327

A fable.  The Don Juan of knowledge: no philosopher or poet has yet discovered him. He does not love the things he knows, but has spirit and appetite for and enjoyment of the chase and intrigues of knowledge  up to the highest and remotest stars of knowledge!  until at last there remains to him nothing of knowledge left to hunt down except the absolutely detrimental; he is like the drunkard who ends by drinking absinthe and aqua fortis124. Thus in the end he lusts after Hell  it is the last knowledge that seduces him. Perhaps it too proves a disillusionment, like all knowledge! And then he would have to stand to all eternity transfixed to disillusionment and himself become a stone guest, with a longing for a supper of knowledge which he will never get!  for the whole universe has not a single morsel left to give to this hungry man.

124. aqua fortis: "strong water" (i.e. a deadly drink).
Friedrich Nietzsche - Daybreak
Book IV - Aphorism # 327

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