And
in fact, I myself do not believe that ever looked into the world
with a distrust as deep as mine, seeming, as I do, not simply the timely
advocate of the devil, but, to employ theological terms, an enemy and
challenger of God; and whosoever has experienced any of the consequences
of such deep distrust, anything of the chills and the agonies of
isolation to which such an unqualified difference of standpoint condemns
him endowed with it, will also understand how often I must have sought
relief and self-forgetfulness from any source--through any object of
veneration or enmity, of scientific seriousness or wanton lightness;
also why I, when I could not find what I was in need of, had to fashion
it for myself, counterfeiting it or imagining it (and what poet or
writer has ever done anything else, and what other purpose can all the
art in the world possibly have?
in fact, I myself do not believe that ever looked into the world
with a distrust as deep as mine, seeming, as I do, not simply the timely
advocate of the devil, but, to employ theological terms, an enemy and
challenger of God; and whosoever has experienced any of the consequences
of such deep distrust, anything of the chills and the agonies of
isolation to which such an unqualified difference of standpoint condemns
him endowed with it, will also understand how often I must have sought
relief and self-forgetfulness from any source--through any object of
veneration or enmity, of scientific seriousness or wanton lightness;
also why I, when I could not find what I was in need of, had to fashion
it for myself, counterfeiting it or imagining it (and what poet or
writer has ever done anything else, and what other purpose can all the
art in the world possibly have?
Human, All Too Human- A Book for Free Spirits by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
