Thus Spake Zarathustra (AmazonClassics Edition)

by Friedrich Nietzsche

Values did man only assign to things in order to maintain himself—he created only the significance of things, a human significance!

Ye call in a witness when ye want to speak well of yourselves; and when ye have misled him to think well of you, ye also think well of yourselves.

Thus saith the fool: “Association with men spoileth the character, especially when one hath none.”

Your bad love to yourselves maketh solitude a prison to you.

“He who seeketh may easily get lost himself. All isolation is wrong”:

Thou goest beyond them: but the higher thou risest, the smaller doth the eye of envy see thee.

Ready must thou be to burn thyself in thine own flame; how couldst thou become new if thou have not first become ashes!

And only where there are graves are there resurrections.—

And this heard I secondly: Whatever cannot obey itself, is commanded.

This, however, is the third thing which I heard—namely, that commanding is more difficult than obeying. And not only because the commander beareth the burden of all obeyers, and because this burden readily crusheth him:—

He who would strip you of veils and wrappers, and paints and gestures, would just have enough left to scare the crows.

To despise the earthly hath 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 goeth by-ways and lying ways to escape its own shame.

I saw them always prepare their poison with precaution; and always did they put glass gloves on their fingers in doing so.

For men are not equal: so speaketh justice.

“Like thyself the state is a dissembling dog; like thee doth it like to speak with smoke and roaring—to make believe, like thee, that it speaketh out of the heart of things. “For it seeketh by all means to be the most important creature on earth, the state; and people think it so.”

“Behold, Zarathustra! Even the people learn from thee, and acquire faith in thy teaching: but for them to believe fully in thee, one thing is still needful—thou must first of all convince us cripples! Here hast thou now a fine selection, and verily, an opportunity with more than one forelock! The blind canst thou heal, and make the lame run; and from him who hath too much behind, couldst thou well, also, take away a little;—that, I think, would be the right method to make the cripples believe in Zarathustra!”

But I never believed in the people when they spake of great men—and I hold to my belief that it was a reversed cripple, who had too little of everything, and too much of one thing.

That time doth not run backward—that is its animosity:

“It is difficult to live amongst men, because silence is so difficult—especially for a babbler.”

Is not wounded vanity the mother of all tragedies?

“O Zarathustra, he who hath to remove mountains removeth also valleys and plains.”

“It is the stillest words which bring the storm. Thoughts that come with doves’ footsteps guide the world.

To learn to look away from oneself, is necessary in order to see many things:—this hardiness is needed by every mountain-climber.

Love is the danger of the lonesomest one, love to anything, if it only live

“O Zarathustra,” it whispered scornfully, syllable by syllable, “thou stone of wisdom! Thou threwest thyself high, but every thrown stone must—

“O Zarathustra, thou stone of wisdom, thou sling-stone, thou star-destroyer! Thyself threwest thou so high—but every thrown stone—must fall!

“All truth is crooked; time itself is a circle.”

Ah, that ye would renounce all half-willing, and would decide for idleness as ye decide for action! Ah, that ye understood my word: “Do ever what ye will—but first be such as can will

For in the dark, time weigheth heavier upon one than in the light.

—That man is a bridge and not a goal—rejoicing over his noontides and evenings, as advances to new rosy dawns:

Thus demandeth my great love to the remotest ones: be not considerate of thy neighbour! Man is something that must be surpassed.

He who cannot command himself shall obey. And many a one can command himself, but still sorely lacketh self-obedience!

For enjoyment and innocence are the most bashful things. Neither like to be sought for. One should have them,—but one should rather seek for guilt and pain!—

Good men never speak the truth. For the spirit, thus to be good, is a malady.

he, however, who obeyeth, doth not listen to himself!

O my brethren, there is much wisdom in the fact that much filth is in the world!—

Your marriage-arranging: see that it be not a bad arranging! Ye have arranged too hastily: so there followeth therefrom—marriage-breaking! And better marriage-breaking than marriage-bending, marriage-lying!—

The good and just themselves were not free to understand him; their spirit was imprisoned in their good conscience.

The good must crucify him who deviseth his own virtue! That is the truth! The second one, however, who discovered their country—the country, heart and soil of the good and just,—it was he who asked: “Whom do they hate most?” The creator, hate they most, him who breaketh the tables and old values, the breaker—him they call the law-breaker.

Thus spake the devil unto me, once on a time: “Even god hath his hell: it is his love for man.” And lately did I hear him say these words: “God is dead: of his pity for man hath God died.”

“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!

“—Some sorcerer with laying-on-of-hands, some sombre wonder-worker by the grace of God, some anointed world-maligner, whom, may the devil take!

“Let him go, he is gone. And though it honoureth thee that thou speakest only in praise of this dead one, yet thou knowest as well as I who he was, and that he went curious ways.”

“He was a hidden God, full of secrecy. Verily, he did not come by his son otherwise than by secret ways. At the door of his faith standeth adultery. “Whoever extolleth him as a God of love, doth not think highly enough of love itself. Did not that God want also to be judge? But the loving one loveth irrespective of reward and requital.

“Too much miscarried with him, this potter who had not learned thoroughly! That he took revenge on his pots and creations, however, because they turned out badly—that was a sin against good taste. “There is also good taste in piety: this at last said: ‘Away with such a God! Better to have no God, better to set up destiny on one’s own account, better to be a fool, better to be God oneself!’”

“On every surface have I already sat, like tired dust have I fallen asleep on mirrors and window-panes: everything taketh from me, nothing giveth; I become thin—I am almost equal to a shadow.

‘Nothing is true, all is permitted’:

Thou hast lost thy goal. Alas, how wilt thou forego and forget that loss? Thereby—hast thou also lost thy way!

For to-day have the petty people become master: they all preach submission and humility and policy and diligence and consideration and the long et cetera of petty virtues.