Rather than go into long, elaborate detail about my perceptions of what I have read thus far in Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil (translated by Walter Kaufmann), I will rather share directly some of the content that has most struck me.
25. "...beware of martyrdom! Of suffering 'for the truth's sake!' Even of defending yourselves! It spoils all the innocence and fine neutrality of your conscience; it makes you headstrong against objections and red rags...you have to pose as protectors of truth upon earth--as though 'the truth' were such an innocuous and incompetent creature as to require protectors!"
26. "Cynicism is the only form in which base souls approach honesty, and the higher man must listen closely to every coarse or subtle cynicism, and congratulate himself when a clown without shame or a scientific satyr speaks out precisely in front of him."
30. "Books for all the world are always foul-smelling books: the smell of small people clings to them."
39. "Nobody is very likely to consider a doctrine true merely because it makes people happy or virtuous--except perhaps the lovely 'idealists' who become effusive about the good, the true, and the beautiful and allow all kinds of motley, clumsy, and benevolent desiderata to swim around in utter confusion in their pond. Happiness and virtue are no arguments. But people like to forget--even sober spirits--that making unhappy and evil are no counterarguments."
40. "Whatever is profound loves masks; what is most profound even hates image and parable... A man whose sense of shame has some profundity encounters his destinies and delicate decisions, too, on paths which few ever reach and of whose mere existence his closest intimates must not know: his mortal danger is concealed from their eyes, and so is his regained sureness of life. Such a concealed man who instinctively needs speech for silence and for burial in silence and who is inexhaustible in his evasion of communication, wants and sees to it that a mask of him roams in his place through the hearts and heads of his friends. And supposing he did not want it, he would still realize some day that in spite of that a mask of him is there--and that this is well. Every profound spirit needs a mask: even more, around every profound spirit a mask is growing continually, owing to the constantly false, namely shallow, interpretation of every word, every step, every sign of life he gives."
41. "One has to test oneself to see that one is destined for independence and command--and do it at the right time. One should not dodge one's tests, though they may be the most dangerous game one could play and are tests that are taken in the end before no witness or judge but ourselves."
"Not to remain stuck to a person--not even the most loved--every person is a prison, also a nook. Not to remain stuck to a fatherland--not even if it suffers most and needs help most--it is less difficult to sever one's heart from a victorious fatherland. Not to remain stuck to some pity--not even for higher men into whose rare torture and helplessness some accident allowed us to look. Not to remain stuck to a science--even if it should lure us with the most precious finds that seem to have been saved up precisely for us. Not to remain stuck to one's own detachment, to that voluptuous remoteness and strangeness of the bird who flees ever higher to see ever more below him--the danger of the flier. Not to remain stuck to our own virtues and become as a whole the victim of some detail in us, such as our hospitality, which is in danger of the flier. Not to remain stuck to our own virtues and become as a whole the victim of some detail in us, such as our hospitality, which is the danger of dangers for superior and rich souls who spend themselves lavishly, almost indifferently, and exaggerate the virtue of generosity into a vice. One must know how to conserve oneself: the hardest test of independence."
43. "One must shed the bad taste of wanting to agree with many. 'Good' is no longer good when one's neighbor mouths it. And how should there be a 'common good!' The term contradicts itself: whatever can be common always has little value."
46. "From the start, the Christian faith is a sacrifice: a sacrifice of all freedom, all pride, all self-confidence of the spirit; at the same time, enslavement and self-mockery, self-mutilation."
49. "What is amazing about the religiosity of the ancient Greeks is the enormous abundance of gratitude it exudes: it is a very noble type of man that confronts nature and life in this way."
"Later, when the rabble gained the upper hand in Greece, fear became rampant in religion, too--and the ground was prepared for Christianity."
55. "Finally--what remained to be sacrificed? At long last, did one not have to sacrifice for once whatever is comforting, holy, healing; all hope, all faith in hidden harmony, in future blisses and justices? Didn't one have to sacrifice God himself and, from cruelty against oneself, worship the stone, stupidity, gravity, fate, the nothing? To sacrifice God for the nothing--this paradoxical mystery of the final cruelty was reserved for the generation that is now coming up: all of us already know something of this."
76. "Under peaceful conditions, a warlike man sets upon himself."
90. "Heavy, heavy-spirited people become lighter precisely through what makes others heavier, through hatred and love, and for a time they surface."
99. "The voice of disappointment: 'I listened for an echo and heard nothing but praise.'"
119. "There is an innocence in admiration; it is found in those to whom it has never yet occurred that they, too, might be admired some day."
120. "Sensuality often hastens the growth of love so much that the roots remain weak and are easily torn up."
146. "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you."
149. "What a time experiences as evil is usually an untimely echo of what was formerly experienced as good—the atavism of a more ancient ideal."
160. "One no longer loves one’s insight enough once one communicates it."
25. "...beware of martyrdom! Of suffering 'for the truth's sake!' Even of defending yourselves! It spoils all the innocence and fine neutrality of your conscience; it makes you headstrong against objections and red rags...you have to pose as protectors of truth upon earth--as though 'the truth' were such an innocuous and incompetent creature as to require protectors!"
26. "Cynicism is the only form in which base souls approach honesty, and the higher man must listen closely to every coarse or subtle cynicism, and congratulate himself when a clown without shame or a scientific satyr speaks out precisely in front of him."
30. "Books for all the world are always foul-smelling books: the smell of small people clings to them."
39. "Nobody is very likely to consider a doctrine true merely because it makes people happy or virtuous--except perhaps the lovely 'idealists' who become effusive about the good, the true, and the beautiful and allow all kinds of motley, clumsy, and benevolent desiderata to swim around in utter confusion in their pond. Happiness and virtue are no arguments. But people like to forget--even sober spirits--that making unhappy and evil are no counterarguments."
40. "Whatever is profound loves masks; what is most profound even hates image and parable... A man whose sense of shame has some profundity encounters his destinies and delicate decisions, too, on paths which few ever reach and of whose mere existence his closest intimates must not know: his mortal danger is concealed from their eyes, and so is his regained sureness of life. Such a concealed man who instinctively needs speech for silence and for burial in silence and who is inexhaustible in his evasion of communication, wants and sees to it that a mask of him roams in his place through the hearts and heads of his friends. And supposing he did not want it, he would still realize some day that in spite of that a mask of him is there--and that this is well. Every profound spirit needs a mask: even more, around every profound spirit a mask is growing continually, owing to the constantly false, namely shallow, interpretation of every word, every step, every sign of life he gives."
41. "One has to test oneself to see that one is destined for independence and command--and do it at the right time. One should not dodge one's tests, though they may be the most dangerous game one could play and are tests that are taken in the end before no witness or judge but ourselves."
"Not to remain stuck to a person--not even the most loved--every person is a prison, also a nook. Not to remain stuck to a fatherland--not even if it suffers most and needs help most--it is less difficult to sever one's heart from a victorious fatherland. Not to remain stuck to some pity--not even for higher men into whose rare torture and helplessness some accident allowed us to look. Not to remain stuck to a science--even if it should lure us with the most precious finds that seem to have been saved up precisely for us. Not to remain stuck to one's own detachment, to that voluptuous remoteness and strangeness of the bird who flees ever higher to see ever more below him--the danger of the flier. Not to remain stuck to our own virtues and become as a whole the victim of some detail in us, such as our hospitality, which is in danger of the flier. Not to remain stuck to our own virtues and become as a whole the victim of some detail in us, such as our hospitality, which is the danger of dangers for superior and rich souls who spend themselves lavishly, almost indifferently, and exaggerate the virtue of generosity into a vice. One must know how to conserve oneself: the hardest test of independence."
43. "One must shed the bad taste of wanting to agree with many. 'Good' is no longer good when one's neighbor mouths it. And how should there be a 'common good!' The term contradicts itself: whatever can be common always has little value."
46. "From the start, the Christian faith is a sacrifice: a sacrifice of all freedom, all pride, all self-confidence of the spirit; at the same time, enslavement and self-mockery, self-mutilation."
49. "What is amazing about the religiosity of the ancient Greeks is the enormous abundance of gratitude it exudes: it is a very noble type of man that confronts nature and life in this way."
"Later, when the rabble gained the upper hand in Greece, fear became rampant in religion, too--and the ground was prepared for Christianity."
55. "Finally--what remained to be sacrificed? At long last, did one not have to sacrifice for once whatever is comforting, holy, healing; all hope, all faith in hidden harmony, in future blisses and justices? Didn't one have to sacrifice God himself and, from cruelty against oneself, worship the stone, stupidity, gravity, fate, the nothing? To sacrifice God for the nothing--this paradoxical mystery of the final cruelty was reserved for the generation that is now coming up: all of us already know something of this."
76. "Under peaceful conditions, a warlike man sets upon himself."
90. "Heavy, heavy-spirited people become lighter precisely through what makes others heavier, through hatred and love, and for a time they surface."
99. "The voice of disappointment: 'I listened for an echo and heard nothing but praise.'"
119. "There is an innocence in admiration; it is found in those to whom it has never yet occurred that they, too, might be admired some day."
120. "Sensuality often hastens the growth of love so much that the roots remain weak and are easily torn up."
146. "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you."
149. "What a time experiences as evil is usually an untimely echo of what was formerly experienced as good—the atavism of a more ancient ideal."
160. "One no longer loves one’s insight enough once one communicates it."
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