Old Thought New

Onchsheshonqy taught:
Do not instruct a fool, lest he hate you.
Do not instruct him who will not listen to you.
Do not consult a wise man in a small matter when a large
     matter is to hand.
Do not consult a fool in a large matter when there is a wise
     man whom you can consult.
Do not laugh at instruction.
— The Wisdom of the Ancient Egyptians, William MacQuitty, p. 44.

Onchsheshonqy taught:
Do not run round in circles simply in order to stand still, and: Do not run away after you have been beaten, lest your punishment be doubled, and: He who is stout-hearted in a misfortune shall not feel its full force.
— Ibid., p. 54.

Onchsheshonqy warns:
No, drunkenness of yesterday removes today's thirst.
— Ibid., p. 70.

Merikare was taught:
Copy your forefathers, for work is carried out through knowledge; see, their words endure in writing. Open, that you may read and copy knowledge; even the expert will become one who is instructed.
— Ibid., p. 71.

     Evil. — Test the life of the best and most productive men and nations, and ask yourselves whether a tree which is to grow proudly heavenward can dispense with bad weather and tempests: whether disfavour and opposition from without, whether every kind of hatred, jealousy, stubbornness, distrust, severity, greed, and violence do not belong to the favouring circumstances without which a great growth even in virtue is hardly possible? The poison by which the weaker nature is destroyed is strengthening to the strong individual — and he does not call it poison.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Joyful Wisdom, #19, pp. 56-57.

     Cause and Effect. — We say it is "explanation"; but it is only in "description" that we are in advance of the older stages of knowledge and science. We describe better, — we explain just as little as our predecessors. We have discovered a manifold succession where the naive man and investigator of older cultures saw only two things, "cause" and "effect," as it was said; we have perfected the conception of becoming, but have not got a knowledge of what is above and behind the conception. The series of "causes" stands before us much more complete in every case; we conclude that this and that must first precede in order that that other may follow — but we have not grasped anything thereby. The peculiarity, for example, in every chemical process seems a "miracle," the same as before, just like all locomotion; nobody has "explained" impulse. How could we ever explain! We operate only with things which do not exist, with lines, surfaces, bodies, atoms, divisible times, divisible spaces — how can explanation ever be possible when we first make everything a conception, our conception! It is sufficient to regard science as the exactest humnaizing of things that is possible; we always learn to describe ourselves more accurately by describing things and their successions. Cause and effect: there is probably never any such duality; in fact there is a continuum before us, from which we isolate a few portions; — just as we always observe a motion as isolated points, and therefore do not properly see it, but infer it. The abruptness with which many effects take place leads us into error; it is however only an abruptness for us. There is an infinite multitude of precesses in that abrupt moment which escape us. An intellect which could see cause and effect as a continuum, which could see the flux of events not according to our mode of perception, as things arbitrarily separated and broken — would throw aside the conception of cause and effect, and would deny all conditionality.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Ibid., #112, pp. 157-158.

     To be Profound and to Appear Profound. — He who knows that he is profound strives for clearness; he who would like to appear profound to the multitude strives for obscurity. The multitude thinks everything profound of which it cannot see the bottom; it is so timid and goes so unwillingly into the water.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Ibid., #173, p. 190.