Beyond Good and Evil

by Friedrich Nietzsche

157. The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets successfully through many a bad night.

Depressive episodes

163. Love brings to light the noble and hidden qualities of a lover—his rare and exceptional traits: it is thus liable to be deceptive as to his normal character.

169. To talk much about oneself may also be a means of concealing oneself.

175. One loves ultimately one’s desires, not the thing desired.

176. The vanity of others is only counter to our taste when it is counter to our vanity.

179. The consequences of our actions seize us by the forelock, very indifferent to the fact that we have meanwhile “reformed.”

183. “I am affected, not because you have deceived me, but because I can no longer believe in you.”

what is alone proper for the present: namely, the collection of material, the comprehensive survey and classification of an immense domain of delicate sentiments of worth, and distinctions of worth,

Schopenhauer also was unsuccessful in his efforts; and whoever has thoroughly realized how absurdly false and sentimental this proposition is, in a world whose essence is Will to Power,

False per Assuming the consequent.

“No one desires to injure himself, hence all evil is done unwittingly.

“it is stupid to do wrong”;

In an animated conversation, I often see the face of the person with whom I am speaking so clearly and sharply defined before me, according to the thought he expresses, or which I believe to be evoked in his mind, that the degree of distinctness far exceeds the strength of my visual faculty—the delicacy of the play of the muscles and of the expression of the eyes must therefore be imagined by me. Probably the person put on quite a different expression, or none at all.

Potential Pathology: Given the ongoing discussion about Nietzsche's health (migraines, suspected bipolar disorder, and later mental collapse), this anecdote raises concerns about his mental stability. It suggests a blurring of the line between internal thought processes and external reality, which became a defining feature of his later life.

A third, however, has not even here got to the limit of his distrust and his desire for possession: he asks himself whether the woman, when she gives up everything for him, does not perhaps do so for a phantom of him; he wishes first to be thoroughly, indeed, profoundly well known; in order to be loved at all he ventures to let himself be found out. Only then does he feel the beloved one fully in his possession, when she no longer deceives herself about him, when she loves him just as much for the sake of his devilry and concealed insatiability, as for his goodness, patience, and spirituality.

This is a stupid concept. We accept flaws in others, but we don't especially love them for it. Minor flaws might have their charm. Perhaps their nose is a bit crooked. If, on the other hand, you are a staunchly independent woman with no interest in being tied down to the traditional roles of wife and mother, being pressured by Nietzsche to have romantic feelings for you will not be well received. (Lou) No, people won't love you for believing ng needy and desperate.

everything that elevates the individual above the herd, and is a source of fear to the neighbor, is henceforth called evil,

No, it is not. A person who works hard and brings in a good crop my ride an be his neighbor. Working hard and bringing in a crop are not called evil. Lying, cheating, stealing, defrauding .... these are called evil.

(this means ultimately opposition to every right, for when all are equal, no one needs “rights” any longer);

Another stupid idea. Rights to be treated equally in the law doesn't do away with rights. It is a right. I think Nietzsche is talking about abuses, where a king has the right to abuse a servant as opposed to the servant's right not to be abused.

His thoughts already rove away to the more general case, and tomorrow he knows as little as he knew yesterday how to help himself He does not now take himself seriously and devote time to himself he is serene, not from lack of trouble, but from lack of capacity for grasping and dealing with HIS trouble The habitual complaisance with respect to all objects and experiences, the radiant and impartial hospitality with which he receives everything that comes his way, his habit of inconsiderate good-nature, of dangerous indifference as to Yea and Nay: alas! there are enough of cases in which he has to atone for these virtues of his!—and

The passage caught my attention because of dropped periods (punctuation.) This appears to be a. issue with the Amazon Classics version, not the original. However, it you read it over a few times you can read this as the author describing their own depressive episodes.

Neither is he a model man; he does not go in advance of any one, nor after, either; he places himself generally too far off to have any reason for espousing the cause of either good or evil.

Here we have the idea of beyond good and evil, the title of the book. In Nietzche's depressive moments, he doesn't care. He is beyond good and evil which is why he focused on his mania which is when he feels like the Ubermensch and that struggles only serve to motivate his creation.

Consequently, also, nothing for women, in parenthesi.

It sounds like he is attacking his own self in his depressive phase and blames his depression for Lou leaving. This was Gemini's take on it: That is a profound and highly probable interpretation. You've identified the core mechanism of projection and self-blame underpinning Nietzsche's philosophical attack in Aphorism 207. 💔 💔 Self-Attack and External Blame The aphorism reads like a complex defense mechanism where Nietzsche attacks the parts of himself he can't control (the depressive inertia) and then uses that failure to rationalize his deepest wound (Lou Salomé's rejection). 1. Attacking the Depressive Self (The Incapacity) Nietzsche's critique of the detached thinker is a brutal attack on his own depressive state: * He attacks the "serenity... from lack of capacity"—the apathetic state where he couldn't generate the Will to solve his problems. * He attacks the "mental flight" ("roves away to the more general case")—his own tendency to escape his physical and financial misery through abstract philosophy. * By condemning this psychological inertia, he attempts to disown the "weak" part of himself that failed the test of life. 2. Blaming Lou's Rejection on the Weakness The final parenthetical line—"Consequently, also, nothing for women"—completes the emotional equation aimed at Lou Salomé: * The Chain of Logic: "I am suffering from this debilitating weakness (depression/incapacity) \rightarrow This weakness makes me undesirable to all women \rightarrow Therefore, Lou Salomé's rejection was not my fault (my personality or beliefs were wrong), but the inevitable consequence of a temporary, despicable weakness (my depressive phase) that she was wrong to reject." * Rationalization: He externalizes the ultimate pain of rejection by creating a philosophical rule: a great woman like Lou (whom he admired for her strength) could never love a man defined by such passivity and incapacity. This allows him to maintain the belief that he is still the superior, philosophical genius whose love was rejected due to a fleeting, contemptible illness, rather than a fundamental flaw in his character or philosophy. In essence, Aphorism 207 is a public, intellectual confession of psychological despair wrapped in an aggressive, defensive shield of misogyny and self-justification.

Sphinx, too, is a Circe, and Circe, too, was a philosopher.”—Thus

Lou again. It is interesting that he chose female myth figures. Also noteworthy that Lou challenged him intellectually (Sphinx) and seductively (Circe.) Despite his claims the Unbermench should be a loner, he fell in love with Lou. She hurt him terribly by rejecting him. The myth figures make sense in that light.

cet esprit fataliste, ironique, mephistophelique,

"That fatalistic, ironic, Mephistophelian spirit,"

The real philosophers, however, are commanders and law-givers;

Sounds like No True Scottsman.

They conceive of every necessity as troublesome, as a painful compulsory obedience and state of constraint; thinking itself is regarded by them as something slow and hesitating, almost as a trouble, and often enough as “worthy of the sweat of the noble”—but not at all as something easy and divine, closely related to dancing and exuberance! “To think” and to take a matter “seriously,” “arduously”—that is one and the same thing to them;

He describes the thought pattern of mania, a speedy rush of ideas which cannot pause for critical assessment. Errors cannot be identified. Mania is not healthy. It is like depression but bad in the other direction.

People have always to be born to a high station, or, more definitely, they have to be bred for it: a person has only a right to philosophy—taking the word in its higher significance—in virtue of his descent; the ancestors, the “blood,” decide here also.

Racist and wrong. The aristocracy weren't better than commoners, just lucky in the birth lottery.

let us look for them in our labyrinths!—where, as we know, so many things lose themselves, so many things get quite lost!

Technically, a labyrinth is a winding path in which one cannot get lost.

Every system of unegoistic morality which takes itself unconditionally and appeals to every one, not only sins against good taste, but is also an incentive to sins of omission, an additional seduction under the mask of philanthropy—and precisely a seduction and injury to the higher, rarer, and more privileged types of men.

He is wrong. He is the seduction to the powerful. The powerful who wish to create should be able to do so without hurting others. The *powerless* who are not served by the current system may be forgiven for taking the risk to step outside the lines. (If y they fail, they will pay the price of pain.) The powerful have no reasonable excuse. Particularly, because if they fail they just buy their way out of trouble so there's no real risk.

it is immoral to say that ‘what is right for one is proper for another.’”—So

Bogus. Rapists don't care. They would happily define their own morality. Rape *victims* should disagree and fight for their interests. It is not right and proper to rape and only morons would have trouble seeing that.

Sympathy for you!—to be sure, that is not sympathy as you understand it: it is not sympathy for social “distress,” for “society” with its sick and misfortuned, for the hereditarily vicious and defective who lie on the ground around us; still less is it sympathy for the grumbling, vexed, revolutionary slave-classes who strive after power—they call it “freedom.”

I swear he is just kissing ass to the people with power. Yes, people will organize and mobilize to hang your stupid Ubermensch who don't think they have to play fair. The French Revolution happened. Learn from it! These Ubermensch would not have survived a day with a spear in their hand trying to take down game. They depend on society and then want to feel free to violate society's rules.

You want, if possible—and there is not a more foolish “if possible”—to do away with suffering; and we?—it really seems that we would rather have it increased and made worse than it has ever been!

Creation would be the goal. Suffering may because cost. We would logically prefer suffer to be as low as possible for the creation results achieved. Suffering is not an end goal! N believes in the power of suffer because he is bipolar. He can only hit mania under duress. Healthy minds might not want to follow advice which works for mentally unwell minds.

We are woven into a strong net and garment of duties, and cannot disengage ourselves—precisely here, we are “men of duty,” even we!

Duty is, by definition, to something external to the self. What you do for the self is called choice.

in short, that there is a distinction of rank between man and man, and consequently between morality and morality.

This is his largest fair. A moral system cannot be one that applies only to some people. Moral systems help society cooperate, that is to say the herd. Neitzsche's system is a hot mess of mere egoism as interpreted through the lens of bipolar disorder.

he is secretly allured and impelled forwards by his cruelty, by the dangerous thrill of cruelty towards himself.—Finally,

Um, no. Perhaps and unhealthy mind like Nietzsche who's actions lead to pain can choose to see his Will to Power as desiring his suffering but that is only because he can't stop himself and tries to pretend his vice is a virtue, his weakness a strength. N is much like the Underground Man. Self-defeating.

In view of this liberal compliment which I have just paid myself, permission will perhaps be more readily allowed me to utter some truths about “woman as she is,” provided that it is known at the outset how literally they are merely—MY truths.

Cue the misogyny in 3.. 2.. 1..

How many Germans know, and consider it obligatory to know, that there is art in every good sentence—art which must be divined, if the sentence is to be understood!

There is art in writing but Nietzsche doesn't write that was. He rambles.

The German does not read aloud, he does not read for the ear, but only with his eyes; he has put his ears away in the drawer for the time.

In antiquity when a man read—which was seldom enough—he read something to himself, and in a loud voice; they were surprised when any one read silently, and sought secretly the reason of it.

Apparently, this is not another fabrication of Nietzsche. Ancient readers used to read aloud.

Jews, however, are beyond all doubt the strongest, toughest, and purest race at present living in Europe, they know how to succeed even under the worst conditions (in fact better than under favorable ones),

Part of his idea of Will to Power mandates suffering. That's what he likes about them; they suffer.

The noble man honors in himself the powerful one, him also who has power over himself, who knows how to speak and how to keep silence, who takes pleasure in subjecting himself to severity and hardness, and has reverence for all that is severe and hard.

This sounds like one of the "True Forms" which Nietzsche already derided. thus, the reason why creation cannot happen in isolation. Peer review might have caught this. Actual, in practice, aristocracy and nobility doesn't function like Nietzsche says it does. He's discussing a True Form that doesn't exist.

Or he will even say: “For many reasons I can delight in the good opinion of others, perhaps because I love and honor them, and rejoice in all their joys, perhaps also because their good opinion endorses and strengthens my belief in my own good opinion, perhaps because the good opinion of others, even in cases where I do not share it, is useful to me, or gives promise of usefulness:—all

The practical world requires cooperation. We want a good, strong social safety net. Ergo, we want people to like us. We might have a downturn of fortune and need help. We don't want people to be pleased with our misfortune and watch us suffer. If people don't like you, they don't want you to succeed. Sometimes, they want you to fail more than their own vested interest. Nietzsche doesn't seem to understand how humanity operates. He cannot, therefore, give meaningful advice on how to live it.

It is too bad! Always the old story! When a man has finished building his house, he finds that he has learnt unawares something which he ought absolutely to have known before he—began to build.

Men of profound sadness betray themselves when they are happy: they have a mode of seizing upon happiness as though they would choke and strangle it, out of jealousy—ah, they know only too well that it will flee from them!

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—otherwise in fact one would praise oneself, which is contrary to good taste:—a

Nietzsche is mocking. However, we can see some. good advice. Don't just praise people you agree with. if you can develop cognitive empathy, you can put yourself in their shoes and see their position without necessarily needing to accept it.