Man has places in his heart which do not yet exist, and into them enters Suffering in order that they may have existence.
Without knowing it, women act as if they were taking away the stones from the path of the wandering mineralogist in order that he might not strike his foot against them - when he has gone out for the very purpose of striking against them. [Nietzsche]
My friends, you ask after the school of suffering, the forge of destiny. Don't you know? No, you who are forever talking of "the people" and such like, you do not know. I am speaking of solitude.
Solitude is the path men most fear, so that those men who walk alone are called mad or sick, because they think it is best to discourage themselves from taking such a path.
And when you hear people call these men mad, don't you feel the blood rushing to your cheeks? As though it might have been nobler and worthier of you to become one of those madmen?
[from "Zarathustra's Return" by Hermann Hesse]
My aim, in the first place, is to make people think. Some are ready for great truths, while others have room only for the smallest of truths. In these pages I present you with an array of truths, from great to small. Yet even the smallest of these is greater than anything any mortal has ever imagined. So while I do not necessarily agree with every sentiment expressed in each and every one of these many works, I do consider them, to the last, the most excellent medicine for the unwell.
For example, the selection of poems in The Lovebase is intended only to arouse ideal strivings in the noble soul. Nothing more. The humour of The Book of Wife and many of the quotations on women is medicine only. Once the patient has regained his senses, another medicine must be applied to cure the effects of the first. I have ensured that all such medicines are available here. Each will go to work upon the individual according to his capacity.
Kevin Solway, January 1996