The Twilight of the Idols; or, How to Philosophize

To maintain a cheerful attitude of mind in the midst of a gloomy and exceedingly responsible task, is no slight artis­tic feat. And yet, what could be more necessary than cheer­ful-ness? Nothing ever succeeds which exuberant spirits have not helped to produce. Surplus power, alone, is the proof of power.—A transvaluation of all values,—this note of inter­ro-gation which is so black, so huge, that it casts a shadow even upon him who affixes it,—is a task of such fatal im-port, that he who undertakes it is compelled every now and then to rush out into the sunlight in order to shake himself free from an earnestness that becomes crushing, far too crus­hing. This end justifies every means, every event on the road to it is a windfall. Above all war. War has always been the great policy of all spirits who have penetrated too far in-to them­selves or who have grown too deep; a wound stimu-lates the recuperative powers. For many years, a maxim, the origin of which I withhold from learned curiosity, has been my motto: increscunt animi, virescit volnere virtus