Friedrich Nietzsche

“ Away from those fabulous songs did I lead you when I taught you: "The Will is a creator."
All "It was" is a fragment, a riddle, a fearful chance- until the creating Will says thereto: "But thus would I have it."-
Until the creating Will says thereto: "But thus do I will it! Thus shall I will it!"
But did it ever speak thus? And when does this take place? has the Will been unharnessed from its own folly?
Has the Will become its own deliverer and joy-bringer? has it unlearned the spirit of revenge and all teeth-gnashing? ”

“ Altered is Zarathustra; a child hath Zarathustra become; an awakened one is Zarathustra: what wilt thou do in the land of the sleepers?
As in the sea hast thou lived in solitude, and it hath borne thee up. Alas, wilt thou now go ashore? Alas, wilt thou again drag thy body thyself?"
Zarathustra answered: "I love mankind."
"Why," said the saint, "did I go into the forest and the desert? Was it not because I loved men far too well?
Now I love God: men, I do not love. Man is a thing too imperfect for me. Love to man would be fatal to me." ”

“ To despise the earthly has your spirit been persuaded, but not your bowels: these, however, are the strongest in you!
And now is your spirit ashamed to be at the service of your bowels, and goes in by-ways and lying ways to escape its own shame.
"That would be the highest thing for me"- so says your lying spirit to itself- "to gaze upon life without desire, and not like the dog, with hanging-out tongue:
To be happy in gazing: with dead will, free from the grip and greed of selfishness- cold and ashy-grey all over, but with intoxicated moon-eyes! ”

“ To-day sufferest thou still from the multitude, thou individual; to-day hast thou still thy courage unabated, and thy hopes.
But one day will the solitude weary thee; one day will thy pride yield, and thy courage quail. Thou wilt one day cry: "I am alone!"
One day wilt thou see no longer thy loftiness, and see too closely thy lowliness; thy sublimity itself will frighten thee as a phantom. Thou wilt one day cry: "All is false!"
There are feelings which seek to slay the lonesome one; if they do not succeed, then must they themselves die! But art thou capable of this—to be a murderer? ”

“ Far away did he spit the head of the serpent:- and sprang up.-
No longer shepherd, no longer man- a transfigured being, a light-surrounded being, that laughed! Never on earth laughed a man as he laughed!
O my brothers, I heard a laughter which was no human laughter,- and now gnaws a thirst at me, a longing that is never allayed.
My longing for that laughter gnaws at me: oh, how can I still endure to live! And how could I endure to die at present!-
Thus spoke Zarathustra. ”

“ Something higher than all reconciliation must the Will will which is the Will to Power-: but how does that take place? Who has taught it also to will backwards?
-But at this point it chanced that Zarathustra suddenly paused, and looked like a person in the greatest alarm. With terror in his eyes did he gaze on his disciples; his glances pierced as with arrows their thoughts and arrear-thoughts. But after a brief space he again laughed, and said soothedly:
"It is difficult to live amongst men, because silence is so difficult- especially for a babbler."-
Thus spoke Zarathustra. ”

“ Have I spoken unspeakable things? Have I abused, when I meant to bless you?
Or is it the shame of being two of us that makes you blush!- do you bid me go and be silent, because now- day comes?
The world is deep:- and deeper than e'er the day could read. Not everything may be uttered in presence of day. But day comes: so let us part!
O heaven above me, you modest one! you glowing one! O you, my happiness before sunrise! The day comes: so let us part!-
Thus spoke Zarathustra. ”

“ I divine you well: you have become the enchanter of all the world; but for yourself you have no lie or artifice left,- you are disenchanted to yourself!
You have reaped disgust as your one truth. No word in you is any longer genuine, but your mouth is so: that is to say, the disgust that cleaves to your mouth."- -
-"Who are you at all!" cried here the old magician with defiant voice, "who dares to speak thus to me, the greatest man now living?"- and a green flash shot from his eye at Zarathustra. ”

“ He who has always much-indulged himself, sickens at last by his much-indulgence. Praises on what makes hardy! I do not praise the land where butter and honey- flow!
To learn to look away from oneself, is necessary in order to see many things.- this hardiness is needed by every mountain-climber.
Yet he who is obtrusive with his eyes as a discerner, how can he ever see more of anything than its foreground!
But you, O Zarathustra, would view the ground of everything, and its background: thus must you mount even above yourself- up, upwards, until you have even your stars under you! ”

“ Gladly would I conduct you there myself, you venerable one; for I love all pious men. But now a cry of distress calls me hastily away from you.
In my domain shall no one come to grief; my cave is a good haven. And best of all would I like to put every sorrowful one again on firm land and firm legs. Who, however, could take your melancholy off your shoulders? For that I am too weak. Long, verily, should we have to wait until some one re-awoke your God for you.
For that old God lives no more: he is indeed dead."-
Thus spoke Zarathustra. ”

“ When ye are willers of one will, and when that change of every need is needful to you: there is the origin of your virtue.
Verily, a new good and evil is it! Verily, a new deep murmuring, and the voice of a new fountain!
Power is it, this new virtue; a ruling thought is it, and around it a subtle soul: a golden sun, with the serpent of knowledge around it.
2 Here paused Zarathustra awhile, and looked lovingly on his disciples. Then he continued to speak thus- and his voice had changed: Remain faithful to the earth, my brothers, with the power of your virtue! ”

“ How could they endure my happiness, if I did not put around it accidents, and winter-privations, and bear-skin caps, and enmantling snowflakes!
-If I did not myself commiserate their pity, the pity of those enviers and injurers! -If I did not myself sigh before them, and chatter with cold, and patiently let myself be swathed in their pity!
This is the wise waggish-will and good-will of my soul, that it conceals not its winters and glacial storms; it conceals not its chilblains either.
To one man, solitude is the flight of the sick one; to another, it is the flight from the sick ones. ”

“ For the creator himself to be the new-born child, he must also be willing to be the child-bearer, and endure the pangs of the child-bearer.
Through a hundred souls went I my way, and through a hundred cradles and birth-throes. Many a farewell have I taken; I know the heart-breaking last hours.
But so wills it my creating Will, my fate. Or, to tell you it more candidly: just such a fate- wills my Will.
All feeling suffers in me, and is in prison: but my willing ever comes to me as my emancipator and comforter. ”

“ Zarathustra however spoke thus: "You despairing ones! You strange ones! So it was your cry of distress that I heard? And now do I know also where he is to be sought, whom I have sought for in vain today: the higher man-:
-In my own cave sits he, the higher man! But why do I wonder! Have not I myself allured him to me by honey-offerings and artful lure-calls of my happiness?
But it seems to me that you are badly adapted for company: you make one another's hearts fretful, you that cry for help, when you sit here together? ”

“ If ever I have sat rejoicing where old gods lie buried, world-blessing, world-loving, beside the monuments of old world-maligners:-
-For even churches and gods'-graves do I love, if only heaven looks through their ruined roofs with pure eyes; gladly do I sit like grass and red poppies on ruined churches-
Oh, how could I not be ardent for Eternity, and for the marriage-ring of rings- the ring of the return?
Never yet have I found the woman by whom I should like to have children, unless it be this woman whom I love: for I love you, O Eternity! ”

“ Let man fear woman when she hateth: for man in his innermost soul is merely evil; woman, however, is mean.
Whom hateth woman most?—Thus spoke the iron to the magnet: "I hate thee most, because thou attractest, but art too weak to draw unto thee."
The happiness of man is, "I will." The happiness of woman is, "He will."
"Lo! "Lo! now hath the world become perfect!"—thus thinks every woman when she obeyeth with all her love.
Obey must the woman, and find a depth for her surface. Surface is woman's soul, a mobile, stormy film on shallow water. ”

“ Had they however no one to see them, I wager that with them also the bad game would again commence,-
-The bad game of drifting clouds, of damp melancholy, of curtained heavens, of stolen suns, of howling autumn-winds,
-The bad game of our howling and crying for help! Abide with us, O Zarathustra! Here there is much concealed misery that wishes to speak, much evening, much cloud, much damp air!
You have nourished us with strong food for men, and powerful aphorisms: do not let the weakly, womanly spirits attack us anew at dessert!
You alone make the air around you strong and clear. ”

“ Up there leads the way, there is the cave of Zarathustra. In it may you seek him whom you would rather find.
And ask counsel of my animals, my eagle and my serpent: they shall help you to seek. My cave however is large.
I myself, to be sure- I have as yet seen no great man. That which is great, the acutest eye is at present insensible to it. It is the kingdom of the rabble.
Many a one have I found who stretched and inflated himself, and the people cried: 'Behold; a great man!' But what good do all bellows do! The wind comes out at last. ”

“ Is your soul not poverty and pollution and wretched self-complacency?
Verily, a polluted stream is man. One must be a sea, to receive a polluted stream without becoming impure.
Lo, I teach you the Superman: he is that sea; in him can your great contempt be submerged.
What is the greatest thing ye can experience? It is the hour of great contempt. The hour in which even your happiness becometh loathsome unto you, and so also your reason and virtue.
The hour when ye say: "What good is my happiness! It is poverty and pollution and wretched self-complacency. ”

“ Air! Let in good air! Let in Zarathustra! you make this cave sultry and poisonous, you bad old magician!
You seduce, you false one, you subtle one, to unknown desires and deserts. And alas, that such as you should talk and make ado about the truth!
Alas, to all free spirits who are not on their guard against such magicians! It is all over with their freedom: you teach and tempt back into prisons,-
-You old melancholy devil, out of your lament sounds a lurement: you resemble those who with their praise of chastity secretly invite to voluptuousness! ”

“ It is the surrender of the greatest to run risk and danger, and play dice for death.
And where there is sacrifice and service and love-glances, there also is the will to be master. By by-ways do the weaker then slink into the fortress, and into the heart of the mightier one- and there steals power.
And this secret spoke Life herself to me. "Behold," said she, "I am that which must ever overcome itself.
To be sure, you call it will to procreation, or impulse towards a goal, towards the higher, remoter, more manifold: but all that is one and the same secret. ”

“ Zarathustra, however, looked at the people and wondered. Then he spake thus:
Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman—a rope over an abyss.
A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous trembling and halting.
What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what is lovable in man is that he is an over-going and a down-going.
I love those that know not how to live except as down-goers, for they are the over-goers. ”

“ A little reason, to be sure, a germ of wisdom scattered from star to star- this leaven is mixed in all things: for the sake of folly, wisdom is mixed in all things!
A little wisdom is indeed possible; but this blessed security have I found in all things, that they prefer- to dance on the feet of chance.
O heaven above me! you pure, you lofty heaven! This is now your purity to me, that there is no eternal reason-spider and reason-cobweb:-That you are to me a dancing-floor for divine chances, that you are to me a table of the Gods, for divine dice and dice-players!-
But you blush? ”

“ One thing however do I know,- from yourself did I learn it once, O Zarathustra: he who wants to kill most thoroughly, laughs.
'Not by wrath but by laughter does one kill'- thus spoke you once, O Zarathustra, you hidden one, you destroyer without wrath, you dangerous saint,- you are a rogue!"
2. Then, however, did it come to pass that Zarathustra, astonished at such merely roguish answers, jumped back to the door of his cave, and turning towards all his guests, cried out with a strong voice:
"O you wags, all of you, you fools! Why do you dissemble and disguise yourselves before me! ”

“ Better know nothing than half-know many things! Better be a fool on one's own account, than a sage on other people's approbation! I- go to the basis:
-What matter if it be great or small? If it be called swamp or sky? A handbreadth of basis is enough for me, if it be actually basis and ground!
-A handbreadth of basis: there can one stand. In the true knowing-knowledge there is nothing great and nothing small."
"Then you are perhaps an expert on the leech?" asked Zarathustra; "and you investigate the leech to its ultimate basis, you conscientious one?" ”

“ But now leave, I pray you, this nursery, my own cave, where today all childishness is carried on. Cool down, here outside, your hot child-wantonness and heart-tumult!
To be sure: except you become as little children you shall not enter into that kingdom of heaven." (And Zarathustra pointed aloft with his hands.)
"But we do not at all want to enter into the kingdom of heaven: we have become men,- so we want the kingdom of earth." ”

“ Step out of your cave: the world waits for you as a garden. The wind plays with heavy fragrance which seeks for you; and all brooks would like to run after you.
All things long for you, since you have remained alone for seven days- step forth out of your cave! All things want to be your physicians!
Did perhaps a new knowledge come to you, a bitter, grievous knowledge? Like leavened dough lay you, your soul arose and swelled beyond all its bounds.-"
-O my animals, answered Zarathustra, talk on thus and let me listen! ”

“ Because, for man to be redeemed from revenge- that is for me the bridge to the highest hope, and a rainbow after long storms.
Otherwise, however, would the tarantulas have it. "Let it be very justice for the world to become full of the storms of our vengeance"- thus do they talk to one another.
"Vengeance will we use, and insult, against all who are not like us"- thus do the tarantula-hearts pledge themselves.
"And 'Will to Equality'- that itself shall henceforth be the name of virtue; and against all that has power will we raise an outcry!" ”