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Poet and Bird.—The bird Phœnix showed the poet a glowing scroll which was being gradually consumed in the flames. “Be not alarmed,” said the bird, “it is your work! It does not contain the spirit of the age, and to a still less extent the spirit of those who are against the age: so it must be burnt. But that is a good sign. There is many a dawn of day.”

Poet and Bird.—The bird Phœnix showed the poet a glowing scroll which was being gradually consumed in the flames. “Be not alarmed,” said the bird, “it is your work! It does not contain the spirit of the age, and to a still less extent the spirit of those who are against the age: so it must be burnt. But that is a good sign. There is many a dawn of day.”

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
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 1872 AD · industrial
author lifetime midpoint (1844–1900); not quotation composition date
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
The Dawn of Day (1911 English edition) (1911 AD)

The Dawn of Day, complete printed unit 568; John McFarland Kennedy translation; New York: The MacMillan Company,1911

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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