Signs of nobility: never to think of lowering our duties to the rank of duties for everybody; to be unwilling to renounce or to share our responsibilities; to count our prerogatives, and the exercise of them, among our _duties._ 249
A man strives after great things, looks upon every one whom he encounters on his way either as a means of advance, or a delay and hindrance--or as a temporary resting-place. 249
If one wishes to praise at all, it is a delicate and at the same time a noble self-control, to praise only where one _does not_ agree.... 254
All society makes one somehow, somewhere, or sometimes--"commonplace." 254-255
_The noble soul has reverence for itself._ 256
A man who can conduct a case, carry out a resolution, remain true to an opinion, keep hold of a woman, punish and overthrow insolence; a man who has his indignation and his sword, and to whom the weak, the suffering, the oppressed, and even the animals willingly submit and naturally belong; in short, a man who is a _master_ by nature--when such a man has sympathy, well, _that_ sympathy has value! 259
I would even allow myself to rank philosophers according to the quality of their laughing--up to those who are capable of _golden_ laughter. 260
("_Zur Genealogie der Moral_") was written by Nietzsche primarily as an elaboration and elucidation of the philosophic points which were merely sketched in "Beyond Good and Evil." This former work had met with small success, and the critics, failing to understand its doctrines, read converse meanings in it. One critic hailed Nietzsche at once as an anarchist, and this review went far in actuating him in drawing up the three essays which comprise the present book. As will be remembered, several of Nietzsche's most important principles were stated and outlined in "Beyond Good and Evil," especially his doctrine of slave-morality and master-morality. Now he undertakes to develop this proposition, as well as many others which he set forth provisionally in his earlier work. This new polemic may be looked upon both as a completing of former works and as a further preparation for "The Will to Power." The book, a comparatively brief one (it contains barely 40,000 words), was written in a period of about two weeks during the early part of 1887. In July the manuscript was sent to the publisher, but was recalled for revisions and addenda; and most of Nietzsche's summer was devoted to correcting it. Later that same year the book appeared; and thereby its author acquired another friendly reader, Georg Brandes, to whom, more than to any other critic, Nietzsche owes his early recognition.