creation. The truth, however, is that they need quietness externally, because internally they have disquietude and labour.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 807

_Against the Disparagers of Nature._—They are disagreeable to me, those men in whom every natural inclination forthwith becomes a disease, something disfiguring, or even disgraceful. _They_ have seduced us to the opinion that the inclinations and impulses of men are evil; _they_ are the cause of our great injustice to our own nature, and to all nature!

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1107

Schopenhauer's own answer to this question was—if I may be forgiven for saying so—a premature, juvenile reply, a mere compromise, a stoppage and sticking in the very same Christian-ascetic, moral perspectives, _the belief in which had got notice to quit_ along with the belief in God....

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1136

In most cases, however, it is a means of concealment for a philosopher, behind which he seeks protection, owing to exhaustion, age, chilliness, or hardening; as a feeling of the approaching end, as the sagacity of the instinct which animals have before their death,—they go apart, remain at rest, choose solitude, creep into caves, become _wise_.... What? Wisdom a means of concealment of the philosopher from—intellect?—

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 160

They now seem strange, rare, and extraordinary: and he who feels these forces in himself has to foster them in face of a different, opposing world; he has to defend them, honour them, and rear them to maturity: and he either becomes a great man thereby, or a deranged and eccentric person, unless he should altogether break down betimes. Formerly these rare qualities were usual, and were consequently regarded as common: they did not distinguish people.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 496

One should note the roars of command, with which the German cities are absolutely surrounded at present, when there is drilling at all the gates: what presumption, furious imperiousness, and mocking coldness speaks in this uproar! Could the Germans actually be a musical people?—It is certain that the Germans martialise themselves at present in the tone of their language: it is probable that, being exercised to speak martially, they will finally write martially also.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 86

"Oh, might all keys be lost! 'Twere better so And in all keyholes might the pick-lock go!" Who thus reflects ye may as—picklock know.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 128

He possesses feelings of pleasure and pain of such intensity that the intellect must either be silent before them, or yield itself to their service: his heart then goes into his head, and one henceforth speaks of "passions." (Here and there to be sure, the antithesis to this, and as it were the "reverse of passion," presents itself; for example in Fontenelle, to whom some one once laid the hand on the heart with the words, "What you have there, my dearest friend, is brain also.") It is the unreason, or perverse reason of passion, which the ignoble man despises in the noble individual, especially when it concentrates upon objects whose value appears to him to be altogether fantastic and arbitrary.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 833

It is we, we who think and feel, that actually and unceasingly _make_ something which does not yet exist: the whole eternally increasing world of valuations, colours, weights, perspectives, gradations, affirmations and negations. This composition of ours is continually learnt, practised, and translated into flesh and actuality, and even into the commonplace, by the so-called practical men (our actors, as we have said).

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 584

I set the following propositions against those of Schopenhauer:—Firstly, in order that Will may arise, an idea of pleasure and pain is necessary. Secondly, that a vigorous excitation may be felt as pleasure or pain, is the affair of the _interpreting_ intellect, which, to be sure, operates thereby for the most part unconsciously to us, and one and the same excitation _may_ be interpreted as pleasure or pain.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 542

Many hecatombs of men were sacrificed ere these impulses learned to understand their juxtaposition and regard themselves as functions of one organising force in one man! And how far are we still from the point at which the artistic powers and the practical wisdom of life shall co-operate with scientific thinking, so that a higher organic system may be formed, in relation to which the scholar, the physician, the artist, and the lawgiver, as we know them at present, will seem sorry antiquities!

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 813

Indeed, from the bottom of my soul I am gratefully disposed to all my misery and sickness, and to whatever is imperfect in me, because such things leave me a hundred back-doors through which I can escape from permanent habits. The most unendurable thing, to be sure, the really terrible thing, would be a life without habits, a life which continually required improvisation:—that would be my banishment and my Siberia.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 410

And as often as a person acts he has occasion to sing, _every_ action is dependent on the assistance of spirits: magic song and incantation appear to be the original form of poetry. When verse also came to be used in oracles—the Greeks said that the hexameter was invented at Delphi,—the rhythm was here also intended to exercise a compulsory influence.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1052

Jesus (or Paul), for example, found around him the life of the common people in the Roman province, a modest, virtuous, oppressed life: he interpreted it, he put the highest significance and value into it—and thereby the courage to despise every other mode of life, the calm fanaticism of the Moravians, the secret, subterranean self-confidence which goes on increasing, and is at last ready "to overcome the world" (that is to say, Rome, and the upper classes throughout the empire).

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 423

He who is something like Faust and Manfred, what does it matter to him about the Fausts and Manfreds of the theatre!—while it certainly gives him something to think about _that_ such figures are brought into the theatre at all. The _strongest_ thoughts and passions before those who are not capable of thought and passion—but of _intoxication_ only! And _those_ as a means to this end! And theatre and music the hashish-smoking and betel-chewing of Europeans!

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 41

Venture, comrades, I implore you, On the fare I set before you, You will like it more to-morrow, Better still the following day: If yet more you're then requiring, Old success I'll find inspiring, And fresh courage thence will borrow Novel dainties to display.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 6

It seems to be written in the language of the thawing-wind: there is wantonness, restlessness, contradiction and April-weather in it; so that one is as constantly reminded of the proximity of winter as of the _victory_ over it: the victory which is coming, which must come, which has perhaps already come.... Gratitude continually flows forth, as if the most unexpected thing had happened, the gratitude of a convalescent—for _convalescence_ was this most unexpected thing.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 465

Richard Wagner allowed himself to be misled by Hegel's influence till the middle of his life; and he did the same again when later on he read Schopenhauer's doctrine between the lines of his characters, and began to express himself with such terms as "will," "genius," and "sympathy." Nevertheless it will remain true that nothing is more counter to Schopenhauer's spirit than the essentially Wagnerian element in Wagner's heroes: I mean the innocence of the supremest selfishness, the belief in strong passion as the good in itself, in a word, the Siegfried trait in the countenances of his heroes.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 632

Reversely, one may always conclude with regard to an actual elevation of culture, when powerful and ambitious natures only produce a limited and sectarian effect: this is true also for the separate arts, and for the provinces of knowledge. Where there is ruling there are masses: where there are masses there is need of slavery. Where there is slavery the individuals are but few, and have the instincts and conscience of the herd opposed to them.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1083

The Greeks, having adopted this _rôle-creed_—an artist creed, if you will—underwent step by step, as is well known, a curious transformation, not in every respect worthy of imitation: _they became actual stage-players_; and as such they enchanted, they conquered all the world, and at last even the conqueror of the world, (for the _Graeculus histrio_ conquered Rome, and _not_ Greek culture, as the naïve are accustomed to say....) What I fear, however, and what is at present obvious, if we desire to perceive it, is that we modern men are quite on the same road already; and whenever man begins to discover in what respect he plays a rôle, and to what extent he _can_ be a stage-player, he _becomes_ a stage-player....

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1276

In German the expression _Kopf zu waschen_, besides the literal sense, also means "to give a person a sound drubbing."—TR.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1115

_The Peasant Revolt of the Spirit._—We Europeans find ourselves in view of an immense world of ruins, where some things still tower aloft, while other objects stand mouldering and dismal, where most things however already lie on the ground, picturesque enough—where were there ever finer ruins?—overgrown with weeds, large and small. It is the Church which is this city of decay: we see the religious organisation of Christianity shaken to its deepest foundations.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1280

As 'neath a shady tree I sat After long toil to take my pleasure, I heard a tapping "pit-a-pat" Beat prettily in rhythmic measure. Tho' first I scowled, my face set hard, The sound at length my sense entrapping Forced me to speak like any bard, And keep true time unto the tapping.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1261

That one does not thereby get into the depths, that one does not get deep enough _down_—is a superstition of the hydrophobic, the enemies of cold water; they speak without experience. Oh! the great cold makes one quick!—And let me ask by the way: Is it a fact that a thing has been misunderstood and unrecognised when it has only been touched upon in passing, glanced at, flashed at? Must one absolutely sit upon it in the first place? Must one have brooded on it as on an egg?

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 202

For otherwise it could not but have been seen that the virtues (such as diligence, obedience, chastity, piety, justice) are mostly _injurious_ to their possessors, as impulses which rule in them too vehemently and ardently, and do not want to be kept in co-ordination with the other impulses by the reason. If you have a virtue, an actual, perfect virtue (and not merely a kind of impulse towards virtue!)—you are its _victim_! But your neighbour praises your virtue precisely on that account!

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 824

For this fine power of theirs usually ceases with them where art ceases and life begins; _we_, however, want to be the poets of our life, and first of all in the smallest and most commonplace matters.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 538

Cause and effect: there is probably never any such duality; in fact there is a _continuum_ before us, from which we isolate a few portions;—just as we always observe a motion as isolated points, and therefore do not properly see it, but infer it. The abruptness with which many effects take place leads us into error; it is however only an abruptness for us. There is an infinite multitude of processes in that abrupt moment which escape us.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 756

we want to leave the Gods alone (and the serviceable genii likewise), and wish to content ourselves with the assumption that our own practical and theoretical skilfulness in explaining and suitably arranging events has now reached its highest point.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 340

_In Honour of Friendship._—That the sentiment of friendship was regarded by antiquity as the highest sentiment, higher even than the most vaunted pride of the self-sufficient and wise, yea as it were its sole and still holier brotherhood, is very well expressed by the story of the Macedonian king who made the present of a talent to a cynical Athenian philosopher from whom he received it back again. "What?" said the king, "has he then no friend?" He therewith meant to say, "I honour this pride of the wise and independent man, but I should have honoured his humanity still higher if the friend in him had gained the victory over his pride. The philosopher has lowered himself in my estimation, for he showed that he did not know one of the two highest sentiments—and in fact the higher of them!"

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 191

All of a sudden, it itself, and the whole landscape around and under us, is as it were disenchanted; we had forgotten that many a greatness, like many a goodness, wants only to be seen at a certain distance, and entirely from below, not from above,—it is thus only that _it operates_. Perhaps you know men in your neighbourhood who can only look at themselves from a certain distance to find themselves at all endurable, or attractive and enlivening; they are to be dissuaded from self-knowledge.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1163

_The Anchorite Speaks once more._—We also have intercourse with "men," we also modestly put on the clothes in which people know us (_as such_), respect us and seek us; and we thereby mingle in society, that is to say, among the disguised who do not wish to be so called; we also do like all prudent masqueraders, and courteously dismiss all curiosity which has not reference merely to our "clothes." There are however other modes and artifices for "going about" among men and associating with them: for example, as a ghost,—which is very advisable when one wants to scare them, and get rid of them easily.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 398

It is thus that Horace now and then translated Alcæus or Archilochus, it is thus that Propertius translated Callimachus and Philetas (poets of equal rank with Theocritus, if we _be allowed_ to judge): of what consequence was it to them that the actual creator experienced this and that, and had inscribed the indication thereof in his poem!—as poets they were averse to the antiquarian, inquisitive spirit which precedes the historical sense; as poets they did not respect those essentially personal traits and names, nor anything peculiar to city, coast, or century, such as its costume and mask, but at once put the present and the Roman in its place.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 810

I always think that _this_ will at last satisfy me permanently (the short-lived habit has also that characteristic belief of passion, the belief in everlasting duration; I am to be envied for having found it and recognised it), and then it nourishes me at noon and at eve, and spreads a profound satisfaction around me and in me, so that I have no longing for anything else, not needing to compare, or despise, or hate.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 525

To be able to affirm all this, however, they had to _deceive_ themselves concerning their own condition: they had to attribute to themselves impersonality and unchanging permanence, they had to mistake the nature of the philosophic individual, deny the force of the impulses in cognition, and conceive of reason generally as an entirely free and self-originating activity; they kept their eyes shut to the fact that they also had reached their doctrines in contradiction to valid methods, or through their longing for repose or for exclusive possession or for domination.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 101

Although we are accustomed readily enough, with our usual short-sightedness, to separate our neighbours precisely into useful and hurtful, into good and evil men, yet when we make a general calculation, and on longer reflection on the whole question, we become distrustful of this defining and separating, and finally leave it alone.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 653

_Misanthropy and Philanthropy._—We only speak about being sick of men when we can no longer digest them, and yet have the stomach full of them. Misanthropy is the result of a far too eager philanthropy and "cannibalism,"—but who ever bade you swallow men like oysters, my Prince Hamlet!

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 931

Let us leave this nonsense and this bad taste to those who have nothing else to do, save to drag the past a little distance further through time, and who are never themselves the present,—consequently to the many, to the majority! We, however, _would seek to become what we are_,—the new, the unique, the incomparable, making laws for ourselves and creating ourselves! And for this purpose we must become the best students and discoverers of all the laws and necessities in the world.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 883

_A New Precaution._—Let us no longer think so much about punishing, blaming, and improving! We shall seldom be able to alter an individual, and if we should succeed in doing so, something else may also succeed, perhaps unawares: _we_ may have been altered by him! Let us rather see to it that our own influence on _all that is to come_ outweighs and overweighs his influence! Let us not struggle in direct conflict!—all blaming, punishing, and desire to improve comes under this category. But let us elevate ourselves all the higher! Let us ever give to our pattern more shining colours! Let us obscure the other by our light! No! We do not mean to become _darker_ ourselves on his account, like all that punish and are discontented! Let us rather go aside! Let us look away!

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 237

_Different Dissatisfactions._—The feeble and as it were feminine dissatisfied people have ingenuity for beautifying and deepening life; the strong dissatisfied people—the masculine persons among them, to continue the metaphor—have the ingenuity for improving and safeguarding life.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 74

In sweat of face, so runs the screed, We e'er must eat our bread, Yet wise physicians if we heed "Eat naught in sweat," 'tis said. The dog-star's blinking: what's his need? What tells his blazing sign? In sweat of face (so runs _his_ screed) We're meant to drink our wine!

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 313

Appearance is for me the operating and living thing itself; which goes so far in its self-mockery as to make me feel that here there is appearance, and Will o' the Wisp, and spirit-dance, and nothing more,—that among all these dreamers, I also, the "thinker," dance my dance, that the thinker is a means of prolonging further the terrestrial dance, and in so far is one of the masters of ceremony of existence, and that the sublime consistency and connectedness of all branches of knowledge is perhaps, and will perhaps, be the best means for _maintaining_ the universality of the dreaming, the complete, mutual understandability of all those dreamers, and thereby _the duration of the dream_.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 926

That word tickles my ear, and I must laugh in spite of your presence and your seriousness.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1003

we have no longer the bitterness and passion of him who has broken loose, who has to make for himself a belief, a goal, and even a martyrdom out of his unbelief!

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 243

This cannot be the truth!"—and then, instead of looking at it and listening to it with more attention, he runs out of the way of the striking object as if intimidated, and seeks to get it out of his head as quickly as possible. For his fundamental rule runs thus: "I want to see nothing that contradicts the usual opinion concerning things! Am _I_ created for the purpose of discovering new truths? There are already too many of the old ones."

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1033

The struggle for existence is only an _exception_, a temporary restriction of the will to live; the struggle, be it great or small, turns everywhere on predominance, on increase and expansion, on power, in conformity to the will to power, which is just the will to live.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 257

Conditions of society are imaginable in which there will be no selling and buying, and in which the necessity for this art will become quite lost; perhaps it may then happen that individuals who are less subjected to the law of the prevailing condition of things will indulge in buying and selling as a _luxury of sentiment_.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1226

But an essentially mechanical world would be an essentially _meaningless_ world! Supposing we valued the _worth_ of a music with reference to how much it could be counted, calculated, or formulated—how absurd such a "scientific" estimate of music would be! What would one have apprehended, understood, or discerned in it! Nothing, absolutely nothing of what is really "music" in it!...

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 18

After such self-questioning and self-testing, one learns to look with a sharper eye at all that has hitherto been philosophised; one divines better than before the arbitrary by-ways, side-streets, resting-places, and _sunny_ places of thought, to which suffering thinkers, precisely as sufferers, are led and misled: one knows now in what direction the sickly _body_ and its requirements unconsciously press, push, and allure the spirit—towards the sun, stillness, gentleness, patience, medicine, refreshment in any sense whatever.

The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 329

_We Artists!_—When we love a woman we have readily a hatred against nature, on recollecting all the disagreeable natural functions to which every woman is subject; we prefer not to think of them at all, but if once our soul touches on these things it twitches impatiently, and glances, as we have said, contemptuously at nature:—we are hurt; nature seems to encroach upon our possessions, and with the profanest hands.