Friedrich Nietzsche

Daybreak

Book V

450 The allurement of knowledge. – A glance through the portals of science affects passionate spirits as the magic of all magic; and it will probably turn them into fantasists and, in the most favourable case, into poets: so vehement is their craving for the happiness of those with knowledge. Does it not thrill through all your senses – this sound of sweet allurement with which science has proclaimed its glad tidings, in a hundred phrases and in the hundred-and-first and fairest: ‘Let delusion vanish! Then “woe is me!” will vanish too; and with “woe is me!” woe itself will be gone.’ (Marcus Aurelius)