IX

Have a good distrust today ye, higher men, ye enheartened ones! Ye openhearted ones! And keep your reasons secret! For this today is that of the populace.

What the populace once learned to believe without reasons, who could⁠—refute it to them by means of reasons?

And on the marketplace one convinceth with gestures. But reasons make the populace distrustful.

And when truth hath once triumphed there, then ask yourselves with good distrust: “What strong error hath fought for it?”

Be on your guard also against the learned! They hate you, because they are unproductive! They have cold, withered eyes before which every bird is unplumed.

Such persons vaunt about not lying: but inability to lie is still far from being love to truth. Be on your guard!

Freedom from fever is still far from being knowledge! Refrigerated spirits I do not believe in. He who cannot lie, doth not know what truth is.