Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

Untimely Meditationsperish and at best leave behind 'pure science ': but'this too only atbest; most probably neither human being nor science would remain.An Englishman recently described the most general danger facinguncommon men who live in a society tied to convention: 'Such aliencharacters at first become submissive, then melancholic, then ill andfinally they die. A Shelley would not have been able to live inEngland, and a race of Shelleys would have been impossible.'* OurHOlderlin and Kleist, and who knows who else besides, were ruinedby their uncommonness and could not endure the climate of socalledGerman culture; and only natures of iron, such as Beethoven,Goethe, Schopenhauer and Wagner are able to stand firm. But thesetoo exhibit many of the effects of the wearying struggle they have hadto engage in: they breathe heavily and their voice can easily becometoo loud. A practised diplomat who had seen and spoken withGoethe only now and then told his friends: 'Voila un homme, qui aeu de grands chagrins!' - which Goethe translated as: 'There isanother one who has had a hard time of it!' and added: 'If the tracesof the sufferings we have endured an