- I would recommend anyone who sees Nietzsche's ideal as cruel and negative to read the chapter on The Bestowing Virtue from Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Here, the highest virtue, described as a healthy selfishness, is the possession of an overabundance of life which makes everything one touches richer and more meaningful as a result. It is contrasted with a sickly selfishness which only knows how to take. The idea of higher men bestowing value upon life through their inner riches is present throughout Nietzsche's philosophy, from his early concept of the Genius, to the aforementioned chapter of Zarathustra, to his later concept of the Dionysian man.