“I desire to have goblins round me, for I am brave. Courage that dispelleth ghosts createth goblins for itself,—courage desireth to laugh...
Which of you can at the same time laugh and be exalted?
He who strideth across the highest mountains laugheth at all tragedies whether of the stage or of life...
Ye say unto me: ‘Life is hard to bear.’ But for what purpose have ye got in the morning your pride and in the evening your submission?
Life is hard to bear. But do not pretend to be so frail! We are all good he-asses and she-asses of burden.
What have we in common with the rose-bud that trembleth because a drop of dew lieth on its body?
It is true: we love life, not because we are accustomed to life, but because we are accustomed to love.
There is always a madness in love. There is however also always a reason in madness.
And to my thinking as a lover of life, butterflies, soap-bubbles, and whatever is of their kind among men, know most of happiness.
To see these light, foolish, delicate, mobile little souls flitting about—that moveth Zarathustra to tears and to song.
I could believe only in a God who would know how to dance.
And when I saw my devil, I found him earnest, thorough, deep, solemn: he was the spirit of gravity,—through him all things fall.
Not through wrath but through laughter one slayeth. Arise! let us slay the spirit of gravity!
I learned to walk: now I let myself run. I learned to fly: now I need no pushing to move me from the spot.
Now I am light, now I fly, now I see myself beneath myself, now a God danceth through me.”
Thus spake Zarathustra.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), “Of Reading and Writing,” Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, translated from the German by Alexander Tille, 1896
