Ecce Homo Complete Works, Volume Seventeen · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE.
On this perfect day, when everything is ripening, and not only the grapes are getting brown, a ray of sunshine has fallen on my life: I looked behind me, I looked before me, and never have I seen so many good things all at once. Not in vain have I buried my four-and-fortieth year to-day; I had the _right_ to bury it--that in it which still had life, has been saved and is immortal. The first book of the _Transvaluation of all Values, The Songs of Zarathustra, The Twilight of the Idols,_ my attempt, to philosophise with the hammer--all these things are the gift of this year, and even of its last quarter. _How could I help being thankful to the whole of my life?_ That is why I am now going to tell myself the story of my life.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.