Friedrich Nietzsche

Actions can be promised, but not feelings, for these are involuntary.

It seems that in or­der to in­scribe them­selves upon the heart of hu­man­ity with ever­last­ing claims, all great things have first to wander about the earth as enorm­ous and awe-in­spir­ing ca­ri­ca­tures:

And in fact, I myself do not believe that anybody ever looked into the world with a distrust as deep as mine,

some play upon words

the Ved­anta doc­trine in Asia, and Platon­ism in Europe

Sup­pos­ing, in ef­fect, that man is not just the “meas­ure of things.”

To re­cog­nise un­truth as a con­di­tion of life;

the “love of his wis­dom,” to trans­late the term fairly and

Ad­ventavit as­i­nus,
Pulcher et for­tis­simus

But that is Ni­hil­ism, and the sign of a des­pair­ing, mor­tally wear­ied soul, not­with­stand­ing the cour­ageous bear­ing such a vir­tue may dis­play.