Friedrich Nietzsche

Human, All Too Human

By Oneself Alone

632 Anyone who has not made his way through various convictions, but has instead remained attached to the belief in whose net he first became entangled, is at all events a representative of backward cultures precisely because of this constancy; in accordance with this lack of cultivation (which always presupposes cultivatability), he is hard, injudicious, unteachable, without gentleness, always suspicious, an unscrupulous person who seizes upon every means for making his opinion prevail because he simply cannot comprehend that there have to be any other opinions; in this regard, he may perhaps be a source of strength and even salutary in cultures that have become all too free and flaccid, yet only because he forcibly stimulates opposition to himself: for in this way, the more delicate creations of the new culture, which are forced to struggle with him, become strong themselves.