PLATO’S secrecy and sphinx-like nature, than the happily preserved petit fait that under the pillow of his death-bed there was found no “Bible,” nor anything Egyptian, Pythagorean, or Platonic — but a book of Aristophanes. How could even Plato have endured life — a Greek life which he repudiated — without an Aristophanes!

29. It is the business of the very few to be independent; it is a privilege of the strong. And whoever attempts it, even with the best right, but without being OBLIGED to do so, proves that he is probably not only strong, but also daring beyond measure.

He enters into a labyrinth, he multiplies a thousandfold the dangers which life in itself already brings with it; not the least of which is that no one can see how and where he loses