The Dawn of Day · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
314.
IN THE SOCIETY OF THINKERS.—In the midst of the ocean of becoming we adventurers and birds of passage wake up on an island no larger than a small boat, and here we look round us for a moment with as much haste and curiosity as possible; for how quickly may some gale blow us away or some wave sweep over the little island and leave nothing of us remaining! Here, however, upon this little piece of ground we meet with other birds of passage and hear of still earlier ones,—and thus we live together for one precious minute of recognition and divining, amid the cheerful fluttering of wings and joyful chirping, and then adventure in spirit far out on the ocean, feeling no less proud than the ocean itself. PARTING WITH SOMETHING.—To give up some of our property, or to waive a right, gives pleasure when it denotes great wealth. Generosity may be placed in this category. WEAK SECTS.—Those sects which feel that they will always remain weak hunt up a few intelligent individual adherents, wishing to make up in quality what they lack in quantity. This gives rise to no little danger for intelligent minds. THE JUDGMENT OF THE EVENING.—The man who meditates upon his day’s and life’s work when he has reached the end of his journey and feels weary, generally arrives at a melancholy conclusion; but this is not the fault of the day or his life, but of weariness.—In the midst of creative work we do not take time, as a rule, to meditate upon life and existence, nor yet in the midst of our pleasures: but if by a chance this did happen once we should no longer believe him to be right who waited for the seventh day and for repose to find everything that exists very beautiful.—He had missed the right moment.
BEWARE OF SYSTEMISERS!—There is a certain amount of comedy about systemisers: in trying to complete a system and to round off its horizon they have to try to let their weaker qualities appear in the same style as their stronger ones.—They wish to represent complete and uniformly strong natures. HOSPITALITY.—The object of hospitality is to paralyse all hostile feeling in a stranger. When we cease to look upon strangers as enemies, hospitality diminishes; it flourishes so long as its evil presupposition does. THE WEATHER.—An exceptional and uncertain state of the weather makes men suspicious even of one another: at the same time they come to like innovations, for they must diverge from their accustomed habits. This is why despots like those countries where the weather is moral.
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