Maxims and Reflections
first men will allow no value to what we tell them, and then they behave
as if they knew it all themselves.
572
Nature fills all space with her limitless productivity. If we observe
merely our own earth, everything that we call evil and unfortunate is so
because Nature cannot provide room for everything that comes into
existence, and still less endow it with permanence.
573
Everything that comes into being seeks room for itself and desires
duration: hence it drives something else from its place and shortens its
duration.
574
There is so much of cryptogamy in phanerogamy that centuries will not
decipher it.
575
What a true saying it is that he who wants to deceive mankind must
before all things make absurdity plausible.
576
The further knowledge advances, the nearer we come to the unfathomable:
the more we know how to use our knowledge, the better we see that the
unfathomable is of no practical use.
577
The finest achievement for a man of thought is to have fathomed what may
be fathomed, and quietly to revere the unfathomable.
578
The discerning man who acknowledges his limitations is not far off
perfection.
579
There are two things of which a man cannot be careful enough: of
obstinacy if he confines himself to his own line of thought; of
incompetency, if he goes beyond it.
580
Incompetency is a greater obstacle to perfection than one would think.
581
The century advances; but every individual begins anew.
582
What friends do with us and for us is a real part of our life; for it
strengthens and advances our personality. The assault of our enemies is
not part of our life; it is only part of our experience; we throw it off
and guard ourselves against it as against frost, storm, rain, hail, or
any other of the external evils which may be expected to happen.
583
A man cannot live with every one, and therefore he cannot live for every
one. To see this truth aright is to place a high value upon one's
friends, and not to hate or persecute one's enemies. Nay, there is
hardly any greater advantage for a man to gain than to find out, if he
can, the merits of his opponents: it gives him a decided ascendency over
them.
584
Every one knows how to value what he has attained in life; most of all
the man who thinks and reflects in his old age. He has a comfortable
feeling that it is something of which no one can rob him.
585
The best metempsychosis is for us to appear again in others.
586
It is very seldom that we satisfy ourselves; all the more consoling is
it to have satisfied others.
587
We look back upon our life only as on a thing of broken pieces, because
our misses and failures are always the first to strike us, and outweigh
in our imagination what we have done, and attained.
588
The sympathetic youth sees nothing of this; he reads, enjoys, and uses
the youth of one who has gone before him, and rejoices in it with all
his heart, as though he had once been what he now is.
589
Science helps us before all things in this, that it somewhat lightens
the feeling of wonder with which Nature fills us; then, however, as life
becomes more and more complex, it creates new facilities for the
avoidance of what would do us harm and the promotion of what will do us
good.
590
It is always our eyes alone, our way of looking at things. Nature alone
knows what she means now, and what she had meant in the past.
NATURE: APHORISMS
Nature! We are surrounded by her and locked in her clasp: powerless to
leave her, and powerless to come closer to her. Unasked and unwarned she
takes us up into the whirl of her dance, and hurries on with us till we
are weary and fall from her arms.
She creates new forms without end: what exists now, never was before;
what was, comes not again; all is new and yet always the old.
We live in the midst of her and are strangers. She speaks to us
unceasingly and betrays not her secret. We are always influencing her
and yet can do her no violence.
Individuality seems to be all her aim, and she cares nought for
individuals. She is always building and always destroying, and her
workshop is not to be approached.
Nature lives in her children only, and the mother, where is she? She is
the sole artist,--out of the simplest materials the greatest diversity;
attaining, with no trace of effort, the finest perfection, the closest
precision, always softly veiled. Each of her works has an essence of its
own; every shape that she takes is in idea utterly isolated; and yet all
forms one.
She plays a drama; whether she sees it herself, we know not; and yet she
plays it for us, who stand but a little way off.
There is constant life in her, motion and development; and yet she
remains where she was. She is eternally changing, nor for a moment does
she stand still. Of rest she knows nothing, and to all stagnation she
has affixed her curse. She is steadfast; her step is measured, her
exceptions rare, her laws immutable.
She has thought, and she ponders unceasingly; not as a man, but as
Nature. The meaning of the whole she keeps to herself, and no one can
learn it of her.
Men are all in her, and she in all men. With all she plays a friendly
game, and rejoices the more a man wins from her. With many her game is
so secret, that she brings it to an end before they are aware of it.
Even what is most unnatural is Nature; even the coarsest Philistinism
has something of her genius. Who does not see her everywhere, sees her
nowhere aright.
She loves herself, and clings eternally to herself with eyes and hearts
innumerable. She has divided herself that she may be her own delight.
She is ever making new creatures spring up to delight in her, and
imparts herself insatiably.
She rejoices in illusion. If a man destroys this in himself and others,
she punishes him like the hardest tyrant. If he follows her in
confidence, she presses him to her heart as it were her child.
Her children are numberless. To no one of them is she altogether
niggardly; but she has her favourites, on whom she lavishes much, and
for whom she makes many a sacrifice. Over the great she has spread the
shield of her protection.
She spurts forth her creatures out of nothing, and tells them not whence
they come and whither they go. They have only to go their way: she knows
the path.
Her springs of action are few, but they never wear out: they are always
working, always manifold.
The drama she plays is always new, because she is always bringing new
spectators. Life is her fairest invention, and Death is her device for
having life in abundance.
She envelops man in darkness, and urges him constantly to the light. She
makes him dependent on the earth, heavy and sluggish, and always rouses
him up afresh.
She creates wants, because she loves movement. How marvellous that she
gains it all so easily! Every want is a benefit, soon satisfied, soon
growing again. If she gives more, it is a new source of desire; but the
balance quickly rights itself.
Every moment she starts on the longest journeys, and every moment
reaches her goal.
She amuses herself with a vain show; but to us her play is
all-important.
She lets every child work at her, every fool judge of her, and thousands
pass her by and see nothing; and she has her joy in them all, and in
them all finds her account.
Man obeys her laws even in opposing them: he works with her even when he
wants to work against her.
Everything she gives is found to be good, for first of all she makes it
indispensable. She lingers, that we may long for presence; she hurries
by, that we may not grow weary of her.
Speech or language she has none; but she creates tongues and hearts
through which she feels and speaks.
Her crown is Love. Only through Love can we come near her. She puts
gulfs between all things, and all things strive to be interfused. She
isolates everything, that she may draw everything together. With a few
draughts from the cup of Love she repays for a life full of trouble.
She is all things. She rewards herself and punishes herself; and in
herself rejoices and is distressed. She is rough and gentle, loving and
terrible, powerless and almighty. In her everything is always present.
Past or Future she knows not. The Present is her Eternity. She is kind.
I praise her with all her works. She is wise and still. No one can force
her to explain herself, or frighten her into a gift that she does not
give willingly. She is crafty, but for a good end; and it is best not to
notice her cunning.
She is whole and yet never finished. As she works now, so can she work
for ever.
To every one she appears in a form of his own. She hides herself in a
thousand names and terms, and is always the same.
She has placed me in this world; she will also lead me out of it. I
trust myself to her. She may do with me as she pleases. She will not
hate her work. I did not speak of her. No! what is true and what is
false, she has spoken it all. Everything is her fault, everything is her
merit.
INDEX
Absent, the, 47.
Absolute, the, 238.
Abstractions, how destroyed, 203.
Absurdities, 229, 575.
Acquaintances, new, 432.
Acquirements, 344.
Acting unlike oneself, 298.
Activity, 342, 368, 372, 401.
Æschylus, saying of, 121.
Age, 391.
Age and Youth, 37, 233-4, 237, 295, 321, 374.
Ages of life, 390.
Agreement and disagreement, 384.
Aims, 278, 342, 500.
Altruism, 167, 214, 583.
Analogies, 46, 523.
Analysis, 568.
Ancient literature, 447.
Ancients, the, 443, 445, 570.
Anthropomorphism, 165.
Antiquities, 325.
Antiquity and posterity, 190.
Architecture, a speechless music, 493.
Aristotle, 559.
Art, 492, 494, 499, 508.
Art and Nature, 482-3, 490-1, 509, 512.
Art and the World, 485-6.
Artist, the, 495-8.
Artistic criticism, 116.
Assemblies, 281.
Attainable, the, 48.
Attainments, 584, 587.
Authority, 534-7.
Authorship, 418.
Ballads, 477-8.
Beauty, 136, 232, 481.
Bible, the, 457-9.
Books, 417, 420, 432, 456.
Cause and effect, 394.
Century, the, and the individual, 581.
Character, 367.
Characteristics, 7, 29, 74, 91, 110, 179, 291, 297, 311, 344.
Children, 245-7.
Christ, 314.
Classicism, 462-3.
Clever folly, 175.
Common-sense, 49, 217.
Complications, 45.
Confession of error, 529.
Confidences, 142.
Conscience, 125.
Conscience and intellect, 530.
Contemporaries, 386, 454.
Contradictions, 87, 102, 223, 288-9, 378, 382.
Converts, 170.
Criticism, 146, 182, 304, 456.
Critique of common-sense, 393.
Critique of the senses, 514.
Cryptogamy, 574.
Culture, 328-9, 412.
Dangerous men, 275-6.
Debtor and creditor, 282-3.
Deception, 320, 400.
Defects, 89.
Despotism, advantages of, 209.
Dialectic, 379.
Difficulties, 277-8, 330, 398.
Dilettanti, 159.
Discovery, 397, 553.
Dispositions, like and unlike, 380.
Distinctions, 166.
Doggerel, 506.
Doing good, 98.
Dürer, Albrecht, 502-3.
Duties and rights, 150.
Duty, 3, 38, 402.
Eclecticism, 436-7.
Education, 444.
Education, overpressure in, 371.
Eighteenth century, 568.
_Emboîtement_, theory of, 550.
Empirical morality, 140.
Encyclopædia, the best, 161.
Enemies, 582.
Enemies' merits, 387, 583.
Enthusiasm, 211, 471.
Erasmus, saying of, 63.
Error and half-truth, 59, 61, 72, 564.
Errors of the age, 521.
Excellence unfathomable, 406.
Existence of evil, 572-3.
Experience, 43, 556.
Facts and theories, 557.
Facts and thoughts, 188.
Facts newly stated, 526.
Faith, 117.
False notions, 5, 200.
False tendencies, 64.
Familiarity, 262.
Fashion, 392.
Fastidiousness, 260.
Faults, 296-7, 299, 304-5.
Favour, 83.