- Within my writings my Zarathustra stands apart. With it I gave mankind the greatest gift that has ever been given to it. This book, with a voice that echoes down the ages, is not only the highest book there is, the book with the loftiest atmosphere—the whole fact of mankind lies immensely distant beneath it—it is also the most profound thing, born out of truth’s innermost riches, an inexhaustible well, into which no bucket plunges but it comes up filled with gold and goodness.

- Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, Preface, §4