On the question of being understandable—
One does not only wish to be understood when one writes; one wishes just as surely not to be understood. It is not by any means necessarily an objection to a book when anyone finds it impossible to understand: perhaps that was part of the author’s intention—he did not want to be understood by just ‘anybody.’ . . . All the more subtle laws of any style have their origin at this point: they at the same time keep away, create a distance, forbid ‘entrance,’ understanding, as said above—while they open the ears of those whose ears are related to ours.
- The Joyful Science, aphorism 381
One does not only wish to be understood when one writes; one wishes just as surely not to be understood. It is not by any means necessarily an objection to a book when anyone finds it impossible to understand: perhaps that was part of the author’s intention—he did not want to be understood by just ‘anybody.’ . . . All the more subtle laws of any style have their origin at this point: they at the same time keep away, create a distance, forbid ‘entrance,’ understanding, as said above—while they open the ears of those whose ears are related to ours.
- The Joyful Science, aphorism 381
Believers and their need to believe—
The extent to which one needs a faith in order to flourish, how much that is 'firm' and that one does not want shaken because one clings to it - that is a measure of the degree of one's strength (or, to speak more clearly, one's weakness). Christianity, it seems to me, is still needed by most people in old Europe even today;
hence it still finds believers. For that is how man is: an article of faith could be refuted to him a thousand times; as long as he needed it, he would consider it 'true' again and again
The extent to which one needs a faith in order to flourish, how much that is 'firm' and that one does not want shaken because one clings to it - that is a measure of the degree of one's strength (or, to speak more clearly, one's weakness). Christianity, it seems to me, is still needed by most people in old Europe even today;
hence it still finds believers. For that is how man is: an article of faith could be refuted to him a thousand times; as long as he needed it, he would consider it 'true' again and again
Even the vehemence with which our cleverest contemporaries get lost in pitiful nooks and crevices such as patriotism (I refer to what the French call chauvinisme and the Germans 'German'), or in petty aesthetic creeds such as French naturalism (which enhances and exposes only the part of nature that simultaneously disgusts and amazes), or in Petersburg-style nihilism (meaning faith in unbelief to the point of martyrdom), always indicates primarily the need for faith, a foothold, backbone, support.
Faith is always most desired and most urgently needed where will is lacking; for will, as the affect of command, is the decisive mark of sovereignty and strength. That is, the less someone knows how to command, the more urgently does he desire someone who commands, who commands severely - a god, prince, the social arder, doctor, father confessor, dogma, or party conscience.
Self-possession in the face of sickness, Montaigne believed, was crucial. Physicians were of little use: 'no doctor takes pleasure in the health even of his friends,' he remarked.
- The Greatest Benefit To Mankind
- The Greatest Benefit To Mankind