The Will to Power · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
941.
The essence of our gardens and palaces (and to the same extent the essence of all yearning after riches) is _the desire to rid the eye of disorder and vulgarity, and to build a home for our soul's nobility._ The majority of people certainly believe that they will develop higher natures when those beautiful and peaceful things have operated upon them: hence the exodus to Italy, hence all travelling, etc., and all reading and visits to theatres. _People want to be formed_--that is the kernel of their labours for culture! But the strong, the mighty, would themselves _have a hand in the forming, and would fain have nothing strange about them_! It is for this reason, too, that men go to open Nature, not to find themselves, but to lose themselves and to forget themselves. The desire "_to get away from one's self_" is proper to all weaklings, and to all those who are discontented with themselves. The only nobility is that of birth and blood. (I do not refer here to the prefix "Lord" and _L'almanac de Gotha_: this is a parenthesis for donkeys.) Wherever people speak of the "aristocracy of intellect," reasons are generally not lacking for concealing something, it is known to be a password among ambitious Jews. Intellect alone does not ennoble; on the contrary, something is always needed _to ennoble intellect._--What then is needed?--Blood.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.