"It was during these years of my lowest vitality that I ceased to be a pessimist. The instinct of self-restoration forbad me a philosophy of poverty and discouragement. This in fact is how the long period of sickness appears to be me now. As it were, I discovered life anew, including myself. I turned my will to health, to life, into a philosophy." -Friedrich Nietzsche
I have been researching Nietzsche for a character in a short story who is a big reader of the philosopher. Yes, I vaguely knew he went mad at the end of his life from what was supposed to be syphilis (like Lyme a spirochete bacteria), but I didn't realize he lived most of his adult life with chronic illness.
I came across this quote in a BBC documentary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EGOwduWVKA
Plus there's that crazy moustache.
