human, all too human

[146]
The artist's sense of truth. Regarding truths, the artist has a weaker morality than the thinker. He definitely does not want to be deprived of the splendid and profound interpretations of life, and he resists sober, simple methods and results. Apparently he fights for the higher dignity and significance of mankind; in truth, he does not want to give up the most effective presumptions of his art: the fantastic, mythical, the uncertain and the extreme the sense for the symbolic, the overestimation of the person, the faith in some miraculous element in human genius.

[189]
Thoughts in a poem. The poet presents his thought festively, on the carriage of rhythm; usually because they could not walk.

[361]
The experience of Socrates. When one has become a master in some field one has usually, for that very reason, remained a complete amateur in most other things; but one judges just the other way around, as Socrates had already found out. This is what makes association with masters disagreeable.

[141]
Sign of Rank. All poets and writers who are in love with the superlative want more than they are capable of.

[129]
Readers of aphorisms. The worst readers of aphorisms are the author's friend if they are intent on guessing back from the general to the particular instance to which the aphorism owes its origin; for with such pot-peeking they reduce the author's whole effort to nothing; so that they deservedly gain, not a philosophic outlook or instruction, but - at best, or at worst, - nothing more than the satisfaction of vulgar curiosity.