Detachment

And with how free an eye doth he look down

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I look down from my height on nationsAnd they become ashes before me.

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A man is intellectual in proportion as he can make an object of every sensation, perception and intuition; so long as he has no engagement in any thought or feeling which can hinder him from looking at it as somewhat foreign. … Indeed, this is the measure of all intellectual power among men, the power to complete this detachment.

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Nations! What are nations? … Like insects, they swarm. The historian strives in vain to make them memorable.

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The Ancients … subjected themselves to a fierce discipline of detachment from public opinion. Although they inevitably had to try to influence political life in their favor, they never seriously thought of themselves as founders or lawgivers. The mixture of unwise power and powerless wisdom, in the ancients’ view, would always end up with power strengthened and wisdom compromised. He who flirts with power, Socrates said, will be compelled to lie with it.

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Nothing is rarer than giving no importance to things that have none.

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