The type God conceived according to the type of creative spirits, of "great men."
1039.
And how many new ideals are not, at bottom, still possible? Here is a little ideal that I seize upon every five weeks, while upon a wild and lonely walk, in the azure moment of a blasphemous joy. To spend one's life amid delicate and absurd things; a stranger to reality, half-artist, half-bird, half-metaphysician; without a yea or a nay for reality, save that from time to time one acknowledges it, after the manner of a good dancer, with the tips of one's toes; always tickled by some happy ray of sunlight; relieved and encouraged even by sorrow —for sorrow preserves the happy man; fixing a little tail of jokes even to the most holy thing: this, as is clear, is the ideal of a heavy spirit, a ton in weight of the spirit of gravity.
1040.
From the military-school of the soul. (Dedicated to the brave, the good-humoured, and the abstinent.)
I should not like to undervalue the amiable virtues; but greatness of soul is not compatible with them. Even in the arts, grand style excludes all merely pleasing qualities.
***
In times of painful tension and vulnerability, choose war. War hardens and develops muscle.
***
Those who have been deeply wounded have the Olympian laughter; a man only has what he needs.