The Will to Power · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
873.
_The misunderstanding of egoism:_ on the part of _ignoble natures_ who know nothing of the lust of conquest and the insatiability of great love, and who likewise know nothing of the overflowing feelings of power which make a man wish to overcome things, to force them over to himself, and to lay them on his heart, the power which impels an artist to his material. It often happens also that the active spirit looks for a field for its activity. In ordinary "egoism" it is precisely the ... "non-ego," the _profoundly mediocre creature,_ the member of the herd, who wishes to maintain himself--and when this is perceived by the rarer, more subtle, and less mediocre natures, it revolts them. For the judgment of the latter is this: "We are the _noble_! It is much more important to maintain _us_ than _that_ cattle!"
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.