Kitabı oku: «Maxims and Reflections», sayfa 4

III

137

It is much easier to recognise error than to find truth; for error lies on the surface and may be overcome; but truth lies in the depths, and to search for it is not given to every one.

138

We all live on the past, and through the past are destroyed.

139

We are no sooner about to learn some great lesson than we take refuge in our own innate poverty of soul, and yet for all that the lesson has not been quite in vain.

140

The world of empirical morality consists for the most part of nothing but ill-will and envy.

141

Life seems so vulgar, so easily content with the commonplace things of every day, and yet it always nurses and cherishes certain higher claims in secret, and looks about for the means of satisfying them.

142

Confidences are strange things. If you listen only to one man, it is possible that he is deceived or mistaken; if you listen to many, they are in a like case; and, generally, you cannot get at the truth at all.

143

No one should desire to live in irregular circumstances; but if by chance a man falls into them, they test his character and show of how much determination he is capable.

144

An honourable man with limited ideas often sees through the rascality of the most cunning jobber.

145

If a man feels no love, he must learn how to flatter; otherwise he will not succeed.

146

Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must act in spite of it, and then criticism will gradually yield to him.

147

The masses cannot dispense with men of ability, and such men are always a burden to them.

148

If a man spreads my failings abroad, he is my master, even though he were my servant.

149

Whether memoirs are written by masters of servants, or by servants of masters, the processes always meet.

150

If you lay duties upon people and give them no rights, you must pay them well.

151

I can promise to be sincere, but not to be impartial.

152

Ingratitude is always a kind of weakness. I have never known men of ability to be ungrateful.

153

We are all so limited that we always think we are right; and so we may conceive of an extraordinary mind which not only errs but has a positive delight in error.

154

It is very rare to find pure and steady activity in the accomplishment of what is good and right. We usually see pedantry trying to keep back, and audacity trying to go on too fast.

155

Word and picture are correlatives which are continually in quest of each other, as is sufficiently evident in the case of metaphors and similes. So from all time what was said or sung inwardly to the ear had to be presented equally to the eye. And so in childish days we see word and picture in continual balance; in the book of the law and in the way of salvation, in the Bible and in the spelling-book. When something was spoken which could not be pictured, and something pictured which could not be spoken, all went well; but mistakes were often made, and a word was used instead of a picture; and thence arose those monsters of symbolical mysticism, which are doubly an evil.

156

For the man of the world a collection of anecdotes and maxims is of the greatest value, if he knows how to intersperse the one in his conversation at fitting moments, and remember the other when a case arises for their application.

157

When you lose interest in anything, you also lose the memory for it.

158

The world is a bell with a crack in it; it rattles, but does not ring.

159

The importunity of young dilettanti must be borne with good-will; for as they grow old they become the truest worshippers of Art and the Master.

160

People have to become really bad before they care for nothing but mischief, and delight in it.

161

Clever people are the best encyclopædia.

162

There are people who make no mistakes because they never wish to do anything worth doing.

163

If I know my relation to myself and the outer world, I call it truth. Every man can have his own peculiar truth; and yet it is always the same.

164

No one is the master of any truly productive energy; and all men must let it work on by itself.

165

A man never understands how anthropomorphic he is.

166

A difference which offers nothing to the understanding is no difference at all.

167

A man cannot live for every one; least of all for those with whom he would not care to live.

168

If a man sets out to study all the laws, he will have no time left to transgress them.

169

Things that are mysterious are not yet miracles.

170

'Converts are not in my good books.'

171

A frivolous impulsive encouragement of problematical talents was a mistake of my early years; and I have never been able to abandon it altogether.

172

I should like to be honest with you, without our falling out; but it will not do. You act wrongly, and fall between two stools; you win no adherents and lose your friends. What is to be the end of it?

173

It is all one whether you are of high or of humble origin. You will always have to pay for your humanity.

174

When I hear people speak of liberal ideas, it is always a wonder to me that men are so readily put off with empty verbiage. An idea cannot be liberal; but it may be potent, vigorous, exclusive, in order to fulfil its mission of being productive. Still less can a concept be liberal; for a concept has quite another mission. Where, however, we must look for liberality, is in the sentiments; and the sentiments are the inner man as he lives and moves. A man's sentiments, however, are rarely liberal, because they proceed directly from him personally, and from his immediate relations and requirements. Further we will not write, and let us apply this test to what we hear every day.

175

If a clever man commits a folly, it is not a small one.

176

There is a poetry without figures of speech, which is a single figure of speech.

177

I went on troubling myself about general ideas until I learnt to understand the particular achievements of the best men.

178

It is only when a man knows little, that he knows anything at all. With knowledge grows doubt.

179

The errors of a man are what make him really lovable.

180

There are men who love their like and seek it; others love their opposite and follow after it.

181

If a man has always let himself think the world as bad as the adversary represents it to be, he must have become a miserable person.

182

Ill-favour and hatred limit the spectator to the surface, even when keen perception is added unto them; but when keen perception unites with good-will and love, it gets at the heart of man and the world; nay, it may hope to reach the highest goal of all.

183

Raw matter is seen by every one; the contents are found only by him who has his eyes about him; and the form is a secret to the majority.

184

We may learn to know the world as we please: it will always retain a bright and a dark side.

185

Error is continually repeating itself in action, and we must unweariedly repeat the truth in word.

186

As in Rome there is, apart from the Romans, a population of statues, so apart from this real world there is a world of illusion, almost more potent, in which most men live.

187

Mankind is like the Red Sea: the staff has scarcely parted the waves asunder, before they flow together again.

188

Thoughts come back; beliefs persist; facts pass by never to return.

189

Of all peoples, the Greeks have dreamt the dream of life the best.

190

We readily bow to antiquity, but not to posterity. It is only a father that does not grudge talent to his son.

191

There is no virtue in subordinating oneself; but there is virtue in descending, and in recognising anything as above us, which is beneath us.

192

The whole art of living consists in giving up existence in order to exist.

193

All our pursuits and actions are a wearying process. Well is it for him who wearies not.

194

Hope is the second soul of the unhappy.

195

Love is a true renovator.

196

Mankind is not without a wish to serve; hence the chivalry of the French is a servitude.

197

In the theatre the pleasure of what we see and hear restrains our reflections.

198

There is no limit to the increase of experience, but theories cannot become clearer and more complete in just the same sense. The field of experience is the whole universe in all directions. Theory remains shut up within the limits of the human faculties. Hence there is no way of looking at the world, but it recurs, and the curious thing happens, that with increased experience a limited theory may again come into favour.

It is always the same world which stands open to observation, which is continually being contemplated or guessed at; and it is always the same men who live in the true or in the false; more at their ease in the latter than in the former.

199

Truth is at variance with our natures, but not so error; and for a very simple reason. Truth requires us to recognise ourselves as limited, but error flatters us with the belief that in one way or another we are subject to no bounds at all.

200

That some men think they can still do what they have been able to do, is natural enough; that others think they can do what they have never been able to do, is singular, but not rare.

201

At all times it has not been the age, but individuals alone, who have worked for knowledge. It was the age which put Socrates to death by poison, the age which burnt Huss. The ages have always remained alike.

202

That is true Symbolism, where the more particular represents the more general, not as a dream or shade, but as a vivid, instantaneous revelation of the Inscrutable.

203

Everything of an abstract or symbolic nature, as soon as it is challenged by realities, ends by consuming them and itself. So credit consumes both money and itself.

204

Mastery often passes for egoism.

205

With Protestants, as soon as good works cease and their merit is denied, sentimentality takes their place.

206

If a man knows where to get good advice, it is as though he could supply it himself.

207

The use of mottoes is to indicate something we have not attained, but strive to attain. It is right to keep them always before our eyes.

208

'If a man cannot lift a stone himself, let him leave it, even though he has some one to help him.'

209

Despotism promotes general self-government, because from top to bottom it makes the individual responsible, and so produces the highest degree of activity.

210

A man must pay dear for his errors if he wishes to get rid of them, and even then he is lucky.

211

Enthusiasm is of the greatest value, so long as we are not carried away by it.

212

School itself is the only true preparation for it.

213

Error is related to truth as sleep to waking. I have observed that on awakening from error a man turns again to truth as with new vigour.

214

Every one suffers who does not work for himself. A man works for others to have them share in his joy.

215

Men's prejudices rest upon their character for the time being and cannot be overcome, as being part and parcel of themselves. Neither evidence nor common-sense nor reason has the slightest influence upon them.

216

Characters often make a law of their failings. Men who know the world have said that when prudence is only fear in disguise, its scruples cannot be conquered. The weak often have revolutionary sentiments; they think they would be well off if they were not ruled, and fail to perceive that they can rule neither themselves nor others.

217

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.

265

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.