Friedrich Nietzsche

a plunge and re­lapse into old loves and nar­row views

Learn­ing al­ters us, it does what all nour­ish­ment does that does not merely “con­serve”—as the physiolo­gist knows. But at the bot­tom of our souls, quite “down be­low,” there is cer­tainly some­thing un­teach­able, a gran­ite of spir­itual fate, of pre­de­ter­mined de­cision and an­swer to pre­de­ter­mined, chosen ques­tions. In each car­dinal prob­lem there speaks an un­change­able “I am this”; a thinker can­not learn anew about man and wo­man, for in­stance, but can only learn fully—he can only fol­low to the end what is “fixed” about them in him­self. Oc­ca­sion­ally we find cer­tain solu­tions of prob­lems which make strong be­liefs for us; per­haps they are hence­forth called “con­vic­tions.” Later on—one sees in them only foot­steps to self-know­ledge, guide­posts to the prob­lem which we ourselves are—or more cor­rectly to the great stu­pid­ity which we em­body, our spir­itual fate, the un­teach­able in us, quite “down be­low.”—In view of this lib­eral com­pli­ment which I have just paid my­self, per­mis­sion will per­haps be more read­ily al­lowed me to ut­ter some truths about “wo­man as she is,” provided that it is known at the out­set how lit­er­ally they are merely—my truths.

wo­man does not thereby seek a new or­na­ment for her­self—I be­lieve or­na­ment­a­tion be­longs to the etern­ally fem­in­ine?—why, then, she wishes to make her­self feared: per­haps she thereby wishes to get the mas­tery. But she does not want truth—what does wo­man care for truth? From the very first, noth­ing is more for­eign, more re­pug­nant, or more hos­tile to wo­man than truth—her great art is false­hood, her chief con­cern is ap­pear­ance and beauty. Let us con­fess it, we men: we hon­our and love this very art and this very in­stinct in wo­man: we who have the hard task, and for our re­cre­ation gladly seek the com­pany of be­ings un­der whose hands, glances, and del­ic­ate fol­lies, our ser­i­ous­ness, our grav­ity, and pro­fund­ity ap­pear al­most like fol­lies to us.