Conatus

nietzsche on the same point: “Against the teaching of the influence of environment and external causes: the power coming from inside is infinitely superior; much that appears like influence acting from without is merely the subjection of environment to this inner power. Precisely the same environment may be used and interpreted in opposite ways: there are no facts. A genius is not explained by such theories concerning origins.”

93. Almost all genius up to now was one-sided—the result of a sickly constitution. One type had too much sense of the external, the other too much inner sense. Seldom could nature achieve a balance between the two—a complete constitution of genius. Often a perfect proportion arose by chance, but this could never endure because it was not comprehended and fixed by the spirit—they remained fortunate moments. The first genius that penetrated itself found here the exemplary germ of an immeasurable world. It made a discovery which must have been the most remarkable in the history of the world—for with it there begins a whole new epoch for humanity—and true history of all kinds becomes possible for the first time at this stage—for the way that had been traversed hitherto now makes up a proper whole that can be entirely elucidated. That point outside the world is given, and now Archimedes can fulfil his promise. — Georg von Hardenberg, Novalis: Philosophical Writings, Miscellaneous Observations, p. 40.

He who can despise nothing can value nothing with propriety; and who can value nothing has no right to despise any thing. — John Caspar Lavater, Aphorisms on Man, (London, 1792), §102, p. 40.

Friedrich von Schiller, from his Preface to the first edition of The Robbers, 1781: The vulgar—among whom I would not be understood to mean merely the rabble—the vulgar, I say (between ourselves), extend their influence far around, and unfortunately—set the fashion. . . . Let as many friends of truth as you will, instruct their fellow-citizens in the pulpit and on the stage, the vulgar will never cease to be vulgar, though the sun and the moon may change their course, and «heaven and earth wax old as a garment».

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown, Thus unlamented let me die, Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie. — Alexander Pope, Ode to Solitude.

William Adolphe Bouguereau (French, 1825-1905). Innocence, Detail, 1893.

"Greek ideal. -What did the Greeks admire in Odysseus? Above all, his capacity for lying, and for cunning and terrible retribution; his being equal to contingencies; when the need be, appearing nobler than the noblest; the ability to be whatever he chose; heroic perseverance; having all means at his command; possession of intellect -his intellect is the admiration of the gods, they smile when they think of-: all this is the Greek ideal!"

“Nothing is beautiful, except man alone: all aesthetics rests upon this naïveté, which is its first truth. Let us immediately add the second: nothing is ugly except the degenerating man — and with this the realm of aesthetic judgment is circumscribed. Physiologically, everything ugly weakens and saddens man. It reminds him of decay, danger, impotence; it actually deprives him of strength. One can measure the effect of the ugly with a dynamometer. Wherever man is depressed at all, he senses the proximity of something "ugly." His feeling of power, his will to power, his courage, his pride — all fall with the ugly and rise with the beautiful. In both cases we draw an inference: the premises for it are piled up in the greatest abundance in instinct. The ugly is understood as a sign and symptom of degeneration: whatever reminds us in the least of degeneration causes in us the judgment of "ugly." Every suggestion of exhaustion, of heaviness, of age, of weariness; every kind of lack of freedom, such as cramps, such as paralysis; and above all, the smell, the color, the form of dissolution, of decomposition — even in the ultimate attenuation into a symbol — all evoke the same reaction, the value judgment, "ugly." A hatred is aroused — but whom does man hate then? There is no doubt: the decline of his type. Here he hates out of the deepest instinct of the species; in this hatred there is a shudder, caution, depth, farsightedness — it is the deepest hatred there is. It is because of this that art is deep.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

Oedipus With a Young Woman