"I teach you theoverman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have youdone to overcome him?
All beings so far have createdsomething beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of thisgreat flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcomeman? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painfulembarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman: alaughingstock or a painful embarrassment...
Behold, I teach you the overman. Theoverman is the meaning of the earth.Let your will say: the overmanshall be the meaning of the earth! I beseech you, mybrothers, remain faithful to the earth, and do not believethose who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! Poison-mixers arethey, whether they know it or not. Despisers of life are they,decaying and poisoned themselves, of whom the earth is weary: solet them go.
Once the sin against God was thegreatest sin; but God died, and these sinners died with him. To sinagainst the earth is now the most dreadful thing, and to esteem theentrails of the unknowable higher than the meaning of theearth...
What is the greatest experience youcan have? It is the hour of the great contempt. The hour when yourhappiness, too, arouses your disgust, and even your reason and yourvirtue.
The hour when you say, 'What mattersmy happiness? It is poverty and filth and wretched contentment. Butmy happiness ought to justify existence itself.'
The hour when you say, 'What mattersmy reason? Does it crave knowledge as the lion his food? It ispoverty and filth and wretched contentment.'
The hour when you say, 'What mattersmy virtue? As yet it has not made me rage. How weary I am of mygood and my evil! All that is poverty and filth and wretchedcontentment.'
"Man is a rope,tied between beast and overman--a rope over an abyss...
What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end: whatcan be loved in man is that he is an overture and a goingunder...
"I say unto you: onemust still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to adancing star. I say unto you: you still have chaos inyourselves.
Alas, the time is coming when manwill no longer give birth to a star. Alas, the time of the mostdespicable man is coming, he that is no longer able to despisehimself. Behold, I show you the last man.
'What is love? What is creation? Whatis longing? What is a star?' thus asks the last man, andblinks.
The earth has become small, and on ithops the last man, who makes everything small. His race is asineradicable as the flea; the last man lives longest.
'We have invented happiness,'say thelast men, and they blink. They have left the regions where it washard to live, for one needs warmth. One still loves one's neighborand rubs against him, for one needs warmth...
One still works, for work is a formof entertainment. But one is careful lest the entertainment be tooharrowing. One no longer becomes poor or rich: both require toomuch exertion. Who still wants to rule? Who obey? Both require toomuch exertion.
No shepherd and one herd! Everybodywants the same, everybody is the same: whoever feels different goesvoluntarily into a madhouse.
'Formerly, all the world was mad,'say the most refined, and they blink...
One has one's little pleasure for theday and one's little pleasure for the night: but one has a regardfor health.
'We have invented happiness,' say thelast men, and they blink."
from Nietzsche's Thus spoke Zarathustra,p.3,4,5, Walter Kaufmann transl.
ON THE THREE METAMORPHOSES OF THESPIRIT
Of the threemetamorphoses of the spirit I tell you: how the spirit becomes acamel; and the camel, a lion; and the lion, finally, a child.
There is much that is difficult forthe spirit, the strong, reverent spirit that would bear much: butthe difficult and the most difficult are what its strengthdemands.
What is difficult? asks the spiritthat would bear much, and kneels down like a camel wanting to bewell loaded. What is most difficult, O heroes, asks the spirit thatwould bear much, that I may take it upon myself and exult in mystrength? Is it not humbling oneself to wound one's haughtiness?Letting one's folly shine to mock one's wisdom?...
Or is it this: stepping into filthywaters when they are the waters of truth, and not repulsing coldfrogs and hot toads?
Or is it this: loving those thatdespise us and offering a hand to the ghost that would frightenus?
All these most difficult things thespirit that would bear much takes upon itself: like the camel that,burdened, speeds into the desert, thus the spirit speeds into itsdesert.
In the loneliest desert, however, thesecond metamorphosis occurs: here the spirit becomes a lion whowould conquer his freedom and be master in his own desert. Here heseeks out his last master: he wants to fight him and his last god;for ultimate victory he wants to fight with the great dragon.
Who is the great dragon whom thespirit will no longer call lord and god? "Thou shalt" is the nameof the great dragon. But the spirit of the lion says, "I will.""Thou shalt" lies in his way, sparkling like gold, an animalcovered with scales; and on every scale shines a golden "thoushalt."
Values, thousands of years old, shineon these scales; and thus speaks the mightiest of all dragons: "Allvalue has long been created, and I am all created value. Verily,there shall be no more 'I will.'" Thus speaks the dragon.
My brothers, why is there a need inthe spirit for the lion? Why is not the beast of burden, whichrenounces and is reverent, enough?
To create new values -- that even thelion cannot do; but the creation of freedom for oneself and asacred "No" even to duty -- for that, my brothers, the lion isneeded. To assume the right to new values -- that is the mostterrifying assumption for a reverent spirit that would bear much.Verily, to him it is preying, and a matter for a beast of prey. Heonce loved "thou shalt" as most sacred: now he must find illusionand caprice even in the most sacred, that freedom from his love maybecome his prey: the lion is needed for such prey.
But say, my brothers, what can thechild do that even the lion could not do? Why must the preying lionstill become a child? The child is innocence and forgetting, a newbeginning, a game, a self-propelled wheel, a first movement, asacred "Yes." For the game of creation, my brothers, a sacred "Yes"is needed: the spirit now wills his own will, and he who had beenlost to the world now conquers the world.
from Nietzsche's Thus spoke Zarathustra, partI, Walter Kaufmann transl.
