Learn How to Laugh!

Lift up your hearts, my fellows, higher and higher!
And the legs – you mustn’t forget those!
Lift up your legs too, accomplished dancers;
or, to top it all, stand on your heads!

This crown of the man who knows laughter,
this rose-chaplet crown: I have placed it on my head,
I have consecrated laughter.
But not a single soul have I found strong enough to join me.

Zarathustra the dancer, the fleet Zarathustra,
waving his wings, beckoning with his wings to all birds around him,
poised for flight, casual and cavalier-

Zarathustra the soothsayer, Zarathustra the laughing truthsayer,
never out of sorts, never insisting, lover of leaps and tangents:
I myself have put on this crown!

This crown of the laughter-loving, this rose-chaplet crown:
to you, my fellows, do I fling this crown!  Laughter I declare to be blessed;
you who aspire to greatness, learn how to laugh!

Zarathustra
Part IV, “Of Greater Men”