How does one become stronger?—By deciding slowly; and by holding firmly to the decision once it is made. Everything else follows of itself. Spontaneous and changeable natures: both species of the weak. We must not confound ourselves with them; we must feel distance—betimes!
Beware of good-natured people!. Dealings with them make one torpid. All environment is good which makes one exercise those defensive and; aggressive powers which are instinctive in man. All one's inventiveness should apply itself to putting one's power of will to the test.... Here the determining factor must be recognised as something which is not knowledge, astuteness, or wit.
One must learn to command betimes,—likewise to obey. A man must learn modesty and tact in modesty: he must learn to distinguish and to honour where modesty is displayed; he must likewise distinguish and honour wherever he bestows his confidence.
What does one repent most? One's modesty; the fact that one has not lent an ear to one's most individual needs; the fact that one has mistaken one's self; the fact that one has esteemed one's self low; the fact that one has lost all delicacy of hearing in regard to one's instincts.—This want of reverence in regard to one's self is avenged by all sorts of losses: in health, friendship, well-being, pride, cheerfulness, freedom, determination, courage. A man never forgives himself, later on, for this want of genuine egoism: he regards it as an objection and as a cause of doubt concerning his real ego.
919.
I should like man to begin by respecting himself: everything else follows of itself. Naturally a man ceases from being anything to others in this way: for this is precisely what they are least likely to forgive. "What? a man who respects himself?"[4] This is something quite different from the blind instinct to love one's self. Nothing is more common in the love of the sexes or in that duality which is called ego, than a certain contempt for that which is loved the fatalism of love.
[4] Cf. Disraeli in Tancred: "Self-respect, too, is a superstition of past ages.... It is not suited to these times; it is much too arrogant, too self-conceited, too egoistical. No one is important enough to have self-respect nowadays" (book iii. chap. v.).—Tr.
920.
"I will have this or that"; "I would that this or that were so"; "I know that this or that is so the degrees of power: the man of will, the man of desire, the man of fate.
921.