276. For the New Year.~ still live, I still think ; I must still live, for I must still think. Sum, ergo cogiio: cogiio, ergo sum. To-day everyone takes the liberty of expressing his wish and his favourite thought: well, I also mean to tell what I have wished for myself to-day, and what thought first crossed my mind this year,— a thought which ought to be the basis, the pledge and the sweetening of all my future life! I want more and more to perceive the necessary characters in things as the beautiful: — I shall thus be one of those who beautify things. Amor fati : let that henceforth be my love ! I do not want to wage war with the ugly. I do not want to accuse, I do not want even to accuse the accusers. Looking aside, let that be my sole negation ! And all in all, to sum up : I wish to be at any time hereafter only a yea-sayer !
277. Personal Providence.—ThQxe is a certain climax m life, at which, notwithstanding all our freedom, and however much we may have denied all direct- mg reason and goodness in the beautiful chaos of existence, we are once more in great danger of intellectual bondage, and have to face our •13
