That the ascetic ideal has meant so much to man reveals a basic fact of human will, its horror vacui; it needs an aim—, and it prefers to will nothingness rather than not will. — Do I make myself understood? … Have I made myself understood?.. ‘Absolutely not, sir!’ — So let us start at the beginning.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘Third Essay’ in On the Genealogy of Morality (ed. K. Ansell-Pearson & trans. C. Diethe). Cambridge University Press: New York, 2010, p. 68.
