The Will to Power · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
686.
Man as he has appeared up to the present is the embryo of the man of the future; _all_ the formative powers which are to produce the latter, already lie in the former: and owing to the fact that they are enormous, the more _promising for the future_ the modern individual happens to be, the more _suffering_ falls to his lot. This is the profoundest concept of _suffering._ The formative powers clash.--The isolation of the individual need not deceive one--as a matter of fact, some uninterrupted current does actually flow through all individuals, and does thus unite them. The fact that they feel themselves isolated, is the _most powerful spur_ in the process of setting themselves the loftiest of aims: their search for happiness is the means which keeps together and moderates the formative powers, and keeps them from being mutually destructive. _Excessive intellectual_ strength sets _itself_ new goals; it is not in the least satisfied by the command and the leadership of the inferior world, or by the preservation of the organism, of the "individual." We are _more_ than the individual: we are the whole chain itself, with the tasks of all the possible futures of that chain in us. 3. Theory of the Will to Power and of Valuations.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.