Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. Untimely reflections (№ 282933)

There are two very different kind of hilarity. The true thinker always cheers and comforts, if he expresses his serious thought and his joke, his knowledge or his divine goodness; he says without a plaintive gesture, shaking hands, tearful eyes, always confidently and simply, boldly and strongly, may be a little chivalrous and sternly, but always as a winner; and that is what gives us the most profound and complete fun to see the conquering God with all the monsters that he overcame. On the contrary, gaiety, that you meet sometimes have mediocre writers and limited thinkers, makes our brother unfortunate as I, for example, have experienced when reading of David Strauss.