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But if one asks what it has really been in this whole phenomenon of the saint that has interested men of all types and ages, even philosophers, so immoderately, then the answer is, beyond doubt, the appearance of the miraculous adhering to it, namely the direct succession of opposites, of morally antithetical states of soul: here it seemed a palpable fact that a ‘bad man’ all at once became a ‘saint’, a good man.
The great epochs of our life are the occasions when we gain the courage to rebaptize our evil qualities as our best qualities.
but strongest of all and most astonishing in that huge empire-in-between, where Europe as it were flows back into Asia, in Russia. There the strength to will has for long been stored up and kept in reserve, there the will is waiting menacingly – uncertain whether it is a will to deny or a will to affirm – in readiness to discharge itself,
Beware of those who set great store on being credited with moral tact and subtlety in moral discrimination! If once they blunder in our presence (not to speak of in respect of us) they never forgive us – they unavoidably take to slandering and derogating us, even if they still remain our ‘friends’. – Blessed are the forgetful: for they shall ‘have done’ with their stupidities too.
The discipline of suffering, of great suffering – do you not know that it is this discipline alone which has created every elevation of mankind hitherto? That tension of the soul in misfortune which cultivates its strength, its terror at the sight of great destruction, its inventiveness and bravery in undergoing, enduring, interpreting, exploiting misfortune, and whatever of depth, mystery, mask, spirit, cunning and greatness has been bestowed upon it
The noble type of man feels himself to be the determiner of values, he does not need to be approved of, he judges ‘what harms me is harmful in itself’, he knows himself to be that which in general first accords honour to things, he creates values.
Signs of nobility: never to think of degrading our duties into duties for everybody; not to want to relinquish or share our own responsibilities; to count our privileges and the exercising of them among our duties.
