The ancients alone were right in that, as in
everything else. To die young. In undiminished vigour. The gods can
bestow no greater happiness. What is there to seek in life when youth
has fled?"
"Nothing, of course, if, like a drone, we have but a single task in
existence: to live. A drone must die, when it has performed its mission.
I am not at all blind to the beauty of the butterfly, which lets its
magnificent velvet wings glisten in the sunshine throughout a long summer
day, and has no organs for receiving nourishment, but does nothing except
hover around flowers and the females of his species, wooing and loving,
and dies in the evening without ever waking from his ecstasy of delight.
It is the same thing with the flower. It blooms, exhales its fragrance,
displays beautiful forms and colours merely for the purpose of
propagation, withering quickly when that purpose is attained. The
butterfly and the flower are both beautiful. Yet, after all, they are
inferior forms of life, and man is higher, though he does not exhale
fragrance and usually possesses no velvet wings.
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