The Will to Power · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
928.
"_Should one follow one's feelings?_"--To set one's life at stake on the impulse of the moment, and actuated by a generous feeling, has little worth, and does not even distinguish one. Everybody is alike in being capable of this--and in behaving in this way with determination, the criminal, the bandit, and the Corsican certainly outstrip the honest man. A higher degree of excellence would be to overcome this impulse, and to refrain from performing an heroic deed at its bidding--and to remain cold, _raisonnable_, free from the tempestuous surging of concomitant sensations of delight.... The same holds good of pity: it must first be _sifted through_ reason; without this it becomes just as dangerous as any other passion. The _blind yielding_ to a passion, whether it be generosity, pity, or hostility, is the cause of the greatest evil. Greatness of character does not consist in not possessing these passions--on the contrary, a man should possess them to a terrible degree: but he should lead them by the bridle.. and even this he should not do out of love of control, but merely because....
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