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Finding our “Double” in Nature.—In some country places we rediscover ourselves, with a delightful shudder: it is the pleasantest way of finding our “double.”—How happy must he be who has that feeling just here, in this perpetually sunny October air, in this happy elfin play of the wind from morn till eve, in this clearest of atmospheres and mildest of temperatures, in all the serious yet cheerful landscape of hill, lake, and forest on this plateau, which has encamped fearlessly next to the terrors of eternal snow: here, where Italy and Finland have joined hands, and where the home of all the silver colour-tones of Nature seems to be established. How happy must he be who can say, “True, there are many grander and finer pieces of scenery, but this is so familiar and intimate to me, related by blood, nay even more to me!”

Finding our “Double” in Nature.—In some country places we rediscover ourselves, with a delightful shudder: it is the pleasantest way of finding our “double.”—How happy must he be who has that feeling just here, in this perpetually sunny October air, in this happy elfin play of the wind from morn till eve, in this clearest of atmospheres and mildest of temperatures, in all the serious yet cheerful landscape of hill, lake, and forest on this plateau, which has encamped fearlessly next to the terrors of eternal snow: here, where Italy and Finland have joined hands, and where the home of all the silver colour-tones of Nature seems to be established. How happy must he be who can say, “True, there are many grander and finer pieces of scenery, but this is so familiar and intimate to me, related by blood, nay even more to me!”

Approximate author period: c. 1872 AD · industrial

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Friedrich Nietzsche
Attribution: attributed
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Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 1872 AD · industrial
author lifetime midpoint (1844–1900); not quotation composition date
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Recorded source
Human, All-Too-Human, Part 2 (1913 English edition) (1913 AD)

The Wanderer and His Shadow, complete printed aphorism 338; Paul V. Cohn translation; New York: The MacMillan Company,1913

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The voice behind the words.

Friedrich Nietzsche: Photographic portrait, 1882

Author of Human, All-Too-Human, here represented by complete numbered passages in Helen Zimmern’s 1909 and Paul V. Cohn’s 1913 English editions. Catalogue lifetime 1844–1900; historical philosophical arguments and dated viewpoints require context, rather than treating every sentence as general advice.

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