" Writing to his sister in 1883, Nietzsche offers what I think is his most honest account of the role suffering played in his life. “The whole meaning of the terrible physical suffering to which I was exposed lies in the fact that, thanks to it alone, I was torn away from an estimate of my life-task which was not only false but a hundred times too low. Some violent means were necessary in order to recall me to myself… an act of self-overcoming of the highest order. "

― Eric Weiner , The Socrates Express: In Search of Life Lessons from Dead Philosophers