Friedrich Nietzsche

he wishes himself to gather the fruit from the tree that he plants and consequently he no longer plants those trees which require centuries of constant cultivation and are destined to afford shade to generation after generation in the future.

a plunge and re­lapse into old loves and nar­row views

Learn­ing al­ters us, it does what all nour­ish­ment does that does not merely “con­serve”—as the physiolo­gist knows. But at the bot­tom of our souls, quite “down be­low,” there is cer­tainly some­thing un­teach­able, a gran­ite of spir­itual fate, of pre­de­ter­mined de­cision and an­swer to pre­de­ter­mined, chosen ques­tions. In each car­dinal prob­lem there speaks an un­change­able “I am this”; a thinker can­not learn anew about man and wo­man, for in­stance, but can only learn fully—he can only fol­low to the end what is “fixed” about them in him­self. Oc­ca­sion­ally we find cer­tain solu­tions of prob­lems which make strong be­liefs for us; per­haps they are hence­forth called “con­vic­tions.” Later on—one sees in them only foot­steps to self-know­ledge, guide­posts to the prob­lem which we ourselves are—or more cor­rectly to the great stu­pid­ity which we em­body, our spir­itual fate, the un­teach­able in us, quite “down be­low.”—In view of this lib­eral com­pli­ment which I have just paid my­self, per­mis­sion will per­haps be more read­ily al­lowed me to ut­ter some truths about “wo­man as she is,” provided that it is known at the out­set how lit­er­ally they are merely—my truths.