Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None

by Friedrich Nietzsche

Art thou a slave? Then thou canst not be a friend. Art thou a tyrant? Then thou canst not have friends.

Since humanity came into being, man hath enjoyed himself too little: that alone, my brethren, is our original sin!

Ye seem to me lukewarm ones: but coldly floweth all deep knowledge. Ice-cold are the innermost wells of the spirit: a refreshment to hot hands and handlers.

Is not wounded vanity the mother of all tragedies? Where, however, pride is wounded, there there groweth up something better than pride.

He was also indistinct. How he raged at us, this wrath-snorter, because we understood him badly! But why did he not speak more clearly? And if the fault lay in our ears, why did he give us ears that heard him badly? If there was dirt in our ears, well! who put it in them?

What the populace once learned to believe without reasons, who could— refute it to them by means of reasons?

Thus spake Zarathustra and left his cave, glowing and strong, like a morning sun coming out of gloomy mountains.