As yet hath his knowledge not learned to smile, and to be without jealousy; as yet hath his gushing passion not become calm in beauty.

Verily, not in satiety shall his longing cease and disappear, but in beauty! Gracefulness belongeth to the munificence of the magnanimous.

His arm across his head: thus should the hero repose; thus should he also surmount his repose.

But precisely to the hero is beauty the hardest thing of all. Unattainable is beauty by all ardent wills.

A little more, a little less: precisely this is much here, it is the most here.

To stand with relaxed muscles and with unharnessed will: that is the hardest for all of you, ye sublime ones!

When power becometh gracious and descendeth into the visible —I call such condescension beauty.

And from no one do I want beauty so much as from thee, thou powerful one; let thy goodness be thy last self-conquest.

All evil do I accredit to thee; therefore do I desire of thee the good.

Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who think themselves good because they have crippled paws!

The virtue of the pillar shalt thou strive after; more beautiful doth it ever become, and more graceful—but internally harder and more sustaining—the higher it riseth.

Yea, thou sublime one, one day shalt thou also be beautiful, and hold up the mirror to thine own beauty.

Then will thy soul thrill with divine desires; and there will be adoration even in thy vanity!

For this is the secret of the soul: when the hero hath abandoned it, then only approacheth it in dreams—the superhero.

Thus spake Zarathustra.