Book Two: A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
V: The Moral Ideal§336 A desire magnifies the thing desired, and by not being realised it grows — the greatest ideas are those which have been created by the strongest and longest desiring. Things grow ever more valuable in our estimation, the more our desire for them increases: if “moral values” have become the highest values, it simply shows that the moral ideal is the one which has been realised least (and thus it represented the Beyond to all suffering, as a road to blessedness). Man, with ever increasing ardour has only been embracing clouds: and ultimately called his desperation and impotence “God”.