Embrace intellectual curiosity from "summary" of The Gay Science (the Joyful Wisdom) by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
One thing is needful.—To “give style” to one’s character, a great and rare art! It is practiced by those who survey all the strengths and weaknesses of their nature and then fit them into an artistic plan until every one of them appears as art and reason and even weaknesses delight the eye. Here a great mass of second nature has been added; there a piece of original nature has been removed—both times through long practice and daily work at it. Here the ugly that could not be removed is concealed; there it has been reinterpreted and made sublime. Much that is vague and resisted shaping has been saved and employed for distant views: it is meant to beckon toward the remote and immeasurable. In the end, when the work is finished, it becomes evident how the constraint of a single taste governed and formed everything large and small. Whether this taste was good or bad is less important than one might suppose, if only it was a single taste!To be sure, it has been the taste of a very few, but these very few were the best of their time. From this we may understand how it was possible for style to be so highly esteemed. It is not mere elegance of form—style is the ultimate morality of thinkin...
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