Maxims and Reflections
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.
263
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