Explore "The Relation of Schopenhauer's Philosophy to a German Culture" by Friedrich Nietzsche on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Preface to an Unwritten Book (1872)
In dear vile Germany culture now lies so decayed in the streets, jealousy of all that is great rules so shamelessly, and the general tumult of those who race for "Fortune" resounds so deafeningly, that one must have a strong faith, almost in the sense of _credo quia absurdum est,_ in order to hope still for a growing Culture, and above all -- in opposition to the press with her "public opinion" -- to be able to work by public teaching. With violence must those, in whose hearts lies the immortal care for the people, free themselves from all the inrushing impressions of that which is just now actual and valid, and evoke the appearance of reckoning them indifferent things. They must appear so, because they want to think, and because a loathsome sight and a confused noise, perhaps even mixed with the trumpet-flourishes of war-glory, disturb their thinking, and above all, because they want to _believe_ in the German character and because with this faith they would lose their strength.