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Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (version 2) (includes annotations)

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O my brethren, am I then cruel? But I say: What falleth, that shall one also push! Everything of to-day—it falleth, it decayeth; who would preserve it! But I—I wish also to push it! Know ye the delight which rolleth stones into precipitous depths?—Those men of to-day, see just how they roll into my depths! A prelude am I to better players, O my brethren! An example! DO according to mine example! And him whom ye do not teach to fly, teach I pray you—TO FALL FASTER!— 21. I love the brave: but it is not enough to be a swordsman,—one must also know WHEREON to use swordsmanship! And often is it greater bravery to keep quiet and pass by, that THEREBY one may reserve oneself for a worthier foe! Ye shall only have foes to be hated; but not foes to be despised: ye must be proud of your foes. Thus have I already taught. For the worthier foe, O my brethren, shall ye reserve yourselves: therefore must ye pass by many a one,— —Especially many of the rabble, who din your ears with noise about people and peoples. Keep your eye clear of their For and Against! There is there much right, much wrong: he who looketh on becometh wroth. Therein viewing, therein hewing—they are the same thing: therefore depart into the forests and lay your sword to sleep! Go YOUR ways! and let the people and peoples go theirs!—gloomy ways, verily, on which not a single hope glinteth any more! Let there the trader rule, where all that still glittereth is—traders’ gold. It is the time of kings no longer: that which now calleth itself the people is unworthy of kings. See how these peoples themselves now do just like the traders: they pick up the smallest advantage out of all kinds of rubbish! They lay lures for one another, they lure things out of one another,—that they call “good neighbourliness.” O blessed remote period when a people said to itself: “I will be—MASTER over peoples!” For, my brethren, the best shall rule, the best also WILLETH to rule! And where the teaching is different, there—the best is LACKING. 22. If THEY had—bread for nothing, alas! for what would THEY cry! Their maintainment—that is their true entertainment; and they shall have it hard! Beasts of prey, are they: in their “working”—there is even plundering, in their “earning”—there is even overreaching! Therefore shall they have it hard! Better beasts of prey shall they thus become, subtler, cleverer, MORE MAN-LIKE: for man is the best beast of prey. All the animals hath man already robbed of their virtues: that is why of all animals it hath been hardest for man. Only the birds are still beyond him. And if man should yet learn to fly, alas! TO WHAT HEIGHT—would his rapacity fly! 23. Thus would I have man and woman: fit for war, the one; fit for maternity, the other; both, however, fit for dancing with head and legs. And lost be the day to us in which a measure hath not been danced. And false be every truth which hath not had laughter along with it! 24. Your marriage-arranging: see that it be not a bad ARRANGING! Ye have arranged too hastily: so there FOLLOWETH therefrom—marriage-breaking! And better marriage-breaking than marriage-bending, marriage-lying!—Thus spake a woman unto me: “Indeed, I broke the marriage, but first did the marriage break—me!” The badly paired found I ever the most revengeful: they make every one suffer for it that they no longer run singly. On that account want I the honest ones to say to one another: “We love each other: let us SEE TO IT that we maintain our love! Or shall our pledging be blundering?” —“Give us a set term and a small marriage, that we may see if we are fit for the great marriage! It is a great matter always to be twain.” Thus do I counsel all honest ones; and what would be my love to the Superman, and to all that is to come, if I should counsel and speak otherwise! Not only to propagate yourselves onwards but UPWARDS—thereto, O my brethren, may the garden of marriage help you! 25. He who hath grown wise concerning old origins, lo, he will at last seek after the fountains of the future and new origins.— O my brethren, not long will it be until NEW PEOPLES shall arise and new fountains shall rush down into new depths. For the earthquake—it choketh up many wells, it causeth much languishing: but it bringeth also to light inner powers and secrets. The earthquake discloseth new fountains. In the earthquake of old peoples new fountains burst forth. And whoever calleth out: “Lo, here is a well for many thirsty ones, one heart for many longing ones, one will for many instruments”:—around him collecteth a PEOPLE, that is to say, many attempting ones. Who can command, who must obey—THAT IS THERE ATTEMPTED! Ah, with what long seeking and solving and failing and learning and re-attempting! Human society: it is an attempt—so I teach—a long seeking: it seeketh however the ruler!— —An attempt, my brethren! And NO “contract”! Destroy, I pray you, destroy that word of the soft-hearted and half-and-half! 26. O my brethren! With whom lieth the greatest danger to the whole human future? Is it not with the good and just?— —As those who say and feel in their hearts: “We already know what is good and just, we possess it also; woe to those who still seek thereafter!” And whatever harm the wicked may do, the harm of the good is the harmfulest harm! And whatever harm the world-maligners may do, the harm of the good is the harmfulest harm! O my brethren, into the hearts of the good and just looked some one once on a time, who said: “They are the Pharisees.” But people did not understand him. The good and just themselves were not free to understand him; their spirit was imprisoned in their good conscience. The stupidity of the good is unfathomably wise. It is the truth, however, that the good MUST be Pharisees—they have no choice! The good MUST crucify him who deviseth his own virtue! That IS the truth! The second one, however, who discovered their country—the country, heart and soil of the good and just,—it was he who asked: “Whom do they hate most?” The CREATOR, hate they most, him who breaketh the tables and old values, the breaker,—him they call the law-breaker. For the good—they CANNOT create; they are always the beginning of the end:— —They crucify him who writeth new values on new tables, they sacrifice UNTO THEMSELVES the future—they crucify the whole human future! The good—they have always been the beginning of the end.— 27. O my brethren, have ye also understood this word? And what I once said of the “last man”?— With whom lieth the greatest danger to the whole human future? Is it not with the good and just? BREAK UP, BREAK UP, I PRAY YOU, THE GOOD AND JUST!—O my brethren, have ye understood also this word? 28. Ye flee from me? Ye are frightened? Ye tremble at this word? O my brethren, when I enjoined you to break up the good, and the tables of the good, then only did I embark man on his high seas. And now only cometh unto him the great terror, the great outlook, the great sickness, the great nausea, the great sea-sickness. False shores and false securities did the good teach you; in the lies of the good were ye born and bred. Everything hath been radically contorted and distorted by the good. But he who discovered the country of “man,” discovered also the country of “man’s future.” Now shall ye be sailors for me, brave, patient! Keep yourselves up betimes, my brethren, learn to keep yourselves up! The sea stormeth: many seek to raise themselves again by you. The sea stormeth: all is in the sea. Well! Cheer up! Ye old seaman-hearts! What of fatherland! THITHER striveth our helm where our CHILDREN’S LAND is! Thitherwards, stormier than the sea, stormeth our great longing!— 29. “Why so hard!”—said to the diamond one day the charcoal; “are we then not near relatives?”— Why so soft? O my brethren; thus do I ask you: are ye then not—my brethren? Why so soft, so submissive and yielding? Why is there so much negation and abnegation in your hearts? Why is there so little fate in your looks? And if ye will not be fates and inexorable ones, how can ye one day— conquer with me? And if your hardness will not glance and cut and chip to pieces, how can ye one day—create with me? For the creators are hard. And blessedness must it seem to you to press your hand upon millenniums as upon wax,— —Blessedness to write upon the will of millenniums as upon brass,—harder than brass, nobler than brass. Entirely hard is only the noblest. This new table, O my brethren, put I up over you: BECOME HARD!— 30. O thou, my Will! Thou change of every need, MY needfulness! Preserve me from all small victories! Thou fatedness of my soul, which I call fate! Thou In-me! Over-me! Preserve and spare me for one great fate! And thy last greatness, my Will, spare it for thy last—that thou mayest be inexorable IN thy victory! Ah, who hath not succumbed to his victory! Ah, whose eye hath not bedimmed in this intoxicated twilight! Ah, whose foot hath not faltered and forgotten in victory—how to stand!— —That I may one day be ready and ripe in the great noontide: ready and ripe like the glowing ore, the lightning-bearing cloud, and the swelling milk-udder:— —Ready for myself and for my most hidden Will: a bow eager for its arrow, an arrow eager for its star:— —A star, ready and ripe in its noontide, glowing, pierced, blessed, by annihilating sun-arrows:— —A sun itself, and an inexorable sun-will, ready for annihilation in victory! O Will, thou change of every need, MY needfulness! Spare me for one great victory!—- Thus spake Zarathustra. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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