The Will to Power · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
929.
"To give up one's life for a cause"--very effective. But there are many things for which one gives up one's life: the passions, one and all, will be gratified. Whether one's life be pledged to pity, to anger, or to revenge--it matters not from the point of view of value. How many have not sacrificed their lives for pretty girls--and even what is worse, their health! When one has temperament, one instinctively chooses the most dangerous things: if one is a philosopher, for instance, one chooses the adventures of speculation; if one is virtuous, one chooses immorality. One kind of man will risk nothing, another kind will risk everything. Are we despisers of life? On the contrary, what we seek is life raised to a higher power, life in danger.... But, let me repeat, we do not, on that account, wish to be more virtuous than others, Pascal, for instance, wished to risk nothing, and remained a Christian. That perhaps was virtuous.----A man always sacrifices something. How many _advantages_ does not a man sacrifice! To how small an extent does he seek his own profit! All his emotions and passions wish to assert their rights, and how remote a passion is From that cautious utility which consists in personal profit! A man does _not_ strive after "happiness"; one must be an Englishman to be able to believe that a man is always seeking his own advantage. Our desires long to violate things with passion--their overflowing strength seeks obstacles.
All passions are generally _useful,_ some directly, others indirectly; in regard to utility it is absolutely impossible to fix upon any gradation of values,--however certainly the forces of nature in general may be regarded as good (_i.e._ useful), from an economic point of view, they are still the sources of much that is terrible and much that is fatally irrevocable. The most one might say would be, that the mightiest passions are the most valuable: seeing that no stronger sources of power exist. All well-meaning, helpful, good-natured attitudes of mind have _not_ come to be honoured on account of their usefulness: but because they are the conditions peculiar to _rich souls_ who are able to bestow and whose value consists in their vital exuberance. Look into the eyes of the benevolent man! In them you will see the exact reverse of self-denial, of hatred of self, of Pascalism.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.