“Let us be indulgent to the great one-eyed!” said Stuart Mill, as if it were necessary to ask for indulgence when we are willing to believe and almos… - Friedrich Nietzsche

Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.

One has to test oneself to see that one is destined for independence and command — and do it at the right time. One should not dodge one’s tests, though they may be the most dangerous game one could play and are tests that are taken in the end before no witness or judge but ourselves. Not to remain stuck to a person — not even the most loved — every person is a prison, also a nook.

Not to remain stuck to a fatherland — not even if it suffers most and needs help most — it is less difficult to sever one’s heart from a victorious fatherland. Not to remain stuck to some pity — not even for higher men into whose rare torture and helplessness some accident allowed us to look.

Not to remain stuck to a science — even if it should lure us with the most precious finds that seem to have been saved up precisely for us. Not to remain stuck to one’s own detachment, to that voluptuous remoteness and strangeness of the bird who flees ever higher to see ever more below him — the danger of the flier.

Not to remain stuck to our own virtues and become as a whole the victim of some detail in us, such as our hospitality, which is the danger of dangers for superior and rich souls who spend themselves lavishly, almost indifferently, and exaggerate the virtue of generosity into a vice.

One must know how to conserve oneself: the hardest test of independence.

Es geht die alte Sage, dass König Midas lange Zeit nach dem weisen Silen, dem Begleiter des Dionysus, im Walde gejagt habe, ohne ihn zu fangen. Als er ihm endlich in die Hände gefallen ist, fragt der König, was für den Menschen das Allerbeste und Allervorzüglichste sei. Starr und unbeweglich schweigt der Dämon; bis er, durch den König gezwungen, endlich unter gellem Lachen in diese Worte ausbricht: `Elendes Eintagsgeschlecht, des Zufalls Kinder und der Mühsal, was zwingst du mich dir zu sagen, was nicht zu hören für dich das Erspriesslichste ist? Das Allerbeste ist für dich gänzlich unerreichbar: nicht geboren zu sein, nicht zu sein, nichts zu sein. Das Zweitbeste aber ist für dich - bald zu sterben.