But I have found strength where it is not sought, in simple, mild, and accommodating humans without the least inclination to rule — and conversely to me the inclination to rule has often appeared as an inner sign of weakness: they fear their slave’s soul and cloak it in a king’s robe (in the end they become the slaves of their followers, their reputation, etc.). Powerful natures rule, it is a necessity, they will not lift a finger. Even if during their lifetime they bury themselves in a garden house!
— Nietzsche, Unpublished Fragments from the Period of Dawn (Winter 1879/80–Spring 1881)
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As we shall see, a characteristic of our times is the predominance, even in groups traditionally selective, of the mass and the vulgar. Thus, in the intellectual life, which of its essence requires and presupposes qualification, one can note the progressive triumph of the pseudo-intellectual, unqualified, unqualifiable, and, by their very mental texture, disqualified. Similarly, in the surviving groups of the “nobility,” male and female. On the other hand, it is not rare to find today among working men, who before might be taken as the best example of what we are calling “mass,” nobly disciplined minds.
— José Ortega y Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses
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It would be a good thing (but nothing’s more difficult to do seriously) now and then to assume that all the ideas to which we have given most thought, the fruit of long and studious meditation are false or absurd—even though we cannot see at all how this could be.
One should treat severely everything for which one has an innate preference.
— Paul Valéry, The Collected Works of Paul Valéry, Vol. 14
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