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The Twilight of the Idols · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

16

_The psychological tact_ of Germans seems to me to have been set in doubt by a whole series of cases which my modesty forbids me to enumerate. In one case at least I shall not let the occasion slip for substantiating my contention: I bear the Germans a grudge for having made a mistake about Kant and his “backstairs philosophy,” as I call it. Such a man was not the type of intellectual uprightness. Another thing I hate to hear is a certain infamous “and”: the Germans say, “Goethe _and_ Schiller,”—I even fear that they say, “Schiller and Goethe.” ... Has nobody found Schiller out yet?—But there are other “ands” which are even more egregious. With my own ears I have heard—only among University professors, it is true!—men speak of “Schopenhauer _and_ Hartmann.” ...[3] The most intellectual men, provided they are also the most courageous, experience the most excruciating tragedies: but on that very account they honour life, because it confronts them with its most formidable antagonism.

Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.

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