sion, an
interruption, and all the thousand tricks of conversation. With the
written word the case is still worse. No one cares to read anything to
which he is not already to some extent accustomed: he demands the known
and the familiar under an altered form. Still the written word has this
advantage, that it lasts and can await the time when it is allowed to
take effect.

378

Both what is reasonable and what is unreasonable have to undergo the
like contradiction.

379

Dialectic is the culture of the spirit of contradiction, which is given
to man that he may learn to perceive the differences between things.

380

With those who are really of like disposition with himself a man cannot
long be at variance; he will always come to an agreement again. With
those who are really of adverse disposition, he may in vain try to
preserve harmony; he will always come to a separation again.

381

Opponents fancy they refute us when they repeat their own opinion and
pay no attention to ours.

382

People who contradict and dispute should now and then remember that not
every mode of speech is intelligible to every one.

383

Every man hears only what he understands.

384

I am quite prepared to find that many a reader will disagree with me;
but when he has a thing before him in black and white, he must let it
stand. Another reader may perhaps take up the very same copy and agree
with me.

385

The truest liberality is appreciation.

386

For the strenuous man the difficulty is to recognise the merits of elder
contemporaries and not let himself be hindered by their defects.

387

Some men think about the defects of their friends, and there is nothing
to be gained by it. I have always paid attention to the merits of my
enemies, and found it an advantage.

388

There are many men who fancy they understand whatever they experience.

389

The public must be treated like women: they must be told absolutely
nothing but what they like to hear.

390

Every age of man has a certain philosophy answering to it. The child
comes out as a realist: he finds himself as convinced that pears and
apples exist as that he himself exists. The youth in a storm of inner
passion is forced to turn his gaze within, and feel in advance what he
is going to be: he is changed into an idealist. But the man has every
reason to become a sceptic: he does well to doubt whether the means he
has chosen to his end are the right ones