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greatest hopes and remotest aims.
haunter of his dreams
Persians were the first to take a broad and comprehensive view of history.
"How can one praise and glorify a nation as a whole?—Even among the Greeks, it was the INDIVIDUALS that counted."
"I am interested only in the relations of a people to the rearing of the individual man,
not by any means owing to the goodness of the people, but because of the struggles of their evil instincts.
"Mankind ought constantly to be striving to produce great men—this and nothing else is its duty.")
By the word "rearing," in this case, is meant the act of modifying by means of new and higher values—values which, as laws and guides of conduct and opinion, are now to rule over mankind.
He assumes that Christianity, as a product of the resentment of the botched and the weak, has put in ban all that is beautiful, strong, proud, and powerful, in fact all the qualities resulting from strength, and that, in consequence, all forces which tend to promote or elevate life have been seriously undermined.
"All that proceeds from power is good, all that springs from weakness is bad."
GREAT HEALTHINESS—such healthiness as one not only possesses, but also constantly acquires and must acquire, because one unceasingly sacrifices it again, and must sacrifice it!—And
it is unavoidable that we should look on the worthiest aims and hopes of the man of the present day with ill-concealed amusement, and perhaps should no longer look at them.
THE GREAT SERIOUSNESS only commences, when the proper interrogative mark is set up, the fate of the soul changes, the hour-hand moves, and tragedy begins..."
I had had an omen of its coming in the form of a sudden and decisive alteration in my tastes—more particularly in music. It would even be possible to consider all 'Zarathustra' as a musical composition. At all events, a very necessary condition in its production was a renaissance in myself of the art of hearing. In a small mountain resort (Recoaro) near Vicenza, where I spent the spring of 1881, I and my friend and Maestro, Peter Gast—also one who had been born again—discovered that the phoenix music that hovered over us, wore lighter and brighter plumes than it had done theretofore."
"The sun of knowledge stands once more at midday; and the serpent of eternity lies coiled in its light—: It is YOUR time, ye midday brethren."
His friends caused him many disappointments, which were the more bitter to him, inasmuch as he regarded friendship as such a sacred institution; and for the first time in his life he realised the whole horror of that loneliness to which, perhaps, all greatness is condemned.
he found nobody who could follow him: he therefore created a perfect friend for himself in the ideal form of a majestic philosopher, and made this creation the preacher of his gospel to the world.
everything decisive comes to life in spite of every obstacle,
me, mine eagle, and my serpent.
I would fain bestow and distribute, until the wise have once more become joyous in their folly, and the poor happy in their riches. Therefore must I descend into the deep: as thou doest in the evening, when thou goest behind the sea, and givest light also to the nether-world, thou exuberant star! Like thee must I GO DOWN, as men say, to whom I shall descend. Bless me, then, thou tranquil eye, that canst behold even the greatest happiness without envy! Bless the cup that is about to overflow, that the water may flow golden out of it, and carry everywhere the reflection of thy bliss! Lo! This
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I TEACH YOU THE SUPERMAN. Man is something that is to be surpassed. What have ye done to surpass man? 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
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Once blasphemy against God was the greatest blasphemy; but God died, and therewith also those blasphemers. To blaspheme the earth is now the dreadfulest sin, and to rate the heart of the unknowable higher than the meaning of the earth!
Verily, a polluted stream is man. One must be a sea, to receive a polluted stream without becoming impure.
"What good is my happiness! It is poverty and pollution and wretched self-complacency. But my happiness should justify existence itself!"
"What good is my reason! Doth it long for knowledge as the lion for his food?
It is poverty and pollution and wretched sel...
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"What good is my virtue! As yet it hath not made me passionate. How weary I am of my good and my bad! It is all poverty and pollu...
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"What good is my justice! I do not see that I am fervour and fuel. The just, howeve...
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"What good is my pity! Is not pity the cross on which he is nailed who loveth man? But my ...
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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.
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.
I love him who scattereth golden words in advance of his deeds, and always doeth more than he promiseth: for he seeketh his own down-going.
love him whose soul is deep even in the wounding, and may succumb through a small matter: thus goeth he willingly over the bridge.
I tell you: one must still have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star. I tell you: ye have still chaos in you.
An orderly person does not interest
He is a fool who still stumbleth over stones or men!
A little poison now and then: that maketh pleasant dreams. And much poison at last for a pleasant death.
Behold the good and just! Whom do they hate most? Him who breaketh up their tables of values, the breaker, the lawbreaker:—he, however, is the creator.
"Would that I were wiser! Would that I were wise from the very heart, like my serpent!
And if my wisdom should some day forsake me:—alas! it loveth to fly away!—may my pride then fly with my folly!"
spirit becometh a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child.
for the heavy and the heaviest longeth its strength.
All these heaviest things the load-bearing spirit taketh upon itself: and like the camel, which, when laden, hasteneth into the wilderness, so hasteneth the spirit into its wilderness.
But in the loneliest wilderness happeneth the second metamorphosis: here the spirit becometh a lion; freedom will it capture, and lordship in its own wilderness.
To create new values—that, even the lion cannot yet accomplish: but to create itself freedom for new creating—that can the might of the lion do. To create itself freedom, and give a holy Nay even unto duty: for that, my brethren, there is need of the lion.
Innocence is the child, and forgetfulness, a new beginning, a game, a self-rolling wheel, a first movement, a holy Yea.
Aye, for the game of creating, my brethren, there is needed a holy Yea unto life: ITS OWN will, willeth now the spirit; HIS OWN world winneth the world's outcast.
Modest is even the thief in presence of sleep: he always stealeth softly through the night. Immodest, however, is the night-watchman; immodestly he carrieth his horn.
Ten times a day must thou overcome thyself: that causeth wholesome weariness, and is poppy to the soul.
Ten truths must thou find during the day; otherwise wilt thou seek truth during the night, and thy soul will have been hungry.
Thus passeth the day unto the virtuous. When night cometh, then take I good care not to summon sleep.
The past two pages line out how he overcame 10 things throhghout the day and now he is ready to rest
