The Will to Power · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
871.
_Vicious_ and _unbridled people_: their depressing influence upon the _value of the pussions._ It was the appalling barbarity of morality which was principally responsible in the Middle Ages for the compulsory recourse to a veritable "league _of_ virtue"--and this was coupled with an equally appalling exaggeration of all that which constitutes the value of man. Militant "civilisation" (taming) is in need of all kinds of irons and tortures in order to maintain itself against terrible and beast-of-prey natures. In this case, contusion, although it may have the most nefarious influences, is quite natural: that which _men of power and will are able to demand of themselves_ gives them the standard for what they may also allow themselves. Such natures are the very opposite of the _vicious_ and the _unbridled;_ although under certain circumstances they may perpetrate deeds for which an inferior man would be convicted of vice and intemperance. In this respect the concept, "_all men are equal before God_" does an extraordinary amount of harm; actions and attitudes of mind were forbidden which belonged to the prerogative of the strong alone, just as if they were in themselves unworthy of man. All the tendencies of strong men were brought into disrepute by the fact that the defensive weapons of the most weak (even of those who were weakest towards themselves) were established as a standard of valuation.
The confusion went so far that precisely the great _virtuosos_ of life (whose self-control presents the sharpest contrast to the vicious and the unbridled) were branded with the most opprobrious names. Even to this day people feel themselves compelled to disparage a Cæsar Borgia: it is simply ludicrous. The Church has anathematised German Kaisers owing to their vices: as if a monk or a priest had the right to say a word as to what a Frederick II. should allow himself. Don Juan is sent to hell: this is very _naïf._ Has anybody ever noticed that all interesting men are lacking in heaven? ... This is only a hint to the girls, as to where they may best find salvation. If one think at all logically, and also have a profound insight into that which makes a great man, there, can be no doubt at all that the Church has dispatched all "great men" to Hades--its fight is _against_ all "greatness in man." The rights which a man arrogates to himself are relative to the duties which he sets himself, and to the tasks which he feels _capable of performing._ The great majority of men have no right to life, and are only a misfortune to their higher fellows.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.