Pure joy is the sound of music. I agree with Nietzsche that “without music, life would be a mistake.” Among my favorites in the Western classical tradition is Richard Strauss’s masterpiece Also Sprach Zarathustra. It was featured in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Here it is:
That bit is as short as it is powerful. It’s hard to improve on it. But Deodato jammed to it — and how. Listen.
Here’s the studio version of that. It won the 1974 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance.
Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophical novel Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen in German) in four parts was published between 1883 and 1885. Nietzsche believed it to be most important work. Here’re a few quotes from it.
“The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.”
“Man is something that shall be overcome. Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman — a rope over an abyss. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end.”
“But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!”
And some other quotes:
“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
Life is a Random Draw 