The good-natured have acquired their character from the constant dread of foreign encroachments in which their ancestors lived;- who were in the habit of mitigating, appeasing, apologizing, preventing, diverting, flattering, humbling themselves, concealing both grief and anger, smoothing their features, – and ultimately bequeathed this whole delicate and successful mechanism to their children and grandchildren. These, thanks to a more propitious fate, had no occasion for that permanent dread: nevertheless they continue in the same groove.

The dawn of day by Friedrich Nietzsche