Ecce Homo Complete Works, Volume Seventeen · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
2
I am, for instance, in no wise a bogey man, or moral monster. On the contrary, I am the very opposite in nature to the kind of man that has been honoured hitherto as virtuous. Between ourselves, it seems to me that this is precisely a matter on which I may feel proud. I am a disciple of the philosopher Dionysus, and I would prefer to be even a satyr than a saint. But just read this book! Maybe I have here succeeded in expressing this contrast in a cheerful and at the same time sympathetic manner--maybe this is the only purpose of the present work. The very last thing I should promise to accomplish would be to "improve" mankind. I do not set up any new idols; may old idols only learn what it costs to have legs of clay. To overthrow idols (idols is the name I give to all ideals) is much more like my business. In proportion as an ideal world has been falsely assumed, reality has been robbed of its value, its meaning, and its truthfulness.... The "true world" and the "apparent world"--in plain English, the fictitious world and reality.... Hitherto the _lie_ of the ideal has been the curse of reality; by means of it the very source of mankind's instincts has become mendacious and false; so much so that those values have come to be worshipped which are the exact _opposite_ of the ones which would ensure man's prosperity, his future, and his great right to a future.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.