More pearls from Steppenwolf

"These horrors were really nonexistent. A man of the Middle Ages would
detest the whole mode of our present-day life as something far more
than horrible, far more than barbarous. Every age, every culture,
every custom and tradition has its own character, its own weakness and
its own strength, its beauties and ugliness; accepts certain
sufferings as matters of course, puts up patiently with certain evils.
Human life is reduced to real suffering, to hell, only when two ages,
two cultures and religions overlap. A man of the Classical Age who had
to live in medieval times would suffocate miserably just as a savage
does in the midst of our civilisation. Now there are times when a
whole generation is caught in this way between two ages, two modes of
life, with the consequence that it loses all power to understand
itself and has no standard, no security, no simple acquiescence.
Naturally, every one does not feel this equally strongly. A nature
such as Nietzsche's had to suffer our present ills more than a
generation in advance. What he had to go through alone and
misunderstood, thousands suffer today."