Friedrich Nietzsche

“ Goeth he not along like a dancer?
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.” ”

“ If the exploring delight be in me, which impelleth sails to the undiscovered, if the seafarer’s delight be in my delight:
If ever my rejoicing hath called out: “The shore hath vanished,—now hath fallen from me the last chain—
The boundless roareth around me, far away sparkle for me space and time,—well! cheer up! old heart!”—
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 thee, O Eternity! ”

“ In that thou camest unto me beautiful, veiled in thy beauty, in that thou spakest unto me mutely, obvious in thy wisdom:
Oh, how could I fail to divine all the modesty of thy soul! BEFORE the sun didst thou come unto me—the lonesomest one.
We have been friends from the beginning: to us are grief, gruesomeness, and ground common; even the sun is common to us.
We do not speak to each other, because we know too much—: we keep silent to each other, we smile our knowledge to each other.
Art thou not the light of my fire? Hast thou not the sister-soul of mine insight? ”

“ 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: thereon can one stand. In the true knowing-knowledge there is nothing great and nothing small.”
“Then thou art perhaps an expert on the leech?” asked Zarathustra; “and thou investigatest the leech to its ultimate basis, thou conscientious one?” ”

“ Now he draggeth me to hell: wilt thou prevent him?”
“On mine honour, my friend,” answered Zarathustra, “there is nothing of all that whereof thou speakest: there is no devil and no hell. Thy soul will be dead even sooner than thy body: fear, therefore, nothing any more!”
The man looked up distrustfully. “If thou speakest the truth,” said he, “I lose nothing when I lose my life. I am not much more than an animal which hath been taught to dance by blows and scanty fare.”
“Not at all,” said Zarathustra, “thou hast made danger thy calling; therein there is nothing contemptible. ”

“ Thou lonesome one, thou goest the way of the loving one: thou lovest thyself, and on that account despisest thou thyself, as only the loving ones despise.
To create, desireth the loving one, because he despiseth! What knoweth he of love who hath not been obliged to despise just what he loved!
With thy love, go into thine isolation, my brother, and with thy creating; and late only will justice limp after thee.
With my tears, go into thine isolation, my brother. I love him who seeketh to create beyond himself, and thus succumbeth.—
Thus spake Zarathustra. ”

“ I love him who loveth his virtue: for virtue is the will to down-going, and an arrow of longing.
I love him who reserveth no share of spirit for himself, but wanteth to be wholly the spirit of his virtue: thus walketh he as spirit over the bridge.
I love him who maketh his virtue his inclination and destiny: thus, for the sake of his virtue, he is willing to live on, or live no more.
I love him who desireth not too many virtues. One virtue is more of a virtue than two, because it is more of a knot for one’s destiny to cling to. ”

“ O Zarathustra, how well it was that we set out to see thee!
For thine enemies showed us thy likeness in their mirror: there lookedst thou with the grimace of a devil, and sneeringly: so that we were afraid of thee.
But what good did it do! Always didst thou prick us anew in heart and ear with thy sayings. Then did we say at last: What doth it matter how he look!
We must HEAR him; him who teacheth: ‘Ye shall love peace as a means to new wars, and the short peace more than the long!’
No one ever spake such warlike words: ‘What is good? To be brave is good. ”

“ Flee, my friend, into thy solitude—and thither, where a rough strong breeze bloweth. It is not thy lot to be a fly-flap.—
Thus spake Zarathustra.
XIII. CHASTITY.
I love the forest. It is bad to live in cities: there, there are too many of the lustful.
Is it not better to fall into the hands of a murderer, than into the dreams of a lustful woman?
And just look at these men: their eye saith it—they know nothing better on earth than to lie with a woman.
Filth is at the bottom of their souls; and alas! if their filth hath still spirit in it! ”

“ Ah, whose foot hath not faltered and forgotten in victory—how to stand!—
—That I may one day be ready and ripe in the great noontide: ready and ripe like the glowing ore, the lightning-bearing cloud, and the swelling milk-udder:—
—Ready for myself and for my most hidden Will: a bow eager for its arrow, an arrow eager for its star:—
—A star, ready and ripe in its noontide, glowing, pierced, blessed, by annihilating sun-arrows:—
—A sun itself, and an inexorable sun-will, ready for annihilation in victory!
O Will, thou change of every need, MY needfulness! ”

“ Grey is the favourite colour in which he wrappeth his virtue. Hath he spirit, then doth he conceal it; every one, however, believeth in his long ears.
—The ass, however, here brayed YE-A.
What hidden wisdom it is to wear long ears, and only to say Yea and never Nay! Hath he not created the world in his own image, namely, as stupid as possible?
—The ass, however, here brayed YE-A.
Thou goest straight and crooked ways; it concerneth thee little what seemeth straight or crooked unto us men. Beyond good and evil is thy domain. It is thine innocence not to know what innocence is. ”

“ Thus spake Zarathustra.
IV. THE DESPISERS OF THE BODY.
To the despisers of the body will I speak my word. I wish them neither to learn afresh, nor teach anew, but only to bid farewell to their own bodies,—and thus be dumb.
“Body am I, and soul”—so saith the child. And why should one not speak like children?
But the awakened one, the knowing one, saith: “Body am I entirely, and nothing more; and soul is only the name of something in the body.”
The body is a big sagacity, a plurality with one sense, a war and a peace, a flock and a shepherd. ”

“ Of late did I gaze into thine eye, O Life! And into the unfathomable did I there seem to sink.
But thou pulledst me out with a golden angle; derisively didst thou laugh when I called thee unfathomable.
“Such is the language of all fish,” saidst thou; “what THEY do not fathom is unfathomable.
But changeable am I only, and wild, and altogether a woman, and no virtuous one:
Though I be called by you men the ‘profound one,’ or the ‘faithful one,’ ‘the eternal one,’ ‘the mysterious one.’
But ye men endow us always with your own virtues—alas, ye virtuous ones!” ”

“ Those young hearts have already all become old—and not old even! only weary, ordinary, comfortable:—they declare it: “We have again become pious.”
Of late did I see them run forth at early morn with valorous steps: but the feet of their knowledge became weary, and now do they malign even their morning valour!
Verily, many of them once lifted their legs like the dancer; to them winked the laughter of my wisdom:—then did they bethink themselves. Just now have I seen them bent down—to creep to the cross.
Around light and liberty did they once flutter like gnats and young poets. ”

“ Once on a time, Zarathustra also cast his fancy beyond man, like all backworldsmen. The work of a suffering and tortured God, did the world then seem to me.
The dream—and diction—of a God, did the world then seem to me; coloured vapours before the eyes of a divinely dissatisfied one.
Good and evil, and joy and woe, and I and thou—coloured vapours did they seem to me before creative eyes. The creator wished to look away from himself,—thereupon he created the world.
Intoxicating joy is it for the sufferer to look away from his suffering and forget himself. ”

“ The more he seeketh to rise into the height and light, the more vigorously do his roots struggle earthward, downward, into the dark and deep—into the evil.”
“Yea, into the evil!” cried the youth. “How is it possible that thou hast discovered my soul?”
Zarathustra smiled, and said: “Many a soul one will never discover, unless one first invent it.”
“Yea, into the evil!” cried the youth once more.
“Thou saidst the truth, Zarathustra. I trust myself no longer since I sought to rise into the height, and nobody trusteth me any longer; how doth that happen? ”

“ No one speaketh unto me; the frost of solitude maketh me tremble. What do I seek on the height?
My contempt and my longing increase together; the higher I clamber, the more do I despise him who clambereth. What doth he seek on the height?
How ashamed I am of my clambering and stumbling! How I mock at my violent panting! How I hate him who flieth! How tired I am on the height!”
Here the youth was silent. And Zarathustra contemplated the tree beside which they stood, and spake thus:
“This tree standeth lonely here on the hills; it hath grown up high above man and beast. ”

“ O Zarathustra, thou art more pious than thou believest, with such an unbelief! Some God in thee hath converted thee to thine ungodliness.
Is it not thy piety itself which no longer letteth thee believe in a God? And thine over-great honesty will yet lead thee even beyond good and evil!
Behold, what hath been reserved for thee? Thou hast eyes and hands and mouth, which have been predestined for blessing from eternity. One doth not bless with the hand alone. ”

“ depart from me, and guard yourselves against Zarathustra! And better still: be ashamed of him! Perhaps he hath deceived you.
The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies, but also to hate his friends.
One requiteth a teacher badly if one remain merely a scholar. And why will ye not pluck at my wreath?
Ye venerate me; but what if your veneration should some day collapse? Take heed lest a statue crush you!
Ye say, ye believe in Zarathustra? But of what account is Zarathustra! Ye are my believers: but of what account are all believers!
Ye had not yet sought yourselves: ”

“ Thou goest the way to thy greatness: here shall no one steal after thee! Thy foot itself hath effaced the path behind thee, and over it standeth written: Impossibility.
And if all ladders henceforth fail thee, then must thou learn to mount upon thine own head: how couldst thou mount upward otherwise?
Upon thine own head, and beyond thine own heart! Now must the gentlest in thee become the hardest.
He who hath always much-indulged himself, sickeneth at last by his much-indulgence. Praises on what maketh hardy! I do not praise the land where butter and honey—flow! ”

“ Thus spake the ugliest man. Zarathustra however got up, and prepared to go on: for he felt frozen to the very bowels.
“Thou nondescript,” said he, “thou warnedst me against thy path. As thanks for it I praise mine to thee. Behold, up thither is the cave of Zarathustra.
My cave is large and deep and hath many corners; there findeth he that is most hidden his hiding-place. And close beside it, there are a hundred lurking-places and by-places for creeping, fluttering, and hopping creatures.
Thou outcast, who hast cast thyself out, thou wilt not live amongst men and men’s pity? ”

“ And even thou, discerning one, art only a path and footstep of my will: verily, my Will to Power walketh even on the feet of thy Will to Truth!
He certainly did not hit the truth who shot at it the formula: ‘Will to existence’: that will—doth not exist!
For what is not, cannot will; that, however, which is in existence—how could it still strive for existence!
Only where there is life, is there also will: not, however, Will to Life, but—so teach I thee—Will to Power! ”

“ All beings hitherto have created something beyond themselves: and ye want to be the ebb of that great tide, and would rather go back to the beast than surpass man?
What is the ape to man? A laughing-stock, a thing of shame. And just the same shall man be to the Superman: a laughing-stock, a thing of shame.
Ye have made your way from the worm to man, and much within you is still worm. Once were ye apes, and even yet man is more of an ape than any of the apes.
Even the wisest among you is only a disharmony and hybrid of plant and phantom. But do I bid you become phantoms or plants?
Lo, I teach you the Superman! ”

“ Only as image of the highest virtue came gold to the highest value. Goldlike, beameth the glance of the bestower. Gold-lustre maketh peace between moon and sun.
Uncommon is the highest virtue, and unprofiting, beaming is it, and soft of lustre: a bestowing virtue is the highest virtue.
Verily, I divine you well, my disciples: ye strive like me for the bestowing virtue. What should ye have in common with cats and wolves?
It is your thirst to become sacrifices and gifts yourselves: and therefore have ye the thirst to accumulate all riches in your soul. ”

“ And better marriage-breaking than marriage-bending, marriage-lying!—Thus spake a woman unto me: “Indeed, I broke the marriage, but first did the marriage break—me!
The badly paired found I ever the most revengeful: they make every one suffer for it that they no longer run singly.
On that account want I the honest ones to say to one another: “We love each other: let us SEE TO IT that we maintain our love! Or shall our pledging be blundering?”
—“Give us a set term and a small marriage, that we may see if we are fit for the great marriage! It is a great matter always to be twain.” ”

“ Living monuments shalt thou build to thy victory and emancipation.
Beyond thyself shalt thou build. But first of all must thou be built thyself, rectangular in body and soul.
Not only onward shalt thou propagate thyself, but upward! For that purpose may the garden of marriage help thee!
A higher body shalt thou create, a first movement, a spontaneously rolling wheel—a creating one shalt thou create.
Marriage: so call I the will of the twain to create the one that is more than those who created it. The reverence for one another, as those exercising such a will, call I marriage. ”

“ And thus spake Zarathustra unto the people:
It is time for man to fix his goal. It is time for man to plant the germ of his highest hope.
Still is his soil rich enough for it. But that soil will one day be poor and exhausted, and no lofty tree will any longer be able to grow thereon.
Alas! there cometh the time when man will no longer launch the arrow of his longing beyond man—and the string of his bow will have unlearned to whizz!
I tell you: one must still have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star. ”