The Antichrist, Section 7

Where The Good Begins.- Where The Poor Power Of The Eye Can No Longer See The Evil Impulse As Such Because It Has Become Too Subtle, Man Posits The Realm Of Goodness; And The Feeling That We Have Now Entered The Realm Of Goodness Excites All Those Impulses Which Had Been Threatened And Limited By The Evil Impulses, Like The Feeling Of Security, Of Comfort, Of Benevolence. Hence, The Duller The Eye, The More Extensive The Good. Hence The Eternal Cheerfulness Of The Common People And Of Children. Hence The Gloominess And Grief - Akin To A Bad Conscience - Of The Great Thinkers.

The Surest Way To Corrupt A Youth Is To Instruct Him To Hold In Higher Esteem Those Who Think Alike Than Those Who Think Differently.

Since Men Do Not Really Respect Anything Unless It Was Established Long Ago And Has Developed Slowly Over Time, Those Who Want Tokeep On Living After Their Death Must Take Worry Not Only About Their Future Generations But Even More About Their Past: That Is Why Tyrants Of All Kinds (including Tyrannical Artists And Politicians) Like To Do Violence To History, So That It Will Appear As A Preparation And Stepladder To Themselves.

What Is The Task Of Higher Education? To Make A Man Into A Machine. What Are The Means Employed? He Is Taught How To Suffer Being Bored.

There Is Nothing That Has Caused Me To Meditate More On Plato's Secrecy And Sphinx-like Nature, Than The Happily Preserved Petit Fait That Under The Pillow Of His Death-bed There Was Found No 'bible,' Nor Anything Egyptian, Pythagorean, Or Platonic - But A Book Of Aristophanes. How Could Even Plato Have Endured Life - A Greek Life Which He Repudiated - Without An Aristophanes!