A stake to be burned at

“Of all pleasures, which is the greatest for the men of that little, constantly imperilled community which is in a constant state of war and where the sternest morality prevails?—for souls, that is to say, which are full of strength, revengefulness, hostility, deceit and suspicion, ready for the most fearful things and made hard by deprivation and morality?  The pleasure of cruelty: just as it is reckoned a virtue in a soul under such conditions to be inventive and insatiable in cruelty.  In the act of cruelty the community refreshes itself and for one throws off the gloom of constant fear and caution.  Cruelty is one of the oldest festive joys of mankind.”– Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak (emphasis in original; trans. Hollingdale)