The Untimely Meditations
Original German
1 Die vier Unzeitgemäßen sind durchaus kriegerisch. Sie beweisen, daß ich kein „Hans der Träumer“ war, daß es mir Vergnügen macht, den Degen zu ziehn, — vielleicht auch, daß ich das Handgelenk gefährlich frei habe. Der erste Angriff (1873) galt der deutschen Bildung, auf die ich damals schon mit schonungsloser Verachtung hinabblickte. Ohne Sinn, ohne Substanz, ohne Ziel: eine bloße „öffentliche Meinung“. Kein bösartigeres Mißverständniß als zu glauben, der große Waffen - Erfolg der Deutschen beweise irgend Etwas zu Gunsten dieser Bildung — oder gar ihren Sieg über Frankreich... Die zweite Unzeitgemäße (1874) bringt das Gefährliche, das Leben-Annagende und -Vergiftende in unsrer Art des Wissenschafts-Betriebs an’s Licht —: das Leben krank an diesem entmenschten Räderwerk und Mechanismus, an der „Unpersönlichkeit“ des Arbeiters, an der falschen Ökonomie der „Theilung der Arbeit“. Der Zweck geht verloren, die Cultur: — das Mittel, der moderne Wissenschafts-Betrieb, barbarisirt... In dieser Abhandlung wurde der „historische Sinn“, auf den dies Jahrhundert stolz ist, zum ersten Mal als Krankheit erkannt, als typisches Zeichen des Verfalls. — In der dritten und vierten Unzeitgemäßen werden, als Fingerzeige zu einem höheren Begriff der Cultur, zur Wiederherstellung des Begriffs „Cultur“, zwei Bilder der härtesten Selbstsucht, Selbstzucht dagegen aufgestellt, unzeitgemäße Typen par excellence, voll souverainer Verachtung gegen Alles, was um sie herum „Reich“, „Bildung“, „Christenthum“, „Bismarck“, „Erfolg“ hieß, — Schopenhauer und Wagner oder, mit Einem Wort, Nietzsche...
2 Von diesen vier Attentaten hatte das erste einen außerordentlichen Erfolg. Der Lärm, den es hervorrief, war in jedem Sinne prachtvoll. Ich hatte einer siegreichen Nation an ihre wunde Stelle gerührt, — daß ihr Sieg nicht ein Cultur-Ereigniß sei, sondern vielleicht, vielleicht etwas ganz Anderes... Die Antwort kam von allen Seiten und durchaus nicht bloß von den alten Freunden David Straußens, den ich als Typus eines deutschen Bildungsphilisters und satisfait, kurz als Verfasser seines Bierbank-Evangeliums vom „alten und neuen Glauben“ lächerlich gemacht hatte (– das Wort Bildungsphilister ist von meiner Schrift her in der Sprache übriggeblieben). Diese alten Freunde, denen ich als Württembergern und Schwaben einen tiefen Stich versetzt hatte, als ich ihr Wunderthier, ihren Strauß komisch fand, antworteten so bieder und grob, als ich’s irgendwie wünschen konnte; die preußischen Entgegnungen waren klüger, – sie hatten mehr „berliner Blau“ in sich. Das Unanständigste leistete ein Leipziger Blatt, die berüchtigten „Grenzboten“; ich hatte Mühe, die entrüsteten Basler von Schritten abzuhalten. Unbedingt für mich entschieden sich nur einige alte Herrn, aus gemischten und zum Theil unausfindlichen Gründen. Darunter Ewald in Göttingen, der zu verstehen gab, mein Attentat sei für Strauß tödtlich abgelaufen. Insgleichen der alte Hegelianer Bruno Bauer, an dem ich von da an einen meiner aufmerksamsten Leser gehabt habe. Er liebte es, in seinen letzten Jahren, auf mich zu verweisen, zum Beispiel Herrn von Treitschke, dem preußischen Historiographen, einen Wink zu geben, bei wem er sich Auskunft über den ihm verloren gegangenen Begriff „Cultur“ holen könne. Das Nachdenklichste, auch das Längste über die Schrift und ihren Autor wurde von einem alten Schüler des Philosophen von Baader gesagt, einem Professor Hoffmann in Würzburg. Er sah aus der Schrift eine große Bestimmung für mich voraus, – eine Art Krisis und höchste Entscheidung im Problem des Atheismus herbeizuführen, als dessen instinktivsten und rücksichtslosesten Typus er mich errieth. Der Atheismus war Das, was mich zu Schopenhauer führte. – Bei weitem am besten gehört, am bittersten empfunden wurde eine außerordentlich starke und tapfere Fürsprache des sonst so milden Carl Hillebrand, dieses letzten humanen Deutschen, der die Feder zu führen wußte. Man las seinen Aufsatz in der „Augsburger Zeitung“; man kann ihn heute, in einer etwas vorsichtigeren Form, in seinen gesammelten Schriften lesen. Hier war die Schrift als Ereigniß, Wendepunkt, erste Selbstbesinnung, allerbestes Zeichen dargestellt, als eine wirkliche Wiederkehr des deutschen Ernstes und der deutschen Leidenschaft in geistigen Dingen. Hillebrand war voll hoher Auszeichnung für die Form der Schrift, für ihren reifen Geschmack, für ihren vollkommnen Takt in der Unterscheidung von Person und Sache: er zeichnete sie als die beste polemische Schrift aus, die deutsch geschrieben sei, – in der gerade für Deutsche so gefährlichen, so widerrathnen Kunst der Polemik. Unbedingt jasagend, mich sogar in dem verschärfend, was ich über die Sprach-Verlumpung in Deutschland zu sagen gewagt hatte (– heute spielen sie die Puristen und können keinen Satz mehr bauen –), in gleicher Verachtung gegen die „ersten Schriftsteller“ dieser Nation, endete er damit, seine Bewunderung für meinen Muth auszudrücken – jenen „höchsten Muth, der gerade die Lieblinge eines Volks auf die Anklagebank bringt“… Die Nachwirkung dieser Schrift ist geradezu unschätzbar in meinem Leben. Niemand hat bisher mit mir Händel gesucht. Man schweigt, man behandelt mich in Deutschland mit einer düstern Vorsicht: ich habe seit Jahren von einer unbedingten Redefreiheit Gebrauch gemacht, zu der Niemand heute, am wenigsten im „Reich“, die Hand frei genug hat. Mein Paradies ist „unter dem Schatten meines Schwertes“… Im Grunde hatte ich eine Maxime Stendhal’s practicirt: er räth an, seinen Eintritt in die Gesellschaft mit einem Duell zu machen. Und wie ich mir meinen Gegner gewählt hatte! den ersten deutschen Freigeist!… In der That, eine ganz neue Art Freigeisterei kam damit zum ersten Ausdruck: bis heute ist mir Nichts fremder und unverwandter als die ganze europäische und amerikanische Species von „libres penseurs“. Mit ihnen als mit unverbesserlichen Flachköpfen und Hanswürsten der „modernen Ideen“ befinde ich mich sogar in einem tieferen Zwiespalt als mit irgendwem von ihren Gegnern. Sie wollen auch, auf ihre Art, die Menschheit „verbessern“, nach ihrem Bilde, sie würden gegen das, was ich bin, was ich will, einen unversöhnlichen Krieg machen, gesetzt daß sie es verstünden, – sie glauben allesammt noch an’s „Ideal“… Ich bin der erste Immoralist –
3 Daß die mit den Namen Schopenhauer und Wagner abgezeichneten Unzeitgemäßen sonderlich zum Verständniß oder auch nur zur psychologischen Fragestellung beider Fälle dienen könnten, möchte ich nicht behaupten, – Einzelnes, wie billig, ausgenommen. So wird zum Beispiel mit tiefer Instinkt-Sicherheit bereits hier das Elementarische in der Natur Wagner’s als eine Schauspieler-Begabung bezeichnet, die seinen Mitteln und Absichten nur ihre Folgerungen zieht. Im Grunde wollte ich mit diesen Schriften etwas ganz Andres als Psychologie treiben: – ein Problem der Erziehung ohne Gleichen, ein neuer Begriff der Selbst-Zucht, Selbst-Vertheidigung bis zur Härte, ein Weg zur Größe und zu welthistorischen Aufgaben verlangte nach seinem ersten Ausdruck. In’s Große gerechnet nahm ich zwei berühmte und ganz und gar noch unfestgestellte Typen beim Schopf, wie man eine Gelegenheit beim Schopf nimmt, um Etwas auszusprechen, um ein paar Formeln, Zeichen, Sprachmittel mehr in der Hand zu haben. Dies ist zuletzt, mit vollkommen unheimlicher Sagacität, auf S. 93 der dritten Unzeitgemäßen auch angedeutet. Dergestalt hat sich Plato des Sokrates bedient, als einer Semiotik für Plato. – Jetzt, wo ich aus einiger Ferne auf jene Zustände zurückblicke, deren Zeugniß diese Schriften sind, möchte ich nicht verleugnen, daß sie im Grunde bloß von mir reden. Die Schrift „Wagner in Bayreuth“ ist eine Vision meiner Zukunft; dagegen ist in „Schopenhauer als Erzieher“ meine innerste Geschichte, mein Werden eingeschrieben. Vor Allem mein Gelöbniß!… Was ich heute bin, wo ich heute bin – in einer Höhe, wo ich nicht mehr mit Worten, sondern mit Blitzen rede – oh wie fern davon war ich damals noch! – Aber ich sah das Land, – ich betrog mich nicht einen Augenblick über Weg, Meer, Gefahr – und Erfolg! Die große Ruhe im Versprechen, dies glückliche Hinausschaun in eine Zukunft, welche nicht nur eine Verheißung bleiben soll! – Hier ist jedes Wort erlebt, tief, innerlich; es fehlt nicht am Schmerzlichsten, es sind Worte darin, die geradezu blutrünstig sind. Aber ein Wind der großen Freiheit bläst über Alles weg; die Wunde selbst wirkt nicht als Einwand. – Wie ich den Philosophen verstehe, als einen furchtbaren Explosionsstoff, vor dem Alles in Gefahr ist, wie ich meinen Begriff „Philosoph“ meilenweit abtrenne von einem Begriff, der sogar noch einen Kant in sich schließt, nicht zu reden von akademischen „Wiederkäuern“ und andern Professoren der Philosophie: darüber giebt diese Schrift eine unschätzbare Belehrung, zugegeben selbst, daß hier im Grunde nicht „Schopenhauer als Erzieher“, sondern sein Gegensatz, „Nietzsche als Erzieher“, zu Worte kommt. – In Anbetracht, daß damals mein Handwerk das eines Gelehrten war, und, vielleicht auch, daß ich mein Handwerk verstand, ist ein herbes Stück Psychologie des Gelehrten nicht ohne Bedeutung, das in dieser Schrift plötzlich zum Vorschein kommt: es drückt das Distanz-Gefühl aus, die tiefe Sicherheit darüber, was bei mir Aufgabe, was bloß Mittel, Zwischenakt und Nebenwerk sein kann. Es ist meine Klugheit, Vieles und vielerorts gewesen zu sein, um Eins werden zu können, – um zu Einem kommen zu können. Ich mußte eine Zeit lang auch Gelehrter sein.
Musean translation
A complete machine-assisted Musean translation directly from the German of the 1908 Insel edition, including its concluding poem. This early edition's readings and omissions are retained, not replaced with later critical restorations.
1 The four Untimely Meditations are warlike through and through. They prove that I was no “Jack the Dreamer,” that I take pleasure in drawing my sword—perhaps also that my wrist is dangerously free. The first attack (1873) was directed at German education and culture, on which I already looked down with merciless contempt. Without meaning, without substance, without a goal: mere “public opinion.” There is no more pernicious misunderstanding than to believe that the Germans’ great military success proves anything in favor of this culture—or even its victory over France… The second Untimely Meditation (1874) brings to light what is dangerous, what gnaws at life and poisons it, in the way we conduct scholarship—life made sick by this dehumanized machinery and mechanism, by the worker’s “impersonality,” by the false economy of the “division of labor.” The end is lost, culture—the means, the modern machinery of scholarship, barbarizes… In this essay the “historical sense,” the pride of this century, was recognized for the first time as a sickness, a typical sign of decline.—In the third and fourth Untimely Meditations, two images of the most unyielding selfishness, self-discipline are set against this, pointing toward a higher conception of culture, toward the restoration of the concept “culture”: untimely types in the highest degree, full of sovereign contempt for everything around them that went by the names “Reich,” “education,” “Christianity,” “Bismarck,” “success”—Schopenhauer and Wagner, or, in a word, Nietzsche…
2 Of these four assaults, the first had an extraordinary success. The uproar it provoked was magnificent in every sense. I had touched a victorious nation on its sore spot—that its victory was not an event in the history of culture, but perhaps, perhaps something quite different… The answer came from every side, and by no means only from the old friends of David Strauss, whom I had made ridiculous as the type of a German cultural philistine and self-satisfied man, in short as the author of his beer-bench gospel of “The Old Faith and the New” (the expression “cultural philistine” has remained in the language since my essay). These old friends, whom I had stabbed to the quick as Württembergers and Swabians by finding their wonder-beast, their Strauss, comical, answered as stolidly and coarsely as I could possibly have wished; the Prussian rejoinders were cleverer—they had more “Berlin blue” in them. A Leipzig paper, the notorious “Grenzboten,” produced the most indecent performance; I had difficulty keeping the indignant people of Basel from taking action. Only a few old gentlemen came out unconditionally on my side, for mixed and in part unfathomable reasons. Among them was Ewald in Göttingen, who gave it to be understood that my assault had proved fatal to Strauss. Likewise the old Hegelian Bruno Bauer, in whom, from then on, I had one of my most attentive readers. In his last years he liked to point to me, for instance by giving Mr. von Treitschke, the Prussian historiographer, a hint as to where he might find enlightenment about the concept of “culture” he had lost. The most thoughtful remarks about the essay and its author, and also the longest, came from an old pupil of the philosopher von Baader, a Professor Hoffmann in Würzburg. From the essay he foresaw a great destiny for me—to bring about a kind of crisis and supreme decision in the problem of atheism, whose most instinctive and uncompromising type he divined in me. Atheism was what led me to Schopenhauer.—By far the most widely heard and most bitterly felt response was the extraordinarily forceful and courageous advocacy of the otherwise so mild Carl Hillebrand, that last humane German who knew how to wield a pen. His essay was read in the “Augsburger Zeitung”; today it can be read, in a somewhat more cautious form, in his collected writings. Here my essay was presented as an event, a turning point, a first return to self-awareness, the most auspicious of signs, as a genuine return of German seriousness and German passion in matters of the spirit. Hillebrand paid the highest tribute to the essay’s form, its mature taste, its consummate tact in distinguishing the person from the issue: he singled it out as the best polemical essay written in German—in the art of polemic, so dangerous for Germans in particular, so ill-advised for them. Unconditionally assenting, even sharpening what I had ventured to say about the degradation of language in Germany (today they play the purists and can no longer construct a sentence), sharing my contempt for this nation’s “foremost writers,” he ended by expressing his admiration for my courage—that “highest courage which puts precisely a people’s favorites in the dock”… The aftereffect of this essay on my life is quite simply beyond price. No one has tried to pick a quarrel with me since. They keep silent; in Germany they treat me with a somber caution: for years I have exercised an unconditional freedom of speech for which no one today, least of all in the “Reich,” has a hand free enough. My paradise is “in the shadow of my sword”… At bottom I had put a maxim of Stendhal’s into practice: he advises making one’s entrance into society with a duel. And what an opponent I had chosen! The foremost German free spirit!… In fact, an entirely new kind of free-spiritedness found its first expression here: to this day nothing is more alien or less akin to me than the whole European and American species of “freethinkers.” With them, as incorrigible shallow minds and buffoons of “modern ideas,” I am in an even deeper conflict than with any of their opponents. They too, in their way, want to “improve” humanity, in their own image; they would wage an implacable war against what I am, what I want, if they understood it—they all still believe in the “ideal”… I am the first immoralist—
3 I would not claim that the Untimely Meditations bearing the names Schopenhauer and Wagner could do much to help anyone understand either case, or even frame its psychological questions—with exceptions in detail, of course. Thus, for example, with profound instinctive certainty, the elemental quality in Wagner’s nature is already identified here as an actor’s gift that merely carries through its implications in his means and intentions. At bottom I meant to do something quite different from psychology with these essays—an unparalleled problem of education, a new conception of self-discipline, self-defense to the point of hardness, a path to greatness and to tasks of world-historical significance demanded its first expression. Broadly speaking, I seized two famous types, as yet wholly undefined, by the forelock, as one seizes an opportunity, in order to say something, to have a few more formulas, signs, means of expression at hand. This is, in the end, also suggested with perfectly uncanny sagacity on S. 93 of the third Untimely Meditation. In just this way Plato used Socrates, as a language of signs for Plato.—Now that I look back from some distance on the states to which these essays bear witness, I would not deny that at bottom they speak only of me. The essay “Wagner in Bayreuth” is a vision of my future; in “Schopenhauer as Educator,” by contrast, my innermost history, my becoming, is inscribed. Above all, my vow!… What I am today, where I am today—at a height where I no longer speak with words but with lightning—oh, how far I still was from that then!—But I saw the land—I was not deceived for a moment about the path, the sea, the danger—and success! That great calm in making a promise, that happy gaze into a future that is not to remain a mere promise!—Here every word has been lived, deeply, inwardly; the most painful things are not missing; there are words in it that are positively bloodthirsty. But a wind of great freedom sweeps across it all; the wound itself does not count as an objection.—How I understand the philosopher, as a terrible explosive before which everything is in danger, how I set my concept of “philosopher” miles apart from a concept that still includes even a Kant, to say nothing of academic “ruminants” and other professors of philosophy: this essay offers an invaluable lesson on that, even granting that at bottom it is not “Schopenhauer as Educator” who speaks here, but his opposite, “Nietzsche as Educator.”—Considering that my trade at the time was that of a scholar, and perhaps also that I knew my trade, a harsh piece of the psychology of the scholar that suddenly emerges in this essay is not without significance: it expresses the feeling of distance, the profound certainty about what can be my task, and what can be merely a means, an interlude, a sideline. My wisdom lies in having been many things and in many places in order to become one thing—to arrive at one thing. For a time I had to be a scholar too.
Plain English translation
A complete machine-assisted Plain English translation made independently and directly from the same German edition, including its concluding poem. This is the 1908 text, not a modern critical edition.
1 The four Untimely Meditations are combative through and through. They show that I was no “Jack the Dreamer.” I enjoy drawing my sword—and perhaps my wrist is dangerously loose. The first attack (1873) targeted German culture, which I already looked down on with ruthless contempt. No meaning, no substance, no goal: just “public opinion.” Nothing could be a more damaging mistake than to think that the Germans’ great military success proved anything in favor of this culture—or even marked its victory over France… The second Untimely Meditation (1874) exposes what is dangerous, what eats away at life and poisons it, in the way we practice scholarship. Life is sick from this dehumanized system of gears and machinery, from the worker’s “impersonality,” from the false economy of the “division of labor.” The goal, culture, gets lost. The means, the modern system of scholarship, makes us barbaric… This essay was the first to identify the “historical sense,” the pride of this century, as a disease, a typical sign of decline.—The third and fourth Untimely Meditations set two portraits against this. They point toward a higher idea of culture and toward restoring the meaning of “culture.” These are portraits of the most unyielding selfishness, self-discipline: supremely untimely figures, full of sovereign contempt for everything around them called “Empire,” “culture,” “Christianity,” “Bismarck,” or “success”—Schopenhauer and Wagner, or, in a word, Nietzsche…
2 The first of these four attacks was an extraordinary success. The uproar it caused was magnificent in every way. I had touched a victorious nation’s sore spot: its victory was not a cultural event, but perhaps, perhaps something quite different… Answers came from every side, and by no means only from the old friends of David Strauss. I had ridiculed him as a typical German cultural philistine, smug and satisfied—in short, as the author of his beer-bench gospel of “The Old Faith and the New” (the word “cultural philistine” entered the language through my essay). These old friends were natives of Württemberg and Swabia. I had wounded them deeply by finding their wonder-beast, their Strauss, comical. Their replies were as stolid and crude as I could possibly have wished. The Prussian replies were cleverer—they had more “Berlin blue” in them. The most indecent response came from a Leipzig paper, the notorious “Grenzboten.” I had trouble keeping the outraged people of Basel from taking action. Only a few old gentlemen came out firmly on my side, for mixed reasons, some of which could not be traced. One was Ewald in Göttingen, who indicated that my attack had proved fatal to Strauss. Another was the old Hegelian Bruno Bauer, who from then on was one of my most attentive readers. In his last years he liked to point people toward me. For example, he gave Mr. von Treitschke, the Prussian historian, a hint about where he could learn the meaning of “culture,” which he had lost. The most thoughtful response to the essay and its author, and also the longest, came from an old student of the philosopher von Baader, a Professor Hoffmann in Würzburg. From the essay he foresaw a great destiny for me: to bring about a kind of crisis and final decision on the question of atheism. He recognized me as its most instinctive and ruthless representative. Atheism was what led me to Schopenhauer.—By far the most widely heard and most bitterly felt response was an extraordinarily forceful, brave defense of me by the usually gentle Carl Hillebrand, that last humane German who knew how to write. His article appeared in the “Augsburger Zeitung.” Today it can be read, in a slightly more cautious form, in his collected writings. It presented my essay as an event, a turning point, the first act of self-examination, the best possible sign: a real return of German seriousness and passion in intellectual matters. Hillebrand gave high praise to the essay’s form, its mature taste, and its perfect tact in separating the person from the issue. He singled it out as the best polemical essay written in German—in an art of polemic that is especially dangerous and ill-advised for Germans. He agreed completely with what I had dared to say about the degradation of language in Germany, and even sharpened my attack (today they play the purist and can no longer put a sentence together). Sharing my contempt for this nation’s “leading writers,” he ended by expressing admiration for my courage—that “highest courage, which puts a people’s very favorites in the dock”… The effect this essay has had on my life is beyond price. No one has tried to pick a fight with me since. People keep silent. In Germany they treat me with a gloomy caution. For years I have made use of an absolute freedom of speech that no one today, least of all in the “Empire,” has a hand free enough to claim. My paradise lies “in the shadow of my sword”… Basically I had put a maxim of Stendhal’s into practice: he advises making your entrance into society with a duel. And what an opponent I had chosen! Germany’s leading free spirit!… In fact, a completely new kind of free thinking found its first expression here. To this day nothing is more foreign to me, or less like me, than the whole European and American species of “freethinkers.” They are incurable shallow heads and clowns of “modern ideas.” I am in even deeper conflict with them than with any of their opponents. They too want to “improve” humanity in their own way, in their own image. They would wage an unforgiving war against what I am, what I want, if they understood it. Every one of them still believes in the “ideal”… I am the first immoralist—
3 I would not claim that the Untimely Meditations bearing the names of Schopenhauer and Wagner do much to help us understand either man, or even frame psychological questions about them—with a few exceptions, of course. For instance, a deep certainty of instinct already identifies the basic element in Wagner’s nature as an actor’s talent, which simply works out its implications in his methods and aims. At bottom, I wanted these writings to do something quite different from psychology. An unmatched problem of education, a new idea of self-discipline, self-defense carried to the point of hardness, a path to greatness and to tasks of world-historical importance—all this needed its first expression. Broadly speaking, I seized two famous figures, both still wholly undefined, by the forelock, as one seizes an opportunity. I used them to say something, to have a few more formulas, signs, and means of expression at hand. In fact, this is hinted at with perfectly uncanny insight on S. 93 of the third Untimely Meditation. Plato used Socrates in the same way, as a language of signs for Plato.—Now that I look back from some distance at the states of mind these writings record, I would not deny that at bottom they speak only of me. “Wagner in Bayreuth” is a vision of my future. “Schopenhauer as Educator,” by contrast, records my innermost history, my becoming. Above all, my vow!… What I am today, where I am today—at a height where I no longer speak with words but with lightning—oh, how far I still was from that then!—But I saw the land. I was not mistaken for a moment about the way, the sea, the danger—and success! The great calm of that promise, that happy gaze into a future that is not to remain a mere promise!—Every word here has been lived, deeply and inwardly. The most painful experiences are there too; some of its words are positively bloodthirsty. But a wind of great freedom blows over it all. Even the wound does not count as an objection.—I understand the philosopher as a terrible explosive that puts everything in danger. I place my idea of the “philosopher” miles away from an idea that still includes even Kant, not to mention academic “cud-chewers” and other professors of philosophy. This essay offers priceless instruction on that point, even if we grant that at bottom it is not “Schopenhauer as Educator” speaking here, but his opposite, “Nietzsche as Educator.”—At that time my trade was scholarship, and perhaps I also knew my trade. So there is some significance in a harsh piece of psychology about the scholar that suddenly appears in this essay. It expresses my sense of distance, my deep certainty about what can be my task and what can only be a means, an interlude, and a sideline. My wisdom lies in having been many things in many places so that I could become one thing—so that I could arrive at one thing. I had to be a scholar for a while too.
About this section
The Untimely Meditations is part of Ecce Homo by Friedrich Nietzsche. This page sets the German original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is chapter 7 of 17 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
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