Friedrich Nietzsche

Human, All Too Human II

Mixed Opinions and Maxims

19 The picture of life. -The task of painting the picture of life, however often it may have been set by poets and philosophers, is nevertheless nonsensical: even in the hands of the greatest painter-thinkers only pictures and miniatures from a single life, that is, from their own lives, have been produced- and nothing else is even possible. Amid what is becoming, some­ thing that is itself becoming cannot reflect itself as fixed and enduring, as any specific “thing.”

45 Not taking things too hard. – Getting bedsores is unpleasant and yet no proof against the good points of the course of treat­ ment that decided upon putting us in bed. – Humans who have lived outside themselves for a long time and then finally turned to the philosophical inward, interior life know that there also exist bedsores of heart and soul. This is not there­ fore an argument against the whole of the lifestyle they have chosen, but it does make a few small exceptions and apparent relapses necessary.