importance to these things, and I would rather have a stained reputation than give those pusillanimous people the spiteful pleasure to say, ‘‘He treats these things very seriously indeed.” Which is not true, perhaps I ought to care more for myself, and consider it a duty to rectify erroneous opinions on my person ;—I am too indifferent and too lazy with regard to myself, hence also with regard to all that is wrought through my instrumentality.
473
Where one ought to build one's house.—When you feel great and productive in solitude, society will disparage and isolate you: and vice versâ. A father’s powerful mildness :—wherever this mood overcomes you, there you shall build your house, be it in the throng or in solitude. Ubi pater sum, ibi patria.
474
The only means.—”Dialectics are the only means of reaching the divine being and lifting the veil of apparition.” This assertion of Plato is as solemn and emphatic as is that of Schopenhauer with regard to the converse to dialectics,—and both are wrong. For there is no such thing as the road which they want to point out to us. And have not, as yet, all great human passions been similar passions for a nothingness? And all their ceremonies—ceremonies for a nothingness ?
