Ah, where in the world have there been greater follies than with the
pitiful? And what in the world hath caused more suffering than the
follies of the pitiful?
Woe unto all loving ones who have not an elevation which is above their
pity!
Thus spake the devil unto me, once a time: "Even God hath his hell: it
is his love for man." 105
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. 105
"Here are priests: but although they are mine enemies, pass them
quietly and with sleeping swords!"
Even among them there are heroes; many of them have suffered too
much:--so they want to make others suffer.
Bad enemies are they: nothing is more revengeful than their meekness.
106
When a person goeth through fire for his teaching--what doth that
prove! It is more, verily, when out of one's own burning cometh one's
own teaching! 108
That _your_ very Self be in your action, as the mother is in the child:
let that be _your_ formula of virtue! 112
Life is a well of delight; but where the rabble also drink, there all
fountains are poisoned. 113
Ye who make the soul giddy, ye preachers of _equality!_ Tarantulas are
ye unto me, and secretly revengeful ones! 116
Ye preachers of equality, the tyrant-frenzy of impotence crieth thus
in you for "equality": your most secret tyrant-longings disguise
themselves thus in virtue-words!
Fretted conceit and suppressed envy--perhaps your fathers' conceit and
envy: in you break they forth as flame and frenzy of vengeance. 117
Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!
They are people of bad race and lineage; out of their countenances peer
the hangman and the sleuth-hound.
Distrust all those who talk much of their justice! Verily, in their
souls not only honey is lacking.
And when they call themselves "the good and just," forget not, that for
them to be Pharisees, nothing is lacking but--power! 118
With these preachers of equality will I not be mixed up and confounded.
For thus speaketh justice _unto me:_ "Men are not equal."