Friendship requires tactful restraint: be a master at guessing and keeping silent; compassion should be divining, hard-shelled, and sparing, preserving the friend’s love of strength and eternity.

By Friedrich Nietzsche, from Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Key Arguments

  • One must not want to see everything; dreams may reveal what the friend does awake.
  • Compassion should first discern whether it is wanted; perhaps the friend loves the unbroken, eternal gaze, not pity.
  • Compassion should hide under a hard shell, costing a tooth to bite, thereby gaining subtlety and sweetness.

Source Quotes

Oh, my friend, the human is something that must be overcome. In guessing and keeping silent the friend shall be a master: you must not want to see everything. Your dream shall betray to you what your friend does while awake. May your compassion be a divining: that you might first know whether your friend wants compassion.
Your dream shall betray to you what your friend does while awake. May your compassion be a divining: that you might first know whether your friend wants compassion. Perhaps he loves in you the unbroken eye and the glance of eternity. May compassion for the friend conceal itself under a hard shell; you shall lose a tooth biting on it.
Perhaps he loves in you the unbroken eye and the glance of eternity. May compassion for the friend conceal itself under a hard shell; you shall lose a tooth biting on it. Thus will it have its subtlety and sweetness. Are you pure air and solitude and bread and medicine for your friend?

Key Concepts

  • In guessing and keeping silent the friend shall be a master: you must not want to see everything. Your dream shall betray to you what your friend does while awake.
  • May your compassion be a divining: that you might first know whether your friend wants compassion. Perhaps he loves in you the unbroken eye and the glance of eternity.
  • May compassion for the friend conceal itself under a hard shell; you shall lose a tooth biting on it. Thus will it have its subtlety and sweetness.

Context

Etiquette of noble friendship: discretion, interpretive charity, and non-enervating pity.

Perspectives

Nietzsche
Opposes pity-moralism: the friend cherishes strength-signs; compassion must be rare, discerning, and aestheticized (hard shell).
Zarathustra
Teaches restraint and divination: preserve your friend’s pride and upward gaze; give help that costs you but does not weaken him.