discernment! They never forgive us if they have once made a mistake BEFORE us (or even with REGARD to us) — they inevitably become our instinctive calumniators and detractors, even when they still remain our “friends.” — Blessed are the forgetful: for they “get the better” even of their blunders.

218. The psychologists of France — and where else are there still psychologists nowadays? — have never yet exhausted their bitter and manifold enjoyment of the betise bourgeoise, just as though... in short, they betray something thereby.

Flaubert, for instance, the honest citizen of Rouen, neither saw, heard, nor tasted anything else in the end; it was his mode of self-torment and refined cruelty. As this is growing wearisome, I would now