The Most Unendurable Thing, To Be Sure,

Read From A Distant Star, The Majuscule Script Of Our Earthly Existence Would Perhaps Lead To The Conclusion That The Earth Was The Distinctively Ascetic Planet, A Nook Of Disgruntled, Arrogant Creatures Filled With A Profound Disgust With Themselves, At The Earth, At All Life, Who Inflict As Much Pain On Themselves As They Possibly Can Out Of Pleasure In Inflicting Pain Which Is Probably Their Only Pleasure.

Deception, Flattering, Lying, Deluding, Talking Behind The Back, Putting Up A False Front, Living In Borrowed Splendor, Wearing A Mask, Hiding Behind Convention, Playing A Role For Others And For Oneself -- In Short, A Continuous Fluttering Around The Solitary Flame Of Vanity -- Is So Much The Rule And The Law Among Men That There Is Almost Nothing Which Is Less Comprehensible Than How An Honest And Pure Drive For Truth Could Have Arisen Among Them.

Do You Believe Then That The Sciences Would Ever Have Arisen And Become Great If There Had Not Before Hand Been Magicians, Alchemists, Astrologers And Wizards, Who Thirsted And Hungered After Abscondite And Forbidden Powers?

It Was Modesty That Invented The Word "philosopher" In Greece And Left The Magnificent Overweening Presumption In Calling Oneselfwise To The Actors Of The Spirit--the Modesty Of Such Monsters Of Pride And Sovereignty As Pythagoras, As Plato.

Of What Is Great One Must Either Be Silent Or Speak With Greatness. With Greatness--that Means Cynically And With Innocence.