Friedrich Nietzsche – Foreword to the Twilight of the Idols
“In the midst of a gloomy and exceedingly responsible business it is quite some trick to keep cheerful: and yet, what could be more necessary than cheerfulness? Nothing succeeds without high spirits playing their part. Excess of strength is the sole proof of strength. – A revaluation of all values, this question mark so black, so immense, that it casts a shadow over the one who sets it down – such a destiny of a task forces you to run out into the sunshine every instant and shake off a heavy, all-too-heavy seriousness. Any means will do, every ‘case’ is a stroke of luck. Above all war. War has always been the great ruse of all spirits grown too inward, too profound; even a wound has a healing power. A maxim whose provenance I withhold from scholarly curiosity has long been my motto:
increscunt animi, virescit volnere virtus. – the spirits increase, vigour grows through a wound”
The Wodanian Ethics
Does the Age not swallow all attempts to establish a transcendental ethic? The hardness of virtue shattered by the simple act of forgetting? To be mocked in a mocker’s paradise… What now of our profound reason? Have we enough martyrs to stoke the fires of requital? Only for the ashes to scatter once more. Howling wind of many an honest thinker – honest to reason, yes; but honest to himself? How many have the strength for that? The vigour of an Ego? Tell me this, oh men of reason, what was the cost of civilisation? And can you manifest that force? This is your burden, men of tomorrow. How will you ascend through the Ages with so heavy a weight?
Links to other works
The Wodanian Ethics 