Page 239 - beyond-good-and-evil

ably impure. All society makes one somehow, somewhere,
or sometime—‘commonplace.’

285. The greatest events and thoughts—the greatest
thoughts, however, are the greatest events—are longest in
being comprehended: the generations which are contem-
porary with them do not EXPERIENCE such events—they
live past them. Something happens there as in the realm of
stars. The light of the furthest stars is longest in reaching
man; and before it has arrived man DENIES—that there
are stars there. ‘How many centuries does a mind require
to be understood?’—that is also a standard, one also makes
a gradation of rank and an etiquette therewith, such as is
necessary for mind and for star.

286. ‘Here is the prospect free, the mind exalted.’ [FOOT-
NOTE: Goethe’s ‘Faust,’ Part II, Act V. The words of Dr.
Marianus.]— But there is a reverse kind of man, who is
also upon a height, and has also a free prospect—but looks
DOWNWARDS.

287. What is noble? What does the word ‘noble’ still mean
for us nowadays? How does the noble man betray himself,
how is he recognized under this heavy overcast sky of the
commencing plebeianism, by which everything is rendered
opaque and leaden?— It is not his actions which establish his
claim—actions are always ambiguous, always inscrutable;
neither is it his ‘works.’ One finds nowadays among artists
and scholars plenty of those who betray by their works that

Beyond Good and Evil