Journeyman Philosopher

The following is an interesting excerpt from Nietzsche’s essay ‘On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life’.

“Socrates took it to be a malady approaching insanity to imagine that one possesses a virtue when one does not possess it: and certainly such imagination is more dangerous than the opposite delusion of suffering from a shortcoming, from a vice. For through this delusion it is perhaps still possible to become better; the former imagination, however, will daily make a man or an age worse…”

This is an interesting opinion, what do you think about it? Is imagining you have some trait more detrimental than imagining you don’t have it?

I agree with him, rather under-confidence than over-confidence; our world is full of those who speak firm-footed on nothing, hence problems.