One cannot read Nietzsche without experiencing occasional episodes of deep revulsion. Even so, read Nietzsche. He is indispensable. In his polemical "unfashionable observation" on philosophical genius ("Schopenhauer As Educator"), Nietzsche quoted Emerson, ostensibly about Schopenhauer, but undoubtedly, and justly, about himself:
"Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all things are at risk. It is as when a conflagration has broken out in a city, and no man knows what is safe, or where it will end. There is not a piece of science but its flank may be turned tomorrow; there is not any literary reputation, not the so-called eternal names of fame, that may not be revised and condemned. The things which are dear to men at this hour are so on account of the ideas which have emerged on their mental horizon, and which cause the present order of things, as a tree bears its apples. A new degree of culture would instantly revolutionize the entire system of human pursuits."
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