There are the spiritually consumptive ones: hardly are they born when they begin to die, and long for doctrines of lassitude and renunciation.
They would fain be dead, and we should approve of their wish! Let us beware of awakening those dead ones, and of damaging those living coffins!
They meet an invalid, or an old man, or a corpse—and immediately they say: “Life is refuted!”
But they only are refuted, and their eye, which seeth only one aspect of existence.
Shrouded in thick melancholy, and eager for the little casualties that bring death: thus do they wait, and clench their teeth.
Or else, they grasp at sweetmeats, and mock at their childishness thereby: they cling to their straw of life, and mock at their still clinging to it.
Their wisdom speaketh thus: “A fool, he who remaineth alive; but so far are we fools! And that is the foolishest thing in life!”