Walter Kaufmann

"The great philosopher is a poet with an intellectual conscience. If his imagination is too strong, it will outsoar his conscience. But if his conscience is too rigid, there will be no vision. What is wanted is a wealth of intuitions, observations, and insights, and the relentless passion to examine them. Under rational scrutiny, hunches are abandoned, insights modified, and observations found to be partial. As Nietzche put in one of his notes: "A popular error: having the courage of one's convictions; rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack on one's convictions!""