Friedrich Nietzsche

Human, all too Human

From the Souls of Artists and Writers

148 Poets as the easers of life. -The poets, insofar as they, too, want to make our lives easier, either turn our gaze away from the toilsome present or help the present acquire new colors by shining light upon it from the past. To be capable of this, they must themselves be turned back toward the past in many respects: so that we can use them as bridges to far away times and ideas, to dying or deceased religions and cultures. They are, in fact, always and necessarily epigones. Admittedly, we can say some unfavorable things about the means that they use to make life easier: they soothe and heal only temporarily, only for the moment; they even keep people from working toward genuine improvement of their circumstances, because they suspend and, by palliating it, discharge the passion that impels dissatisfied people toward action.