The Will to Power · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
792.
1. To become a self-former, an anchorite. 2. To do what artists have done hitherto, _i.e._ to reach a small degree of perfection in a certain medium.) Art as it appears without the artist, _i.e._ as a body, an organisation (the Prussian Officers' Corps, the Order of the Jesuits). To what extent is the artist merely a preliminary stage? The world regarded as a self-generating work of art. The phenomenon, "artist," is the easiest to see through: from it one can look down upon the fundamental instincts of power, of nature, etc., even of religion and morality. "Play," uselessness--as the ideal of him who is overflowing with power, as the ideal of the child. The childishness of God, παῑς παίζων.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.