Karl Hoeffkes, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche

"[For this was the desire that my brother pursued all his life, and to this end all his plans and intentions were directed: that the perfect man, the man who justified life, the superman, should be granted for us as the pinnacle of a nobler, stronger type.]

'What an endless amount of distress, privation, bad weather, sickness, depression, isolation we have to endure! Yet we ultimately manage to put up with all this, born as we are subterranean, struggling existence; every now and then we emerge into the light; we live once more through our golden hour of victory and we stand there as we are born: taut, unbreakable and ready to aim at new yet more difficult , more distant targets, like a bowstring, ever tightened by necessity. But if there are any heavenly beings beyond good and evil who grant us favours, may they grant me from time to time but a glimpse of something perfect completed, joyous, powerful, triumphant, something that can still inspire fright! A glimpse of a human who justifies mankind, of a joyous being that is a complimentary and redemptive stroke of fortune among beings, thanks to whom we may preserve our faith in mankind!'

Yet, even for those of us who are mediocre, a new world of joy opens up and even our eyes shall see the man who justifies life. We must, however, have the confidence in ourselves; we shall test ourselves to see how we may achieve our best, how we may give our life as much value as possible. We shall lay our 'pretty vanity' and realize that we will not achieve works of the highest perfection, and shall be glad that we may perhaps be allowed to 'submerge ourselves in a great type.'"

Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, The Will to Power
Micro Histories and Macro Worlds, Vol. 2