t e r r i b l y  c u n e i f o r m

V. Thestorides, full many things there are that mortals cannot sound; but there is nothing more unfathomable than the heart of man.

XII. Goddess-nurse of the young (Hecate), give ear to my prayer, and grant that this woman may reject the love-embraces of youth and dote on grey-haired old men whose powers are dulled, but whose hearts still desire.

XIV. Potters, if you will give me a reward, I will sing for you. Come, then, Athena, with hand upraised over the kiln. Let the pots and all the dishes turn out well and be well fired: let them fetch good prices and be sold in plenty in the market, and plenty in the streets. Grant that the potters may get great gain and grant me so to sing to them. But if you turn shameless and make false promises, then I call together the destroyers of kilns, Shatter and Smash and Charr and Crash and Crudebake who can work this craft much mischief. Come all of you and sack the kiln-yard and the buildings: let the whole kiln be shaken up to the potter’s loud lament. As a horse’s jaw grinds, so let the kiln grind to powder all the pots inside. And you, too, daughter of the Sun, Circe the witch, come and cast cruel spells; hurt both these men and their handiwork. Let Chiron also come and bring many Centaurs — all that escaped the hands of Heracles and all that were destroyed: let them make sad havoc of the pots and overthrow the kiln, and let the potters see the mischief and be grieved; but I will gloat as I behold their luckless craft. And if anyone of them stoops to peer in, let all his face be burned up, that all men may learn to deal honestly.

“The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.”

This quote is widely cited but rarely sourced. The quote is from Human, All Too Human : A Book for Free Spirits, aphorism 580. This text was written in three parts over 1878-1880. Interestingly, it is not a widely available text, with only a smattering of aphorisms available in The Portable Nietzsche and the Modern Library Basic Writings collections. A Cambridge edition exists but hardly one you find at the typical local bookseller. Why has a publisher like Penguin not released a Classics edition? Odd.

There are a couple of online editions accessible, using the Helen Zimmern 1909-1913 translation.

http://nietzsche.holtof.com/Nietzsche_human_all_too_human

http://www.davemckay.co.uk/philosophy/nietzsche/

Some other aphorisms from the same source:

579: Not suited to be a party member. He who thinks much is not suited to be a party member: too soon, he thinks himself through and beyond the party.

581: Causing oneself pain. Inconsiderate thinking is often the sign of a discordant inner state which craves numbness.

390: Women’s friendship. Women can very well enter into a friendship with a man, but to maintain it–a little physical antipathy must help out.

388: Different sighs. A few men have sighed because their women were abducted; most, because no one wanted to abduct them.

85: Malice is rare. Most men are much too concerned with themselves to be malicious.

468: Innocent corruption. In all institutions that do not feel the sharp wind of public criticism (as, for example, in scholarly organizations and senates), an innocent corruption grows up, like a mushroom.

444: War. One can say against war that it makes the victor stupid and the vanquished malicious. In favor of war, one can say that it barbarizes through both these effects and thus makes man more natural; war is the sleep or wintertime of culture: man emerges from it with more strength, both for the good and for the bad.

For the first time I feel time like a heartbeat, the seconds pumping in my breast like a reckoning; the numinous mysteries that once seemed so distant and unreal threatening clarity in the presence of a truth entertained not in youth, but only in its passage. I feel these words as if their meaning were weight being lifted from me, knowing that you will read them and share my burden as I have come to trust no other. That you should know my heart, look into it, finding there the memory and experience that belong to you, that are you, is a comfort to me now as I feel the tethers loose and the prospects darken for the continuance of a journey that began not so long ago, and which began again with a faith shaken and strengthened by your convictions. If not for which I might never have been so strong now as I cross to face you and look at you incomplete, hoping that you will forgive me for not making the journey with you.
Scully’s monologue from “Momento Mori”

Life…is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that no one ever asks for. Unreturnable because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So, you’re stuck with mostly undefinable whipped mint crap, mindlessly wolfed down when there’s nothing else to eat while you’re watching the game. Sure, once in a while you get a peanut butter cup or an English toffee but it’s gone too fast and the taste is fleeting. In the end, you’re left with nothing but broken bitsfilled with hardened jelly and teeth shattering nuts, which if you are desperate enough to eat leaves nothing but an empty box of useless brown paper wrappers.
Cancer Man’s monologue from “Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man”

Opening Lines