Let each day be a loss to us on which we did not dance once!

Friedrich Nietzsche is typically associated with intellectual gravitas, but this quote sounds downright playful. It isn’t just the physical act of dancing being described here so much as the German philosopher’s broader view that life is what we make of it. Alongside vitality, we should strive for the flexibility and the courage to embrace life even in the face of uncertainties. A day without that “dance,” Nietzsche suggests in his novel “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” is a kind of loss. He goes on to say, “And let each truth be false to us which was not greeted by one laugh!”