_On "Educational Matters."_--In Germany an important educational means is lacking for higher men; namely, the laughter of higher men; these men do not laugh in Germany.
_For Moral Enlightenment_.--The Germans must be talked out of their Mephistopheles--and out of their Faust also. These are two moral prejudices against the value of knowledge.
_Thoughts.--_Thoughts are the shadows of our sentiments--always however obscurer, emptier and simpler.
_The Good Time for Free Spirits._--Free Spirits take liberties even with regard to Science--and meanwhile they are allowed to do so,--while the Church still remains!--In so far they have now their good time.
_Following and Leading._--A: "Of the two, the one will always follow, the other will always lead, whatever be the course of their destiny. _And yet_ the former is superior to the other in virtue and intellect." B: "And yet? And yet? That is spoken for the others; not for me, not for us!--_Fit secundum regulam._"
_In Solitude._--When one lives alone one does not speak too loudly, and one does not write too loudly either, for one fears the hollow reverberation--the criticism of the nymph Echo.--And all voices sound differently in solitude!
_The Music of the Best Future._--The first musician for me would be he who knew only the sorrow of the profoundest happiness, and no other sorrow: there has not hitherto been such a musician.
_Justice._--Better allow oneself to be robbed than have scarecrows around one--that is my taste. And under all circumstances it is just a matter of taste--and nothing more!
_Poor._--He is now poor, but not because everything has been taken from him, but because he has thrown everything away:--what does he care? He is accustomed to find new things.--It is the poor who misunderstand his voluntary poverty.
_Bad Conscience._--All that he now does is excellent and proper--and yet he has a bad conscience with it all. For the exceptional is his task.
_Offensiveness in Expression._--This artist offends me by the way in which he expresses his ideas, his very excellent ideas: so diffusely and forcibly, and with such gross rhetorical artifices, as if he were speaking to the mob. We feel always as if "in bad company" when devoting some time to his art.