page four hundred and sixty-eight

"in rare and isolated cases such a will to truth, some extravagant and adventurous courage, a metaphysician's ambition to maintain a forlorn position, may actually play a part and finally prefer a handful of "certainty" to a whole cartful of beautiful possibilities; there may even exist puritanical fanatics of conscience who would rather lie down and die on a sure nothing than on an uncertain something. but this is nihilism and the sign of a despairing, mortally weary soul, however brave the bearing of such a virtue may appear."

beyond good and evil, nietzsche. 1886.