In that case, happiness [eudaimonia] does not lie in amusement; for it is indeed a strange thought that the end should be amusement, and that the busy-ness and suffering throughout one's life should be for the sake of amusing oneself. For we value almost everything, except happiness, for the sake of something else; for happiness is an end. To apply oneself to serious things, and to labour, for the sake of amusement appears silly and excessively childish. 'Play to be serious', as Anacharsis has it, seems to be the correct way; for amusement is like relaxation, and it is because people are incapable of labouring continuously that they need to relax. Relaxation, then, is not an end; for it occurs for the sake of activity.

-- Aristotle, 1176b25-1177a1

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703

One has confused displeasure with one kind of displeasure, with exhaustion; the latter does indeed represent a profound diminution and reduction of the will to power, a measurable loss of force. That is to say: there exists (a) displeasure as a means of stimulating the increase of power, and (b) displeasure following an overexpenditure of power; in the first case a stimulus, in the second the result of an excessive stimulation--- Inability to resist is characteristic of the latter kind of displeasure: a challenge to that which resists belongs to the former--- The only pleasure still felt in the condition of exhaustion is falling asleep; victory is the pleasure in the other case---

The great confusion on the part of psychologists consisted in not distinguishing between these two kinds of pleasure---that of falling asleep and that of victory. The exhausted want rest, relaxation, peace, calm---the happiness of the nihilistic religions and philosophies; the rich and living want victory, opponents overcome, the overflowing of the feeling of power across wider domains than hitherto. All healthy functions of the organism have this need---and the whole organism is such a complex of systems struggling for an increase of the feeling of power-----

-- Nietzsche, The Will To Power, The Will To Power In Nature

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