The Earthy And The Coarse

Friedrich Nietzsche, Unpublished Fragments (Spring 1885-Spring 1886), tr. Adrian Del Caro (Stanford University Press, 2020), §26 [405], p. 237:

The character of Hölderlin and Leopardi: I am heartless enough to laugh about their demise. People don't understand this. Things turn out badly for these ultra-Platonists who always love their naïveté. There must be something earthy and coarse in people: otherwise they perish in a ridiculous way when their theories are constantly contradicted by the simplest facts: e.g., by the fact that a man needs a woman from time to time, just as he needs a decent meal from time to time. . . .