The Portable Nietzsche

by Friedrich Nietzsche

ON THE VIRTUOUS Slack and sleeping senses must be addressed with thunder and heavenly fireworks. But the voice of beauty speaks gently: it creeps only into the most awakened souls. Gently trembled and laughed my shield today; that is the holy laughter and tremor of beauty. About you, the virtuous, my beauty laughed today. And thus its voice came to me: “They still want to be paid.” You who are virtuous still want to be paid! Do you want rewards for virtue, and heaven for earth, and the eternal for your today? And now are you angry with me because I teach that there is no reward and paymaster? And verily, I do not even teach that virtue is its own reward. Alas, that is my sorrow: they have lied reward and punishment into the foundation of things, and now also into the foundation of your souls, you who are virtuous. But like the boar’s snout, my words shall tear open the foundation of your souls: a plowshare will I be to you. All the secrets of your foundation shall come to light; and when you lie uprooted and broken in the sun, then will your lies also be separated from your truths. For this is your truth: you are too pure for the filth of the words: revenge, punishment, reward, retribution. You love your virtue as a mother her child; but when has a mother ever wished to be paid for her love? Your virtue is what is dearest to you. The thirst of the ring lives in you: every ring strives and turns to reach itself again. And like a dying star is every work of your virtue: its ...