kward, like the tiger whose spring hath failed--thus, ye
higher men, have I often seen you slink aside. A CAST which ye made had
failed.

But what doth it matter, ye dice-players! Ye had not learned to play and
mock, as one must play and mock! Do we not ever sit at a great table of
mocking and playing?

And if great things have been a failure with you, have ye yourselves
therefore--been a failure? And if ye yourselves have been a failure,
hath man therefore--been a failure? If man, however, hath been a
failure: well then! never mind!

15.

The higher its type, always the seldomer doth a thing succeed. Ye higher
men here, have ye not all--been failures?

Be of good cheer; what doth it matter? How much is still possible! Learn
to laugh at yourselves, as ye ought to laugh!

What wonder even that ye have failed and only half-succeeded, ye
half-shattered ones! Doth not--man's FUTURE strive and struggle in you?

Man's furthest, profoundest, star-highest issues, his prodigious
powers--do not all these foam through one another in your vessel?

What wonder that many a vessel shattereth! Learn to laugh at yourselves,
as ye ought to laugh! Ye higher men, O, how much is still possible!

And verily, how much hath already succeeded! How rich is this earth in
small, good, perfect things, in well-constituted things!

Set around you small, good, perfect things, ye higher men. Their golden
maturity healeth the heart. The perfect teacheth one to hope.

16.

What hath hitherto been the greatest sin here on earth? Was it not the
word of him who said: "Woe unto them that laugh now!"

Did he himself find no cause for laughter on the earth? Then he sought
badly. A child even findeth cause for it.

He--did not love sufficiently: otherwise would he also have loved
us, the laughing ones! But he hated and hooted us; wailing and
teeth-gnashing did he promise us.

Must one then curse immediately, when one doth not love? That--seemeth
to me bad taste. Thus did he, however, this absolute one. He sprang from
the populace.

And he himself just did not love sufficiently; otherwise would he have
raged less because people did not love him. All great love doth not SEEK
love:--it seeketh more.

Go out of the way of all such absolute ones! They are a poor sickly
type, a populace-type: they look at this life with ill-will, they have
an evil eye for this earth.

Go out of the way of all such absolute ones! They have heavy feet and
sultry