The Joyful Wisdom · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
49.
_Magnanimity and allied Qualities._—Those paradoxical phenomena, such as the sudden coldness in the demeanour of good-natured men, the humour of the melancholy, and above all _magnanimity_, as a sudden renunciation of revenge or of the gratification of envy—appear in men in whom there is a powerful inner impulsiveness, in men of sudden satiety and sudden disgust. Their satisfactions are so rapid and violent that satiety, aversion, and flight into the antithetical taste, immediately follow upon them: in this contrast the convulsion of feeling liberates itself, in one person by sudden coldness, in another by laughter, and in a third by tears and self-sacrifice. The magnanimous person appears to me—at least that kind of magnanimous person who has always made most impression—as a man with the strongest thirst for vengeance, to whom a gratification presents itself close at hand, and who _already_ drinks it off _in imagination_ so copiously, thoroughly, and to the last drop, that an excessive, rapid disgust follows this rapid licentiousness;—he now elevates himself "above himself," as one says, and forgives his enemy, yea, blesses and honours him. With this violence done to himself, however, with this mockery of his impulse to revenge, even still so powerful, he merely yields to the new impulse, the disgust which has become powerful, and does this just as impatiently and licentiously, as a short time previously he _forestalled_, and as it were exhausted, the joy of revenge with his fantasy. In magnanimity there is the same amount of egoism as in revenge, but a different quality of egoism.
_The Argument of Isolation._—The reproach of conscience, even in the most conscientious, is weak against the feeling: "This and that are contrary to the good morals of _your_ society." A cold glance or a wry mouth, on the part of those among whom and for whom one has been educated, is still _feared_ even by the strongest. What is really feared there? Isolation! as the argument which demolishes even the best arguments for a person or cause!—It is thus that the gregarious instinct speaks in us. _Sense for Truth._—Commend me to all scepticism where I am permitted to answer: "Let us put it to the test!" But I don't wish to hear anything more of things and questions which do not admit of being tested. That is the limit of my "sense for truth": for bravery has there lost its right. _What others Know of us._—That which we know of ourselves and have in our memory is not so decisive for the happiness of our life as is generally believed. One day it flashes upon our mind what _others_ know of us (or think they know)—and then we acknowledge that it is the more powerful. We get on with our bad conscience more easily than with our bad reputation. _Where Goodness Begins._—Where bad eyesight can no longer see the evil impulse as such, on account of its refinement,—there man sets up the kingdom of goodness; and the feeling of having now gone over into the kingdom of goodness brings all those impulses (such as the feelings of security, of comfortableness, of benevolence) into simultaneous activity, which were threatened and confined by the evil impulses. Consequently, the duller the eye so much the further does goodness extend! Hence the eternal cheerfulness of the populace and of children! Hence the gloominess and grief (allied to the bad conscience) of great thinkers.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.