Ascetic ideals

What is the meaning of ascetic ideals? - In the case of artists they mean nothing or too many things; in the case of philosophers and scholars something like a sense and instinct for the most favourable preconditions of higher spiriruality;  … in the case of the physiologically deformed and deranged (the majority of mortals) an attempt to see themselves as ‘too good’ for this world, a saintly form of debauch, their chief weapon against slow pain and boredom; ... in the case of saints, finally, a pretext of hibernation, their novissima gloriae cupido*, their repose in nothingness (''God''), their form of madness. That the ascetic ideal has meant so many things to man, however, is an expression of the basic fact of the human will, its horror vacui. It needs a goal- and it will rather will nothingness than not will.

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, On the genealogy of morals

*newest lust for glory