63

The value of belittling. Not a few, perhaps the great majority of men, find it necessary, in order to maintain their self?respect and a certain effectiveness in their actions, to lower and belittle the image they form of everyone they know. Since, however, the number of inferior natures is greater, and since it matters a great deal whether they have that effectiveness or lose it ....

64

Those who flare up. We must beware of the man who flares up at us as of someone who has once made an attempt upon our life. For that we are still alive is due to his lacking the power to kill. If looks could kill, we would long ago have been done for. It is an act of primitive culture to bring someone to silence by making physical savageness visible, by inciting fear.
In the same way, the cold glance which elegant people use with their servants is a vestige from those castelike distinctions between man and man, an act of primitive antiquity. Women, the guardians of that which is old, have also been more faithful in preserving this cultural remnant.

65

Where honesty may lead. Someone had the unfortunate habit of speaking out from time to time quite honestly about the motives for his actions, motives which were as good and as bad as those of all other men. At first, he gave offense, then he awoke suspicion, and at length he was virtually ostracized and banished. Finally, justice remembered this depraved creature on occasions when it otherwise averted or winked its eye. His want of silence about the universal secret, and his irresponsible inclination to see what no one wants to see--his own self--brought him to prison and an untimely death.

66

Punishable, never punished. Our crime against criminals is that we treat them like scoundrels.

67

Sancta simplicitas²² of virtue.. Every virtue has its privileges, one being to deliver its own little bundle of wood to the funeral pyre of a condemned man.