184
Philosophy?—The fathoming, in thinking, of the ground of the play of being—; what does “thinking” mean here?
185
The inconspicuous but effective way to diminution—one no longer lets anything become great.
186
The style of restraint and the last god. (Cf. p. 70 and 72f.)
187
I am slowly learning to experience the true nearness of the great thinkers in what is most foreign about them.
188
You must learn to grow old very quickly, so you will be able to remain yet at the origin.
189
On the interpretation of Nietzsche’s philosophy.—to the extent that finally the insight is dawning that the doctrine of the eternal recurrence of the same not only in fact is, but even must be, the basic doctrine of Nietzsche’s metaphysics, the endeavors in | that direction stem from the sphere of Being and Time. There the domain for the understanding of Nietzsche’s basic doctrine is first made visible. But the interpretations are all insufficient, because they have not grasped—i.e., unfolded—the question of Being and Time as a question. Ultimately, everything remains at the expedient that Nietzsche returned to the beginning of Western philosophy; but this is precisely his end! And now it must first be reported: Incipit principium! [“The beginning is starting!”]
190
If there is something like a catastrophe in the creative work of great thinkers, then it consists not in their “foundering” and standing still,