The Dawn of Day · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
524.
THE JEALOUSY OF THE LONELY ONES.—This is the difference between sociable and solitary natures, provided that both possess an intellect: the former are satisfied, or nearly satisfied, with almost anything whatever; from the moment that their minds have discovered a communicable and happy version of it they will be reconciled even with the devil himself! But the lonely souls have their silent rapture, and their speechless agony about a thing: they hate the ingenious and brilliant display of their inmost problems as much as they dislike to see the women they love too loudly dressed—they watch her mournfully in such a case, as if they were just beginning to suspect that she was desirous of pleasing others. This is the jealousy which all lonely thinkers and passionate dreamers exhibit with regard to the _esprit_. THE EFFECT OF PRAISE.—Some people become modest when highly praised, others insolent. UNWILLING TO BE A SYMBOL.—I sympathise with princes: they are not at liberty to discard their high rank even for a short time, and thus they come to know people only from the very uncomfortable position of constant dissimulation—their continual compulsion to represent something actually ends by making solemn ciphers of them.—Such is the fate of all those who deem it their duty to be symbols. THE HIDDEN MEN.—Have you never come across those people who check and restrain even their enraptured hearts, and who would rather become mute than lose the modesty of moderation? and have you never met those embarrassing, and yet so often good-natured people who do not wish to be recognised, and who time and again efface the tracks they have made in the sand? and who even deceive others as well as themselves in order to remain obscure and hidden?
UNUSUAL FORBEARANCE.—It is often no small indication of kindness to be unwilling to criticise some one, and even to refuse to think of him. HOW MEN AND NATIONS GAIN LUSTRE.—How many really individual actions are left undone merely because before performing them we perceive or suspect that they will be misunderstood!—those actions, for example, which have some intrinsic value, both in good and evil. The more highly an age or a nation values its individuals, therefore, and the more right and ascendancy we accord them, the more will actions of this kind venture to make themselves known,—and thus in the long run a lustre of honesty, of genuineness in good and evil, will spread over entire ages and nations, so that they—the Greeks, for example—like certain stars, will continue to shed light for thousands of years after their sinking. DIGRESSIONS OF THE THINKER.—The course of thought in certain men is strict and inflexibly bold. At times it is even cruel towards such men, although considered individually they may be gentle and pliable. With well-meaning hesitation they will turn the matter ten times over in their heads, but will at length continue their strict course. They are like streams that wind their way past solitary hermitages: there are places in their course where the stream plays hide and seek with itself, and indulges in short idylls with islets, trees, grottos, and cascades—and then it rushes ahead once more, passes by the rocks, and forces its way through the hardest stones.
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