The Joyful Wisdom · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
324.
_In Media Vita._—No! Life has not deceived me! On the contrary, from year to year I find it richer, more desirable and more mysterious—from the day on which the great liberator broke my fetters, the thought that life may be an experiment of the thinker—and not a duty, not a fatality, not a deceit!—And knowledge itself may be for others something different; for example, a bed of ease, or the path to a bed of ease, or an entertainment, or a course of idling,—for me it is a world of dangers and victories, in which even the heroic sentiments have their arena and dancing-floor. "_Life as a means to knowledge_"—with this principle in one's heart, one can not only be brave, but can even _live joyfully and laugh joyfully_! And who could know how to laugh well and live well, who did not first understand the full meaning of war and victory! _What Belongs to Greatness._—Who can attain to anything great if he does not feel the force and will in himself _to inflict_ great pain? The ability to suffer is a small matter: in that line, weak women and even slaves often attain masterliness. But not to perish from internal distress and doubt when one inflicts great anguish and hears the cry of this anguish—that is great, that belongs to greatness.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.