Capacity for revenge. — That someone cannot defend himself and therefore also does not want to – this is not enough to disgrace him in our eyes; but we have a low regard for anyone who has neither the capacity nor the good will for revenge – regardless of whether it is a man or a woman. Would a woman be able to hold us (or “enthrall” us, as they say) if we did not consider her able under certain circumstances to wield a dagger deftly (any kind of dagger) against us? Or against herself – which in certain cases would be the more severe revenge (Chinese revenge).

On female chastity. — There is something quite amazing and monstrous in the upbringing of upper-class women; indeed, maybe there is nothing more paradoxical. The whole world agrees that they should be brought up as ignorant as possible about matters erotic, and that one has to impart in their souls a deep shame in the face of such things and the most extreme impatience and flight at the merest suggestion of them. Really, in this matter alone the “honour” of a woman in its entirety is at risk: what else would one not forgive them? But here they are supposed to remain ignorant deep in their hearts: they are supposed to have neither eyes, nor ears, nor words, nor thoughts for this their “evil”; yes, even knowledge is here an evil. And then to be hurled as if by a gruesome lightning bolt into reality and knowledge, with marriage – and precisely by the man they love and esteem the most: to catch love and shame in a contradiction and to have to experience all at once delight, surrender, duty, pity, terror at the unexpected proximity of god and beast, and who knows what else! There one has tied a psychic knot that may have no equal. Even the compassionate curiosity of the wisest connoisseur of human psychology [Menschenkenner] is insufficient for guessing how this or that woman manages to accommodate herself to this solution of the riddle and to this riddle of a solution, and what dreadful, far-reaching suspicions must stir in her poor, unhinged soul; indeed, how the ultimate philosophy and scepticism of woman casts anchor at this point! Afterwards, the same deep silence as before, and often a silence directed at herself; she closes her eyes to herself. Young women try very hard to appear superficial and thoughtless; the most refined among them simulate a kind of impertinence. Women easily experience their men as a question-mark regarding their honour and their children as an apology or atonement – they need children and wish for them in an altogether different way from that in which a man wishes for children. In sum, one cannot be too gentle towards women!

From infancy, almost, the average girl is told that marriage is her ultimate goal; therefore her training and education must be directed towards that end. Like the mute beast fattened for slaughter, she is prepared for that. Yet, strange to say, she is allowed to know much less about her function as wife and mother than the ordinary artisan of his trade. It is indecent and filthy for a respectable girl to know anything of the marital relation. Oh, for the inconsistency of respectability, that needs the marriage vow to turn something which is filthy into the purest and most sacred arrangement that none dare question or criticize. Yet that is exactly the attitude of the average upholder of marriage. The prospective wife and mother is kept in complete ignorance of her only asset in the competitive field — sex. Thus she enters into life-long relations with a man only to find herself shocked, repelled, outraged beyond measure by the most natural and healthy instinct, sex. It is safe to say that a large percentage of the unhappiness, misery, distress, and physical suffering of matrimony is due to the criminal ignorance in sex matters that is being extolled as a great virtue. Nor is it at all an exaggeration when I say that more than one home has been broken up because of this deplorable fact.

If, however, woman is free and big enough to learn the mystery of sex without the sanction of State or Church, she will stand condemned as utterly unfit to become the wife of a “good” man, his goodness consisting of an empty head and plenty of money. Can there be anything more outrageous than the idea that a healthy, grown woman, full of life and passion, must deny nature’s demand, must subdue her most intense craving, undermine her health and break her spirit, must stunt her vision, abstain from the depth and glory of sex experience until a “good” man comes along to take her unto himself as a wife? That is precisely what marriage means. How can such an arrangement end except in failure? This is one, though not the least important, factor of marriage, which differentiates it from love.

The attraction of imperfection. — I see here a poet who, like some people, exerts a greater attraction through his imperfections than through all that reaches completion and perfection under his hand – indeed, his advantage and fame are due much more to his ultimate incapacity than to his ample strength. His work never wholly expresses what he really would like to express, what he would like to have seen: it seems as if he has had the foretaste of a vision, but never the vision itself – yet a tremendous lust for this vision remains in his soul, and it is from this that he derives his equally tremendous eloquence of desire and craving. With it he lifts his listener above his work and all “works” and lends him wings to rise to heights which listeners otherwise never reach; and so, having themselves become poets and seers, they give the creator of their happiness their due admiration, as if he had led them immediately to the vision of what was for him holiest and most ultimate; as if he had really attained his goal and really seen and communicated his vision. The fact that he never reached his goal benefits his fame.

The deeper we trace the political influences in history, the more are we convinced that the “will to power” has up to now been one of the strongest motives in the development of human social forms. The idea that all political and social events are but the result of given economic conditions and can be explained by them cannot endure careful consideration. That economic conditions and the special forms of social production have played a part in the evolution of humanity everyone knows who has been seriously trying to reach the foundations of social phenomena. This fact was well known before Marx set out to explain it in his manner. A whole line of eminent French socialists like Saint-Simon, Considerant, Louis Blanc, Proudhon and many others had pointed to it in their writings, and it is known that Marx reached socialism by the study of these very writings. Furthermore, the recognition of the influence and significance of economic conditions on the structure of social life lies in the very nature of socialism.

It is not the confirmation of this historical and philosophical concept which is most striking in the Marxist formula, but the positive form in which the concept is expressed and the kind of thinking on which Marx based it. One sees distinctly the influence of Hegel, whose disciple Marx had been. None but the “philosopher of the Absolute,” the inventor of “historical necessities” and “historic missions” could have imparted to him such self-assurance of judgment. Only Hegel could have inspired in him the belief that he had reached the foundation of the “laws of social physics”, according to which every social phenomenon must be regarded as a deterministic manifestation of the naturally necessary course of events. In fact, Marx’s successors have compared “economic materialism” with the discoveries of Copernicus and Kepler, and no less a person than Engels himself made the assertion that, with this interpretation of history, socialism had become a science.

The national army. — The greatest disadvantage of the national army, now so much glorified, lies in the squandering of men of the highest civilisation; it is only by the favourableness of all circumstances that there are such men at all; how carefully and anxiously should we deal with them, since long periods are required to create the chance conditions for the production of such delicately organised brains! But as the Greeks wallowed in the blood of Greeks, so do Europeans now in the blood of Europeans: and indeed, taken relatively, it is mostly the highly cultivated who are sacrificed, those who promise an abundant and excellent posterity; for such stand in the front of the battle as commanders, and also expose themselves to most danger, by reason of their higher ambition. At present, when quite other and higher tasks are assigned than patria and honor, the rough Roman patriotism is either something dishonourable or a sign of being behind the times.

A question of power, not of right [Recht]. — As regards Socialism, in the eyes of those who always consider higher utility, if it is really a rising against their oppressors of those who for centuries have been oppressed and downtrodden, there is no problem of right involved (notwithstanding the ridiculous, effeminate question, “How far ought we to grant its demands?”) but only a problem of power; the same, therefore, as in the case of a natural force, – steam, for instance, – which is either forced by man into his service, as a machine-god, or which, in case of defects of the machine, that is to say, defects of human calculation in its construction, destroys it and man together. In order to solve this question of power we must know how strong Socialism is, in what modification it may yet be employed as a powerful lever in the present mechanism of political forces; under certain circumstances we should do all we can to strengthen it. With every great force – be it the most dangerous – men have to think how they can make of it an instrument for their purposes. Socialism acquires a right only if war seems to have taken place between the two powers, the representatives of the old and the new, when, however, a wise calculation of the greatest possible preservation and advantageousness to both sides gives rise to a desire for a treaty. Without treaty no right. So far, however, there is neither war nor treaty on the ground in question, therefore no rights, no “ought.”

Utilising the most trivial dishonesty. — The power of the press consists in the fact that every individual who ministers to it only feels himself bound and constrained to a very small extent. He usually expresses his opinion, but sometimes also does not express it in order to serve his party or the politics of his country, or even himself. Such little faults of dishonesty, or perhaps only of a dishonest silence, are not hard to bear by the individual, but the consequences are extraordinary, because these little faults are committed by many at the same time. Each one says to himself: “For such small concessions I live better and can make my income; by the want of such little compliances I make myself impossible.” Because it seems almost morally indifferent to write a line more (perhaps even without signature), or not to write it, a person who has money and influence can make any opinion a public one. He who knows that most people are weak in trifles, and wishes to attain his own ends thereby, is always dangerous.

Too loud a tone in grievances. — Through the fact that an account of a bad state of things (for instance, the crimes of an administration, bribery and arbitrary favour in political or learned bodies) is greatly exaggerated, it fails in its effect on intelligent people [Einsichtigen], but has all the greater effect on the unintelligent [Nichteinsichtigen] (who would have remained indifferent to an accurate and moderate account). But as these latter are considerably in the majority, and harbour in themselves stronger will-power and more impatient desire for action, the exaggeration becomes the cause of investigations, punishments, promises, and reorganisations. In this respect, it is useful to exaggerate the accounts of bad states of things.

The apparent weather-makers of politics. — Just as people tacitly assume that he who understands the weather, and foretells it about a day in advance, makes the weather, so even the educated and learned, with a display of superstitious faith, ascribe to great statesmen as their most special work all the important changes and conjunctures that have taken place during their administration, when it is only evident that they knew something thereof a little earlier than other people and made their calculations accordingly, – thus they are also looked upon as weather-makers – and this belief is not the least important instrument of their power.

New and old conceptions of Government. — To draw such a distinction between Government and people as if two separate spheres of power, a stronger and higher, and a weaker and lower, negotiated and came to terms with each other, is a remnant of transmitted political sentiment, which still accurately represents the historic establishment of the conditions of power in most States. When Bismarck, for instance, describes the constitutional system as a compromise between Government and people, he speaks in accordance with a principle which has its reason in history (from whence, to be sure, it also derives its admixture of folly, without which nothing human can exist). On the other hand, we must now learn – in accordance with a principle which has originated only in the brain and has still to make history – that Government is nothing but an organ of the people, – not an attentive, honourable ‘higher’ in relation to a ‘lower’ accustomed to modesty. Before we accept this hitherto unhistorical and arbitrary, although logical, formulation of the conception of Government, let us but consider its consequences, for the relation between people and Government is the strongest typical relation, after the pattern of which the relationship between teacher and pupil, master and servants, father and family, leader and soldier, master and apprentice, is unconsciously formed. At present, under the influence of the prevailing constitutional system of government, all these relationships are changing a little, – they are becoming compromises. But how they will have to be reversed and shifted, and change name and nature, when that newest of all conceptions has got the upper hand everywhere in people's minds! – to achieve which, however, a century may yet be required. In this matter there is nothing further to be wished for except caution and slow development.

The helmsman of the passions. — The statesman excites public passions in order to have the advantage of the counter-passions thereby aroused. … The one State, therefore, desires to muddle millions of minds of another State in order to gain advantage thereby. It is the same disposition which supports the republican form of government of a neighbouring State – le désordre organisé, as Mérimée says – for the sole reason that it assumes that this form of government makes the nation weaker, more distracted, less fit for war.

The resurrection of the spirit. — A nation usually renews its youth on a political sick-bed, and there finds again the spirit which it had gradually lost in seeking and maintaining power. Culture is indebted most of all to politically weakened periods.

Innocent corruption. — In all institutions into which the sharp breeze of public criticism does not penetrate an innocent corruption grows up like a fungus (for instance, in learned bodies and senates).

Scholars as politicians. — To scholars who become politicians the comic role is usually assigned; they have to be the good conscience of a state policy.

The wolf hidden behind the sheep. — Almost every politician, in certain circumstances, has such need of an honest man that he breaks into the sheep-fold like a famished wolf; not, however, to devour a stolen sheep, but to hide himself behind its woolly back.

Religion and Government. — So long as the State, or, more properly, the Government, regards itself as the appointed guardian of a number of minors, and on their account considers the question whether religion should be preserved or abolished, it is highly probable that it will always decide for the preservation thereof. For religion satisfies the nature of the individual in times of loss, destitution, terror, and distrust, in cases, therefore, where the Government feels itself incapable of doing anything directly for the mitigation of the spiritual sufferings of the individual; indeed, even in general unavoidable and next to inevitable evils (famines, financial crises, and wars) religion gives to the masses an attitude of tranquillity and confiding expectancy. Whenever the necessary or accidental deficiencies of the State Government, or the dangerous consequences of dynastic interests, strike the eyes of the intelligent [Einsichtigen] and make them refractory, the unintelligent [Nicht-Einsichtigen] will only think they see the finger of God therein and will submit with patience to the dispensations from on high (a conception in which divine and human modes of government usually coalesce); thus internal civil peace and continuity of development will be preserved. The power, which lies in the unity of popular feeling, in the existence of the same opinions and aims for all, is protected and confirmed by religion, – the rare cases excepted in which a priesthood cannot agree with the State about the price, and therefore comes into conflict with it. As a rule the State will know how to win over the priests, because it needs their most private and secret system for educating souls, and knows how to value servants who apparently, and outwardly, represent quite other interests. Even at present no power can become ‘legitimate’ without the assistance of the priests; a fact which Napoleon understood. Thus, absolutely paternal government and the careful preservation of religion necessarily go hand-in-hand. In this connection it must be taken for granted that the rulers and governing classes are enlightened concerning the advantages which religion affords, and consequently feel themselves to a certain extent superior to it, inasmuch as they use it as a means; thus freedom of spirit has its origin here. But how will it be when the totally different interpretation of the idea of Government, such as is taught in democratic States, begins to prevail? When one sees in it nothing but the instrument of the popular will, no ‘upper’ in contrast to an ‘under,’ but merely a function of the sole sovereign, the people? Here also only the same attitude which the people assume towards religion can be assumed by the Government; every diffusion of enlightenment will have to find an echo even in the representatives, and the utilising and exploiting of religious impulses and consolations for State purposes will not be so easy (unless powerful party leaders occasionally exercise an influence resembling that of enlightened despotism). When, however, the State is not permitted to derive any further advantage from religion, or when people think far too variously on religious matters to allow the State to adopt a consistent and uniform procedure with respect to them, the way out of the difficulty will necessarily present itself, namely to treat religion as a private affair and leave it to the conscience and custom of each single individual. The first result of all is that religious feeling seems to be strengthened, inasmuch as hidden and suppressed impulses thereof, which the State had unintentionally or intentionally stifled, now break forth and rush to extremes; later on, however, it is found that religion is over-grown with sects, and that an abundance of dragon's teeth were sown as soon as religion was made a private affair.

The spectacle of strife, and the hostile laying bare of all the weaknesses of religious confessions, admit finally of no other expedient except that every better and more talented person should make irreligiousness his private affair, a sentiment which now obtains the upper hand even in the minds of the governing classes, and, almost against their will, gives an anti-religious character to their measures. As soon as this happens, the sentiment of persons still religiously disposed, who formerly adored the State as something half sacred or wholly sacred, changes into decided hostility to the State; they lie in wait for governmental measures, seeking to hinder, thwart, and disturb as much as they can, and, by the fury of their contradiction, drive the opposing parties, the irreligious ones, into an almost fanatical enthusiasm for the State; in connection with which there is also the silently co-operating influence, that since their separation from religion the hearts of persons in these circles are conscious of a void, and seek by devotion to the State to provide themselves provisionally with a substitute for religion, a kind of stuffing for the void. After these perhaps lengthy transitional struggles, it is finally decided whether the religious parties are still strong enough to revive an old condition of things, and turn the wheel backwards: in which case enlightened despotism (perhaps less enlightened and more timorous than formerly), inevitably gets the State into its hands, – or whether the non-religious parties achieve their purpose, and, possibly through schools and education, check the increase of their opponents during several generations, and finally make them no longer possible. Then, however, their enthusiasm for the State also abates: it always becomes more obvious that along with the religious adoration which regards the State as a mystery and a supernatural institution, the reverent and pious relation to it has also been convulsed. Henceforth individuals see only that side of the State which may be useful or injurious to them, and press forward by all means to obtain an influence over it. But this rivalry soon becomes too great; men and parties change too rapidly, and throw each other down again too furiously from the mountain when they have only just succeeded in getting aloft. All the measures which such a Government carries out lack the guarantee of permanence; people then fight shy of undertakings which would require the silent growth of future decades or centuries to produce ripe fruit. Nobody henceforth feels any other obligation to a law than to submit for the moment to the power which introduced the law; people immediately set to work, however, to undermine it by a new power, a newly-formed majority. Finally – it may be confidently asserted – the distrust of all government, the insight into the useless and harassing nature of these short-winded struggles, must drive men to an entirely new resolution: to the abrogation of the conception of the State and the abolition of the contrast of ‘private and public.’ Private concerns gradually absorb the business of the State; even the toughest residue which is left over from the old work of governing (the business, for instance, which is meant to protect private persons from private persons) will at last some day be managed by private enterprise. The neglect, decline, and death of the State, the liberation of the private person (I am careful not to say the individual), are the consequences of the democratic conception of the State; that is its mission. When it has accomplished its task, – which, like everything human, involves much rationality and irrationality, – and when all relapses into the old malady have been overcome, then a new leaf in the story-book of humanity will be unrolled, on which readers will find all kinds of strange tales and perhaps also some amount of good.