OF LOVE FOR ONE'S NEIGHBOUR 8 1
Would that ye could not endure any kind of your neighbours and their neighbours; were that so ye would need to create your friend and his enthusiastic heart out of yourselves.
Ye invite a witness, if ye wish to speak well of your- selves, and having wheedled him into thinking well of you, ye think well of yourselves also.
Not only doth he lie who speaketh contrary to his knowledge, but still more he who speaketh contrary to his not-knowledge. Thus ye speak of yourselves in company and deceive your neighbour as yourselves.
Thus saith the fool : ' Intercourse with men spoileth character, especially if ye have none.'
One goeth unto the neighbour because he seeketh himself, another because he wisheth to lose himself. Your bad love for yourselves maketh for yourselves a prison out of solitude.
It is the more remote who pay for your love unto your neighbour; and whenever there are five of you together the sixth must die.
I like not your festivals : I have found there too many actors, and the spectators also often behaved like actors.
I teach you not the neighbour, but the friend. Let the friend be for you the festival of earth and a fore- taste of beyond-man.
I teach you the friend and his too-full heart. But one must know how to be a sponge, if one would be loved by too-full hearts.
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