formerly stood at the disposal of other aspirations, and in this way
it exercises a modifying influence; it creates new laws of motion in
energy, though no new energy. But it is precisely in this respect that
there lies some possibility of determining new emotions and new desires
in men.
30
Let us try and discover how the thought that something gets repeated
has affected mankind hitherto (the year, for instance, or periodical
illnesses, waking and sleeping, &c). Even supposing the recurrence of
the cycle is only a probability or a possibility, even a thought, even
a possibility, can shatter us and transform us. It is not only feelings
and definite expectations that do this! See what effect the thought of
eternal damnation has had!
31
From the moment when this thought begins to prevail all colours will
change their hue and a new history will begin.
32
The history of the future: this thought will tend to triumph ever more
and more, and those who disbelieve in it will be forced, according to
their nature, ultimately to die out.
He, alone, who will regard his existence as capable of eternal
recurrence will remain over: but among such as these a state will be
possible of which the imagination of no utopist has ever dreamt!
33
Ye fancy that ye will have a long rest ere your second birth takes
place,—but do not deceive yourselves! ’Twixt your last moment of
consciousness and the first ray of the dawn of your new life no time
will elapse,—as a flash of lightning will the space go by, even though
living creatures think it is billions of years, and are not even able
to reckon it. Timelessness and immediate re-birth are compatible, once
intellect is eliminated!
34
Thou feelest that thou must soon take thy leave perhaps—and the sunset
glow of this feeling pierces through thy happiness. Give heed to this
sign: it means that thou lovest life and thyself, and life as it has
hitherto affected thee and moulded thee,—and that thou cravest for its
eternity—_Non alia sed hac vita sempiterna!_
Know also, that transiency singeth its short song for ever afresh and
that at the sound of the first verse thou wilt almost die of longing
when thou thinkest that it might be for the last time.
35
Let us stamp the impress of eternity upon our lives! This thought
contains more than all the religions which taught us to contemn this
life as a thing ephemeral, which bade us squint upwards to another and
indefinite existence.—
36
We must not strive after distant and unknown states of bliss and
blessings and acts of grace, but we must live so that we would fain
live again and live for ever so, to all eternity!—Our duty is present
with us every instant.
37
The leading tendencies: (1) We must implant the love of life, the
love of every man’s own life in every conceivable way! However each
individual may understand this love of self his neighbour will
acquiesce, and will have to learn great tolerance towards it: however
much it may often run counter to his taste,—provided the individual in
question really helps to increase his joy in his own life!
(2) We must all be one in our hostility towards everything and
everybody who tends to cast a slur upon the value of life: towards
all gloomy, dissatisfied and brooding natures. We must prevent these
from procreating! But our hostility itself must be a means to our joy!
Thus we shall laugh; we shall mock and we shall exterminate without
bitterness I Let this be our mortal combat
This life is thy eternal life!
38
What was the cause of the downfall of the Alexandrian culture? With all
its useful discoveries and its desire to investigate the nature of this
world, it did not know how to lend this life its ultimate importance,
the thought of a Beyond was more important to it! To teach anew in
this regard is still the most important thing of all:—perhaps if
metaphysics are applied to this life in the most emphatic way,—as in
the case of my doctrine!
39
This doctrine is lenient towards those who do not believe in it It
speaks of no hells and it contains no threats. He who does not believe
in it has but a fleeting life in his consciousness.
40
It would be terrible if we still believed in sin, but whatever we may
do, however often we may repeat it, it is all innocent. If the thought
of the eternal recurrence of all things does not overwhelm thee, then
it is not thy fault: and if it does overwhelm thee, this does not stand
to thy merit either.—We think more leniently of our forebears than
they themselves thought of themselves; we mourn over the errors which
were to them constitutional; but we do not mourn over their evil.
41
Let us guard against teaching such a doctrine as if it were a suddenly
discovered religion! It must percolate through slowly, and whole
generations must build on it and become fruitful through it,—in order
that it may grow into a large tree which will shelter all posterity.
What are the two thousand years in which Christianity has maintained
its sway? For the mightiest thought of all many millenniums will be
necessary,—long, long, long will it have to remain puny and weak!
42
For this thought we do not require thirty years of glory with drums
and fifes, and thirty years of grave-digging followed by an eternity
of macaberesque stillness, as is the case with so many other famous
thoughts.
Simple and well-nigh arid as it is, this thought must not even require
eloquence to uphold it.
43
Are ye now prepared? Ye must have experienced every form of
scepticism and ye must have wallowed with voluptuousness in ice-cold
baths,—otherwise ye have no right to this thought; I wish to protect
myself against those who are over-ready to believe, likewise against
those who gush over anything! I would defend my doctrine in advance.
It must be the religion of the freest, most cheerful and most sublime
souls, a delightful pastureland somewhere between golden ice and a pure
heaven!
EXPLANATORY NOTES TO “THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA”
1
All goals have been annihilated: valuations are turning against each
other:
People call him good who hearkens to the dictates of his own heart, but
they also call him good who merely does his duty;
People call the mild and conciliating man good, but they also call him
good who is brave, inflexible and severe;
People call him good who does not do violence to himself, but they also
call the heroes of self-mastery good;
People call the absolute friend of truth good-, but they also call him
good who is pious and a transfigurer of things;
People call him good who can obey his own voice, but they also call the
devout man good;
People call the noble and the haughty man good, but also him who does
not despise and who does not assume condescending airs.
People call him good who is kindhearted and who steps out of the way of
broils, but he who thirsts for fight and triumph is also called good;
People call him good who always wishes to be first, but they also call
him good who does not wish to be ahead of anybody in anything.
2
We possess a powerful store of moral _feelings,_ but we have no goal
for them all. They mutually contradict each other: they have their
origin in different tables of values.
There is a wonderful amount of moral power, but there is no longer any
goal towards which all this power can be directed.
3
All goals have been annihilated, mankind must give themselves a fresh
goal. It is an error to suppose that they had one: they gave themselves
all the goals they ever had. But the prerequisites of all previous
goals have been annihilated.
Science traces the course of things but points to no goal: what it does
give consists of the fundamental facts upon which the new goal must be
based.
4
The profound sterility of the nineteenth century. I have not
encountered a single man who really had a new ideal to bring
forward. The character of German music kept me hoping longest, but
in vain. A stronger type in which all our powers are synthetically
correlated—this constitutes my faith.
Apparently everything is decadence. We should so direct this movement
of decline that it may provide the strongest with a new form of
existence.
5
The dissolution of morality, in its practical consequences, leads
to the atomistic individual, and further to the subdivision of the
individual into a quantity of parts—absolute liquefaction.
That is why a goal is now more than ever necessary; and love, but a new
love.
6
I say: “As long as your morality hung over me I breathed like one
asphyxiated. That is why I throttled this snake. I wished to live,
consequently it had to die.”
7
As long as people are still _forced to_ act, that is to say as long as
commands are given, synthesis (the suppression of the moral man) will
not be realised To be unable to be otherwise: instincts and commanding
reason extending beyond any immediate object: the ability to enjoy
one’s own nature in action.
8
None of them wish to bear the burden of the commander; but they will
perform the most strenuous task if only thou commandest them.
9
We must overcome the past in ourselves: we must combine the instincts
afresh and direct the whole together to one goal:—an extremely
difficult undertaking! It is not only the evil instincts which have to
be overcome,—the so-called good instincts must be conquered also and
consecrated anew!
10
No leaps must be made in virtue! But everyone must be given a different
path! Not leading to the highest development of each! Yet everyone may
be a bridge and an example for others.
11
To help, to pity, to submit and to renounce personal attacks with a
good will,—these things may make even insignificant and superficial
men tolerable to the eye: such men must not be contradicted in their
belief that this good will is “virtue in itself.”
12
Man makes a deed valuable: but how might a deed make man valuable?
13
Morality is the concern of those who cannot free themselves from
it: for such people morality therefore belongs to the conditions of
existence. It is impossible to refute conditions of existence: the only
thing one can do is not to have them.
14
If it were true that life did not deserve to be welcomed, the moral
man, precisely on account of his self-denial and obligingness, would
then be guilty of misusing his fellow to his own personal advantage.
15
“Love thy neighbour”—this would mean first and foremost: “Let thy
neighbour go his own way”—and it is precisely this kind of virtue that
is the most difficult!
16
The bad man as the parasite. We must not be merely feasters and
gourmets of life: this is ignoble.
17
It is a noble sense which forbids our being only feasters and gourmets
of life—this sense revolts against hedonism—: we want to perform
something in return!—But the fundamental feeling of the masses is that
one must live for nothing,—that is their vulgarity.
18
The converse valuations hold good for the lower among men: in their
case therefore it is necessary to implant virtues. They must be
elevated above their lives, by means of absolute commands and terrible
taskmasters.
19
What is required: the new law must be made practicable—and out of its
fulfilment, the overcoming of this law, and higher law, must evolve
Zarathustra defines the attitude towards law, inasmuch as he suppresses
the law of laws which is morality.
Laws as the backbone They must be worked at and created, by being
fulfilled. The slavish attitude which has reigned hitherto towards law!
20
The self-overcoming of Zarathustra as the prototype of mankind’s
self-overcoming for the benefit of Superman. To this end the overcoming
of morality is necessary.
21
The type of the lawgiver, his development and his suffering. What is
the purpose of giving laws at all?
Zarathustra is the herald who calls forth many lawgivers.
22
_Individual instruments._
1. The Commanders, the mighty—who do not love, unless it be that they
love the images according to which they create. The rich in vitality,
the versatile, the free, who overcome that which is extant
2. The obedient, the “emancipated”—love and reverence constitute their
happiness, they have a sense of what is higher (their deficiencies are
made whole by the sight of the lofty).
3. The slaves, the order of “henchmen”—: they must be made
comfortable, they must cultivate pity for one another.
23
The giver, the creator, the teacher—these are preludes of the ruler.
24
All virtue and all self-mastery has only one purpose: that of preparing
for the rule!
25
Every sacrifice that the ruler makes is rewarded a hundredfold.
26
How much does not the warrior, the prince, the man who is responsible
for himself, sacrifice!—this should be highly honoured.
27
The terrible task of the ruler who educates himself:—the kind of man
and people over which he will rule must be forecast in him: it is in
himself therefore that he must first have become a ruler!
28
The great educator like nature must elevate obstacles in order that
these may be overcome.
29
The new teachers as preparatory stages for the highest Architect (they
must impose their type on things).
30
Institutions may be regarded as the after effects of great individuals
and the means of giving great individuals root and soil—until the
fruit ultimately appears.
31
As a matter of fact mankind is continually trying to be able to
dispense with great individuals by means of corporations, &c But they
are utterly dependent upon such great individuals for their ideal.
32
The eudæmonistic and social ideals lead men backwards,—it may be that
they aim at a very useful working class,—they are creating the ideal
slave of the future, the lower caste which must on no account be
lacking!
33
Equal rights for all!—this is the most extraordinary form of
injustice, for with it the highest men do not get their due.
34
It is not a matter of the rights of the stronger, for strong and weak
are alike in this, that they all extend their power as far as they can.
35
A new form of estimating man: above all the question:
How much power has he got?
How manifold are his instincts?
How great is his capacity for communication and assimilation?
The ruler as the highest type.
36
Zarathustra rejoices that the war of the classes is at last over,
and that now at length the time is ripe for an order of rank among
individuals. His hatred of the democratic system of levelling is only
a blind; as a matter of fact he is very pleased that this has gone so
far. Now he can perform his task.—
Hitherto his doctrines had been directed only at the ruling caste of
the future. These lords of the earth must now take the place of God,
and must create for themselves the profound and absolute confidence
of those they rule. Their new holiness, their renunciation of
happiness and ease, must be their first principle. To the lowest they
grant the heirloom of happiness, not to themselves. They deliver the
physiologically botched by teaching them the doctrine of “swift death.”
They offer religions and philosophical systems to each according to his
rank.
37
“The conflict in the heart of the ruler is the contest between the love
which is in his heart for him who is most remote, and the love which he
feels for his neighbour.”
To be a creator and to be capable of goodness are not at all things
which exclude one another. They are rather one and the same thing; but
the creator is farsighted and the good man nearsighted.
38
The feeling of power. The strife of all egos to discover that thought
which will remain poised above men like a star.—The ego is a _primum
mobile._
39
The struggle for the application of the power which mankind now
represents! Zarathustra calls to the gladiators of this struggle.
40
We must make our ideals prevail:—We must strive for power in such a
way as our ideal commands.
41
The doctrine of the Eternal Recurrence is the turning point of history.
42
Suddenly the terrible chamber of truth is opened, an unconscious
self-protectiveness, caution, ambush, defence keeps us from the gravest
knowledge. Thus have I lived heretofore. I suppress something; but the
restless babbling and rolling down of stones has rendered my instinct
over-powerful. Now I am rolling my last stone, the most appalling truth
stands close to my hand.
Truth has been exorcised out of its grave:—we created it, we waked it:
the highest expression of courage and of the feeling of power. Scorn of
all pessimism that has existed hitherto!
We fight with it,—we find out that our only means of enduring it is
to create a creature who is able to endure it:—unless, of course, we
voluntarily dazzle ourselves afresh and blind ourselves in regard to it
But this we are no longer able to do!
We it was who created the gravest thought,—let us now create a being
unto whom it will be not only light but blessed.
In order to be able to create we must allow ourselves greater freedom
than has ever been vouch-safed us before; to this end we must be
emancipated from morality, and we must be relieved by means of feasts
(Premonitions of the future! We must celebrate the future and no longer
the past! We must compose the myth poetry of the future! We must live
in hopes!) Blessed moments I And then we must once again pull down the
curtain and turn our thoughts to the next unswerving purpose.
43
Mankind must set its goal above itself—not in a false world, however,
but in one which would be a continuation of humanity.
44
The half-way house is always present when the will to the future
arises: the greatest event stands immediately before it.
45
Our very essence is to create a being higher than ourselves. We must
create beyond ourselves. That is the instinct of procreation, that is
the instinct of action and of work.—Just as all willing presupposes a
purpose, so does mankind presuppose a creature which is not yet formed
but which provides the aim of life. This is the freedom of all will.
Love, reverence, yearning for perfection, longing, all these things are
inherent in a purpose.
46
My desire: to bring forth creatures which stand sublimely above the
whole species man: and to sacrifice “one’s neighbours” and oneself to
this end.
The morality which has existed hitherto was limited within the confines
of the species: all moralities that have existed hitherto have been
useful in the first place in order to give unconditional stability to
this species: once this has been achieved the aim can be elevated.
One movement is absolute; it is nothing more than the levelling down of
mankind, great ant-organisations, &c.
The other movement, my movement, is conversely the accentuation of all
contrasts and gulfs, and the elimination of equality, together with the
creation of supremely powerful creatures.
The first movement brings forth the last man, my movement brings forth
the Superman. It is by no means the goal to regard the latter as the
master of the first: two races ought to exist side by side,—separated
as far asunder as possible; the one, like the Epicurean gods, not
concerning themselves in the least with the others.
47
The opposite of the Superman is the last man: I created him
simultaneously with the former.
48
The more an individual is free and firm, the more exacting becomes his
love: at last he yearns for Superman, because nothing else is able to
appease his love,
49
Half-way round the course Superman arises.
50
Among men I was frightened: among men I desired a host of things and
nothing satisfied me. It was then that I went into solitude and created
Superman. And when I had created him I draped him in the great veil of
Becoming and let the light of midday shine upon him.
51
“We wish to create a Being,” we all wish to have a hand in it, to love
it. We all want to be pregnant—and to honour and respect ourselves on
that account.
We must have a goal in view of which we may all love each other! All
other goals are only fit for the scrap heap.
52
The strongest in body and soul are the best—Zarathustra’s fundamental
proposition—; from them is generated that higher morality of the
creator. Man must be regenerated after his own image: this is what he
wants, this is his honesty.
53
Genius to Zarathustra seems like the incarnation of his thought.
54
Loneliness for a certain time is necessary in order that a creature
may become completely permeated with his own soul—cured and hard. A
new form of community would be one in which we should assert ourselves
martially. Otherwise the spirit becomes tame. No Epicurean “gardens”
and mere “retirement from the masses.” War (but without powder) between
different thoughts and the hosts who support them I
A new nobility, the result of breeding. Feasts celebrating the
foundation of families.
The day divided up afresh; bodily exercise for all ages. Ἀγών
as a principle.
The love of the sexes as a contest around the principle in becoming and
coming.—Ruling will be taught and practised, its hardness as well as
its mildness. As soon as one faculty is acquired in a masterly manner
another one must be striven after.
We must let ourselves be taught by the evil, and allow them an
opportunity of a contest. We must make use of the degenerate—The right
of punishment will consist in this, that the offender may be used as
an experimental subject (in dietetics): this is the consecration of
punishment, that one man be used for the highest needs of a future
being.
We protect our new community because it is the bridge to our ideal of
the future And for it we work and let others work.
55
The measure and mean must be found in striving to attain to something
beyond mankind: the highest and strongest kind of man must be
discovered! The highest tendency must be represented continually
in small things:—perfection, maturity, rosy-cheeked health, mild
discharges of power. Just as an artist works, must we apply ourselves
to our daily task and bring ourselves to perfection in everything we
do. We must be honest in acknowledging our real motives to ourselves,
as is becoming in the mighty man.
56
No impatience! Superman is our next stage and to this end, to this
limit, moderation and manliness are necessary.
Mankind must surpass itself, as the Greeks did—and no fleshless
fantasies must be indulged. The higher mind which is associated with a
sickly and nervous character must be suppressed. The goal: the higher
culture of the whole body and not only of the brain.
57
“Man is something that must be surpassed”:—it is a matter of tempo:
the Greeks were wonderful, there was no haste about them.—My
predecessors: Heraclitus, Empedocles, Spinoza, Goethe.
58
1. Dissatisfaction with ourselves. An antidote to repentance.
The transformation of temperament (_e.g.,_ by means of inorganic
substances). Good will to this dissatisfaction. We should wait for our
thirst and let it become great in order to discover its source.
2. Death must be transformed into a means of victory and triumph.
3. The attitude towards disease. Freedom where death is concerned.
4. The love of the sexes is a means to an ideal (it is the striving of
a being to perish through his opposite). The love for a suffering deity.
5. Procreation is the holiest of all things. Pregnancy, the creation of
a woman and a man, who wish to enjoy their unity, and erect a monument
to it by means of a child.
6. Pity as a danger. Circumstances must be created which enable
everyone to be able to help himself, and which leave him to choose
whether he would be helped.
7. Education must be directed at making men evil, at developing their
inner devil.
8. Inner war as “development”
9. “The maintenance of the species,” and the thought of eternal
recurrence.
59
Principal doctrine. We must strive to make every stage one of
perfection, and rejoice therein,—we must make no leaps!
In the first place, the promulgation of laws. After the Superman the
doctrine of eternal recurrence will strike us with horror: Now it is
endurable.
60
Life itself created this thought which is the most oppressive for life.
Life wishes to get beyond its greatest obstacle I
We must desire to perish in order to arise afresh,—from one day to
the other. Wander through a hundred souls,—let that be thy life and
thy fate! And then finally: desire to go through the whole process once
more!
61
The highest thing of all would be for us to be able to endure our
immortality.
62
The moment in which I begot recurrence is immortal, for the sake of
that moment alone I will endure recurrence.
63
The teaching of eternal recurrence—it is at first oppressive to the
more noble souls and apparently a means of weeding them out,—then the
inferior and less sensitive natures would remain over! “This doctrine
must be suppressed and Zarathustra killed.”
64