deed,
he will doubt whether a philosopher CAN have "ultimate and actual"
opinions at all; whether behind every cave in him there is not, and must
necessarily be, a still deeper cave: an ampler, stranger, richer
world beyond the surface, an abyss behind every bottom, beneath every
"foundation." Every philosophy is a foreground philosophy--this is a
recluse's verdict: "There is something arbitrary in the fact that the
PHILOSOPHER came to a stand here, took a retrospect, and looked around;
that he HERE laid his spade aside and did not dig any deeper--there
is also something suspicious in it." Every philosophy also CONCEALS a
philosophy; every opinion is also a LURKING-PLACE, every word is also a
MASK.

290. Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being
misunderstood. The latter perhaps wounds his vanity; but the former
wounds his heart, his sympathy, which always says: "Ah, why would you
also have as hard a time of it as I have?"

291. Man, a COMPLEX, mendacious, artful, and inscrutable animal, uncanny
to the other animals by his artifice and sagacity, rather than by his
strength, has invented the good conscience in order finally to enjoy his
soul as something SIMPLE; and the whole of morality is a long, audacious
falsification, by virtue of which generally enjoyment at the sight of
the soul becomes possible. From this point of view there is perhaps much
more in the conception of "art" than is generally believed.

292. A philosopher: that is a man who constantly experiences, sees,
hears, suspects, hopes, and dreams extraordinary things; who is struck
by his own thoughts as if they came from the outside, from above and
below, as a species of events and lightning-flashes PECULIAR TO HIM; who
is perhaps himself a storm pregnant with new lightnings; a portentous
man, around whom there is always rumbling and mumbling and gaping and
something uncanny going on. A philosopher: alas, a being who often
runs away from himself, is often afraid of himself--but whose curiosity
always makes him "come to himself" again.

293. A man who says: "I like that, I take it for my own, and mean to
guard and protect it from every one"; a man who can conduct a case,
carry out a resolution, remain true to an opinion, keep hold of a woman,
punish and overthrow insolence; a man who has his indignation and his
sword, and to whom the weak, the suffering, the oppressed, and even the
animals willingly submit and naturally belong;