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Historia abscondita.—Every great man has a power which operates backward; all history is again placed on the scales on his account, and a thousand secrets of the past crawl out of their lurking-places—into his sunlight. There is absolutely no knowing what history may be some day. The past is still perhaps undiscovered in its essence! There is yet so much reinterpreting ability needed!

Historia abscondita.—Every great man has a power which operates backward; all history is again placed on the scales on his account, and a thousand secrets of the past crawl out of their lurking-places—into his sunlight. There is absolutely no knowing what history may be some day. The past is still perhaps undiscovered in its essence! There is yet so much reinterpreting ability needed!

Approximate author period: c. 1872 AD · industrial

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Friedrich Nietzsche
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
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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
The Joyful Wisdom (1910 English edition) (1910 AD)

The Joyful Wisdom, complete printed unit 34; Thomas Common (prose); Paul V. Cohn and Maude D. Petre (poetry) translation; Edinburgh and London: T.N. Foulis,1910

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.

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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