point in a
certain paragraph, which he wrote in fourteen different ways; and still,
apparently, he was never quite satisfied with it.

Two of these attempts have been preserved to us; a third we have
ourselves attempted, which we are induced to print here by the preceding
observations.

243

Man is placed as a real being in the midst of a real world, and endowed
with such organs that he can perceive and produce the real and also the
possible.

All healthy men have the conviction of their own existence and of an
existence around them. However, even the brain contains a hollow spot,
that is to say, a place in which no object is mirrored; just as in the
eye itself there is a little spot that does not see. If a man pays
particular attention to this spot and is absorbed in it, he falls into a
state of mental sickness, has presentiments of "things of another
world," which are, in reality, no things at all; possessing neither form
nor limit, but alarming him like dark, empty tracts of night, and
pursuing him as something more than phantoms, if he does not tear
himself free from them.

244

To the several perversities of the day a man should always oppose only
the great masses of universal history.

245

No one can live much with children without finding that they always
react to any outward influence upon them.

246

With any specially childish nature the reaction is even passionate,
while its action is energetic.

247

That is why children's lives are a series of refined judgments, not to
say prejudices; and to efface a rapid but partial perception in order to
make way for a more general one, time is necessary. To bear this in mind
is one of the teacher's greatest duties.

248

Friendship can only be bred in practice and be maintained by practice.
Affection, nay, love itself, is no help at all to friendship. True,
active, productive friendship consists in keeping equal pace in life: in
my friend approving my aims, while I approve his, and in thus moving
forwards together steadfastly, however much our way of thought and life
may vary.

V

249

In the world people take a man at his own estimate; but he must estimate
himself at something. Disagreeableness is more easily tolerated than
insignificance.

250

You can force anything on society so long as it has no sequel.

251

We do not learn to know men if they come to us; we must go to them to
find out what they are.

252

That we hav