The Will to Power · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
960.
From now henceforward there will be such favourable first conditions for greater ruling powers as have never yet been found on earth. And this is by no means the most important point. The establishment has been made possible of international race unions which will set themselves the task of rearing a ruling race, the future "lords of the earth"--a new, vast aristocracy based upon the most severe self-discipline, in which the will of philosophical men of power and artist-tyrants will be stamped upon thousands of years: a higher species of men which, thanks to their preponderance of will, knowledge, riches, and influence, will avail themselves of democratic Europe as the most suitable and supple instrument they can have for taking the fate of the earth into their own hands, and working as artists upon man himself. Enough! The time is coming for us to transform all our views on politics. 5. The Great Man. I will endeavour to see at which periods in history great men arise. The significance of despotic moralities that have lasted a long time: they strain the bow, provided they do not break it.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.