Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche

by Friedrich Nietzsche

To put the question yet again, why can suffering be a compensation for “owing”? — Because the infliction of suffering produces the highest degree of happiness, because the injured party will get in exchange for his loss (including his vexation at his loss) an extraordinary counter-pleasure: the infliction of suffering — a real feast, something that, as I have said, was all the more appreciated the greater the paradox created by the rank and social status of the creditor.

it should be shown specifically that, at the time when mankind was not yet ashamed of its cruelty, life in the world was brighter than it is nowadays when there are pessimists.

It is possible to conceive of a society blessed with so great a consciousness of its own power as to indulge in the most aristocratic luxury of letting its wrong-doers go scot-free.— “What do my parasites matter to me?” might society say. “Let them live and flourish! I am strong enough for it.” — The justice which began with the maxim, “Everything can be paid off, everything must be paid off,” ends with connivance at the escape of those who cannot pay to escape — it ends, like every good thing on earth, by destroying itself. — The self-destruction of Justice! we know the pretty name it calls itself — Grace! it remains, as is obvious, the privilege of