You love your virtue as the mother her child; but when was it heard of a mother wanting to be paid for her love?

Tel fut aussi le cas d'un Nietzsche, génie volcanique s'il en est ; ici encore - mais d'une façon à la fois déviée et démentielle - il y a extériorisation passionnée d'un feu intérieur ; nous pensons ici non à la philosophie nietzschéenne, qui dans sa littéralité est sans intérêt, mais à l'oeuvre poétique dont l'expression la plus intense est en partie le "Zarathoustra". Ce que ce livre, d'ailleurs fort inégal, manifeste avant tout, c'est la réaction violente d'une âme a priori profonde contre une ambiance culturelle médiocre et paralysante ; le défaut de Nietzsche, ce fut de n'avoir que le sens de la grandeur en l'absence de tout discernement intellectuel. Le "Zarathoustra" est au fond le cri d'une grandeur piétinée, d'où l'authenticité poignante - la grandeur précisément - de certains passages ; certes non de tous et surtout pas de ceux qui expriment une philosophie mi-machiavélique mi-darwiniste, ou de la petite habileté littéraire.Quoi qu'il en soit, le malheur de Nietzsche - ou celui d'autres hommes géniaux, comme Napoléon - fut d'être né après la Renaissance et non avant ; ce qui marque évidemment un aspect de leur nature, car il n'y a pas de hasard.

You love your virtue as the mother her child; but when was it heard of a mother wanting to be paid for her love?

This crown of the laughter, the rosary crown: to you, my brothers, I throw this crown! I pronounced laughter holy: you higher men, learn — to laugh!

Such was also the case with Nietzsche, a volcanic genius if ever there was one. Here, too, there is passionate exteriorization of an inward fire, but in a manner that is both deviated and demented; we have in mind here, not the Nietzschian philosophy, which taken literally is without interest, but his poetical work, whose most intense expression is in part his ‘Zarathustra’. What this highly uneven book manifests above all is the violent reaction of an a priori profound soul against a mediocre and paralyzing cultural environment; Nietzsche’s fault was to have only a sense of grandeur in the absence of all intellectual discernment. ‘Zarathustra’ is basically the cry of a grandeur trodden underfoot, whence comes the heart-rending authenticity – grandeur precisely – of certain passages; not all of them, to be sure, and above all not those which express a half-Machiavellian, half-Darwinian philosophy, or minor literary cleverness. Be that as it may, Nietzsche’s misfortune, like that of other men of genius, such as Napoleon, was to be born after the Renaissance and not before it; which indicates evidently an aspect of their nature, for there is no such thing as chance.

But strangers and the poor may pluck for themselves the fruit from my tree: that causes less shame. But beggars should be entirely done away with! Truly, it annoys one to give to them and it annoys one not to give to them.