quote · Source-linked selection
Solitude, therefore!— A. So you wish to go back to your desert? B. I am not a quick thinker; I must wait for myself a long time—it is always later and later before the water from the fountain of my own ego spurts forth, and I have often to go thirsty longer than suits my patience. That is why I retire into solitude in order that I may not have to drink from the common cisterns. When I live in the midst of the multitude my life is like theirs, and I do not think like myself; but after some time it always seems to me as if the multitude wished to banish me from myself and to rob me of my soul. Then I get angry with all these people, and afraid of them; and I must have the desert to become well disposed again.
Solitude, therefore!— A. So you wish to go back to your desert? B. I am not a quick thinker; I must wait for myself a long time—it is always later and later before the water from the fountain of my own ego spurts forth, and I have often to go thirsty longer than suits my patience. That is why I retire into solitude in order that I may not have to drink from the common cisterns. When I live in the midst of the multitude my life is like theirs, and I do not think like myself; but after some time it always seems to me as if the multitude wished to banish me from myself and to rob me of my soul. Then I get angry with all these people, and afraid of them; and I must have the desert to become well disposed again.
Approximate author period: c. 1872 AD · industrial
Meaning not yet available
An individual explanation has not yet been added. We do not substitute a generic description for an interpretation of these particular words.
Begin with source-checked readings and explanations ↗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 491; 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.
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.
More from Friedrich Nietzsche ↗