149.  That which an age considers evil is usually an unseasonable echo of what was formerly considered good—­the atavism of an old ideal.

150.  Around the hero everything becomes a tragedy; around the demigod everything becomes a satyr-play; and around God everything becomes—­what? perhaps a “world”?

151.  It is not enough to possess a talent:  one must also have your permission to possess it;—­eh, my friends?

152.  “Where there is the tree of knowledge, there is always Paradise”:  so say the most ancient and the most modern serpents.

153.  What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.

154.  Objection, evasion, joyous distrust, and love of irony are signs of health; everything absolute belongs to pathology.

155.  The sense of the tragic increases and declines with sensuousness.

156.  Insanity in individuals is something rare—­but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.

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

158.  Not only our reason, but also our conscience, truckles to our strongest impulse—­the tyrant in us.

159.  One must repay good and ill; but why just to the person who did us good or ill?

160.  One no longer loves one’s knowledge sufficiently after one has communicated it.

161.  Poets act shamelessly towards their experiences:  they exploit them.

162.  “Our fellow-creature is not our neighbour, but our neighbour’s neighbour":—­so thinks every nation.

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.

164.  Jesus said to his Jews:  “The law was for servants;—­love God as I love him, as his Son!  What have we Sons of God to do with morals!”

165.  In sight of every party.—­A shepherd has always need of a bell-wether—­or he has himself to be a wether occasionally.

166.  One may indeed lie with the mouth; but with the accompanying grimace one nevertheless tells the truth.

167.  To vigorous men intimacy is a matter of shame—­and something precious.

168.  Christianity gave Eros poison to drink; he did not die of it, certainly, but degenerated to Vice.

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

170.  In praise there is more obtrusiveness than in blame.

171.  Pity has an almost ludicrous effect on a man of knowledge, like tender hands on a Cyclops.

172.  One occasionally embraces some one or other, out of love to mankind (because one cannot embrace all); but this is what one must never confess to the individual.

173.  One does not hate as long as one disesteems, but only when one esteems equal or superior.