I walk amongst men as the fragments of the future: that future which I contemplate.
And it is all my poetisation and aspiration to compose and collect into unity what is fragment and riddle and fearful chance.
And how could I endure to be a man, if man were not also the composer, and riddle-reader, and redeemer of chance!
To redeem what is past, and to transform every “It was” into “Thus would I have it!”—that only do I call redemption!
Will—so is the emancipator and joy-bringer called: thus have I taught you, my friends! But now learn this likewise: the Will itself is still a prisoner.
Willing emancipateth: but what is that called which still putteth the emancipator in chains?
“It was”: thus is the Will’s teeth-gnashing and lonesomest tribulation called. Impotent towards what hath been done—it is a malicious spectator of all that is past.
Not backward can the Will will; that it cannot break time and time’s desire—that is the Will’s lonesomest tribulation.
Willing emancipateth: what doth Willing itself devise in order to get free from its tribulation and mock at its prison?
Ah, a fool becometh every prisoner! Foolishly delivereth itself also the imprisoned Will.