From the moment when this thought begins to prevail all colours will change their hue and a new history will begin.
32
The history of the future: this thought will tend to triumph ever more and more, and those who disbelieve in it will be forced, according to their nature, ultimately to die out.
He, alone, who will regard his existence as capable of eternal recurrence will remain over: but among such as these a state will be possible of which the imagination of no utopist has ever dreamt!
33
Ye fancy that ye will have a long rest ere your second birth takes place,—but do not deceive yourselves! ’Twixt your last moment of consciousness and the first ray of the dawn of your new life no time will elapse,—as a flash of lightning will the space go by, even though living creatures think it is billions of years, and are not even able to reckon it. Timelessness and immediate re-birth are compatible, once intellect is eliminated!
34
Thou feelest that thou must soon take thy leave perhaps—and the sunset glow of this feeling pierces through thy happiness. Give heed to this sign: it means that thou lovest life and thyself, and life as it has hitherto affected thee and moulded thee,—and that thou cravest for its eternity—Non alia sed hac vita sempiterna!
Know also, that transiency singeth its short song for ever afresh and that at the sound of the first verse thou wilt almost die of longing when thou thinkest that it might be for the last time.