Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
I love those that know not how to live except as down- goers, for they are the over- goers.
I love him who is ashamed when the dice fall in his favour, and who then asketh: "Am I a dishonest player?"- for he is willing to succumb.
To all those belauded sages of the academic chairs, wisdom was sleep without dreams: they knew no higher significance of life.
READING AND WRITING.
Ye cannot endure it with yourselves, and do not love yourselves sufficiently: so ye seek to mislead your neighbour into love, and would fain gild yourselves with his error.
The one goeth to his neighbour because he seeketh himself, and the other because he would fain lose himself. Your bad love to yourselves maketh solitude a prison to you.
All FEELING suffereth in me, and is in prison: but my WILLING ever cometh to me as mine emancipator and comforter. Willing emancipateth: that is the true doctrine of will and emancipation- so teacheth you Zarathustra. No longer willing, and no longer valuing, and no longer creating! Ah, that that great debility may ever be far from me!
And when we learn better to enjoy ourselves, then do we unlearn best to give pain unto others, and to contrive pain.
For in seeing the sufferer suffering- thereof was I ashamed on account of his shame; and in helping him, sorely did I wound his pride.
The worst things, however, are the petty thoughts. Verily, better to have done evilly than to have thought pettily!
And if a friend doeth thee wrong, then say: "I forgive thee what thou hast done unto me; that thou hast done it unto THYSELF, however- how could I forgive that!"
One should hold fast one's heart; for when one letteth it go, how quickly doth one's head run away!
But attend also to this word: All great love is above all its pity: for it seeketh- to create what is loved! "Myself do I offer unto my love, AND MY NEIGHBOUR AS MYSELF"- such is the language of all creators.
Oh, just look at those tabernacles which those priests have built themselves! Churches, they call their sweet- smelling caves! Oh, that falsified light, that mustified air! Where the soul- may not fly aloft to its height!
At you, ye virtuous ones, laughed my beauty to- day. And thus came its voice unto me: "They want- to be paid besides!" Ye want to be paid besides, ye virtuous ones! Ye want reward for virtue, and heaven for earth, and eternity for your to- day?
Ye love your virtue as a mother loveth her child; but when did one hear of a mother wanting to be paid for her love?
Ah! my friends! That YOUR very Self be in your action, as the mother is in the child: let that be YOUR formula of virtue!
A summer on the loftiest height, with cold fountains and blissful stillness: oh, come, my friends, that the stillness may become more blissful! For this is OUR height and our home: too high and steep do we here dwell for all uncleanly ones and their thirst. Cast but your pure eyes into the well of my delight, my friends! How could it become turbid thereby! It shall laugh back to you with ITS purity. On the tree of the future build we our nest; eagles shall bring us lone ones food in their beaks!
Spirit is life which itself cutteth into life: by its own torture doth it increase its own knowledge,- did ye know that before?
Ye are not eagles: thus have ye never experienced the happiness of the alarm of the spirit. And he who is not a bird should not camp above abysses.
But I live in mine own light, I drink again into myself the flames that break forth from me. I know not the happiness of the receiver; and oft have I dreamt that stealing must be more blessed than receiving.
How did I ever bear it? How did I survive and surmount such wounds? How did my soul rise again out of those sepulchres? Yea, something invulnerable, unburiable is with me, something that would rend rocks asunder: it is called MY WILL. Silently doth it proceed, and unchanged throughout the years. Its course will it go upon my feet, mine old Will; hard of heart is its nature and invulnerable.
Not the height, it is the declivity that is terrible!
And he who would not languish amongst men, must learn to drink out of all glasses; and he who would keep clean amongst men, must know how to wash himself even with dirty water.
Is not wounded vanity the mother of all tragedies? Where, however, pride is wounded, there groweth up something better than pride.
And one thing more do I know: I stand now before my last summit, and before that which hath been longest reserved for me. Ah, my hardest path must I ascend! Ah, I have begun my lonesomest wandering!
triumphantly and with firm foot did he again accept his fate.
I pass through this people and let fall many words: but they know neither how to take nor how to retain them. They wonder why I came not to revile venery and vice; and verily, I came not to warn against pickpockets either! They wonder why I am not ready to abet and whet their wisdom: as if they had not yet enough of wiseacres, whose voices grate on mine ear like slate- pencils! And when I call out: "Curse all the cowardly devils in you, that would fain whimper and fold the hands and adore"- then do they shout: "Zarathustra is godless." And especially do their teachers of submission shout this;- but precisely in their ears do I love to cry: "Yea! I AM Zarathustra, the godless!" Those teachers of submission! Wherever there is aught puny, or sickly, or scabby, there do they creep like lice; and only my disgust preventeth me from cracking them. Well! This is my sermon for THEIR ears: I am Zarathustra the godless, who saith: "Who is more godless than I, that I may enjoy his teaching?" I am Zarathustra the godless: where do I find mine equal? And all those are mine equals who give unto themselves their Will, and divest themselves of all submission. I am Zarathustra the godless! I cook every chance in MY pot. And only when it hath been quite cooked do I welcome it as MY food.
Many a shrewd one did I find: he veiled his countenance and made his water muddy, that no one might see therethrough and thereunder. But precisely unto him came the shrewder distrusters and nut- crackers: precisely from him did they fish his best- concealed fish! But the clear, the honest, the transparent- these are for me the wisest silent ones: in them, so PROFOUND is the depth that even the clearest water doth not- betray it.-
This precept, however, give I unto thee, in parting, thou fool: Where one can no longer love, there should one- PASS BY!-
O blessed stillness around me! O pure odours around me! How from a deep breast this stillness fetcheth pure breath! How it hearkeneth, this blessed stillness!
Measurable by him who hath time, weighable by a good weigher, attainable by strong pinions, divinable by divine nut- crackers: thus did my dream find the world:-
The ostrich runneth faster than the fastest horse, but it also thrusteth its head heavily into the heavy earth: thus is it with the man who cannot yet fly. Heavy unto him are earth and life, and so WILLETH the spirit of gravity! But he who would become light, and be a bird, must love himself:- thus do I teach. Not, to be sure, with the love of the sick and infected, for with them stinketh even self- love! One must learn to love oneself- thus do I teach- with a wholesome and healthy love: that one may endure to be with oneself, and not go roving about.
And we- we bear loyally what is apportioned unto us, on hard shoulders, over rugged mountains! And when we sweat, then do people say to us: "Yea, life is hard to bear!" But man himself only is hard to bear! The reason thereof is that he carrieth too many extraneous things on his shoulders. Like the camel kneeleth he down, and letteth himself be well laden. Especially the strong load- bearing man in whom reverence resideth. Too many EXTRANEOUS heavy words and worths loadeth he upon himself- then seemeth life to him a desert!
By divers ways and wendings did I arrive at my truth; not by one ladder did I mount to the height where mine eye roveth into my remoteness. And unwillingly only did I ask my way- that was always counter to my taste! Rather did I question and test the ways themselves. A testing and a questioning hath been all my travelling:- and verily, one must also LEARN to answer such questioning! That, however,- is my taste:-Neither a good nor a bad taste, but MY taste, of which I have no longer either shame or secrecy. "This- is now MY way,- where is yours?" Thus did I answer those who asked me "the way." For THE way- it doth not exist!
He who cannot command himself shall obey. And many a one CAN command himself, but still sorely lacketh self- obedience!
Thus wisheth the type of noble souls: they desire to have nothing GRATUITOUSLY, least of all, life. He who is of the populace wisheth to live gratuitously; we others, however, to whom life hath given itself- we are ever considering WHAT we can best give IN RETURN! And verily, it is a noble dictum which saith: "What life promiseth US, that promise will WE keep- to life!" One should not wish to enjoy where one doth not contribute to the enjoyment. And one should not WISH to enjoy! 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!-
Let it not be your honour henceforth whence ye come, but whither ye go! Your Will and your feet which seek to surpass you- let these be your new honour!
Such persons sit down to the table and bring nothing with them, not even good hunger:- and then do they rail: "All is vain!" But to eat and drink well, my brethren, is verily no vain art! Break up, break up for me the tables of the never- joyous ones!
I, Zarathustra, the advocate of living, the advocate of suffering, the advocate of the circuit- thee do I call, my most abysmal thought! Joy to me! Thou comest,- I hear thee! Mine abyss SPEAKETH, my lowest depth have I turned over into the light! Joy to me! Come hither! Give me thy hand- ha! let be! aha!- Disgust, disgust, disgust- alas to me!
How charming it is that there are words and tones; are not words and tones rainbows and seeming bridges 'twixt the eternally separated? To each soul belongeth another world; to each soul is every other soul a back- world.
Among the most alike doth semblance deceive most delightfully: for the smallest gap is most difficult to bridge over. For me- how could there be an outside- of- me? There is no outside! But this we forget on hearing tones; how delightful it is that we forget!
THE GREAT LONGING.
"O Zarathustra," said they, "gazest thou out perhaps for thy happiness?"-" Of what account is my happiness!" answered he, "I have long ceased to strive any more for happiness, I strive for my work."-"
For he who himself standeth, like you, on sickly and tender legs, wisheth above all to be TREATED INDULGENTLY, whether he be conscious of it or hide it from himself.
For FEAR-is an exception with us. Courage, however, and adventure, and delight in the uncertain, in the unattempted-COURAGE seemeth to me the entire primitive history of man. The wildest and most courageous animals hath he envied and robbed of all their virtues: thus only did he become-man.
-Her woe doth she ruminate over, in a dream, the old, deep midnight-and still more her joy. For joy, although woe be deep, JOY IS DEEPER STILL THAN GRIEF CAN BE.
O man! Take heed! What saith deep midnight's voice indeed? "I slept my sleep-, "From deepest dream I've woke, and plead:-"The world is deep, "And deeper than the day could read. "Deep is its woe-, "Joy-deeper still than grief can be: "Woe saith: Hence! Go! "But joys all want eternity-, "-Want deep, profound eternity!"