Thus Spake Zarathustra — Friedrich Nietzsche

Thus Spake Zarathustra

Friedrich Nietzsche · License: Public domain · Source

• Archaic spelling and punctuation usages have not been changed. I particular quotations are often not closed for several paragraphs. ¶7
• II. The Academic Chairs of Virtue. ¶16
• IV. The Despisers of the Body. ¶18
• XII. The Flies in the Market-place. ¶26
• XV. The Thousand and One Goals. ¶29
• XVII. The Way of the Creating One. ¶31
• XXIII. The Child with the Mirror. ¶38
• XXXVII. Immaculate Perception. ¶52
• XLVI. The Vision and the Enigma. ¶62
• LXXIV. The Song of Melancholy. ¶91
• LXXVI. Among Daughters of the Desert. ¶93
• Notes on "Thus Spake Zarathustra" by Anthony M. Ludovici. ¶99
• "How can one praise and glorify a nation as a whole?--Even among the Greeks, it was the INDIVIDUALS that counted." ¶104
• "The Greeks are interesting and extremely important because they reared such a vast number of great individuals. How was this possible? The question is one which ought to be studied. ¶105
• "I am interested only in the relations of a people to the rearing of the individual man, and among the Greeks the conditions were unusually favourable for the development of the individual; not by any means owing to the goodness of the people, but because of the struggles of their evil instincts. ¶106
• "WITH THE HELP OF FAVOURABLE MEASURES GREAT INDIVIDUALS MIGHT BE REARED WHO WOULD BE BOTH DIFFERENT FROM AND HIGHER THAN THOSE WHO HERETOFORE HAVE OWED THEIR EXISTENCE TO MERE CHANCE. Here we may still be hopeful: in the rearing of exceptional men." ¶107
• "Never yet hath there been a Superman. Naked have I seen both of them, the greatest and the smallest man:-- ¶109
• All-too-similar are they still to each other. Verily even the greatest found I--all-too-human!"-- ¶110
• During the month of August 1881 my brother resolved to reveal the teaching of the Eternal Recurrence, in dithyrambic and psalmodic form, through the mouth of Zarathustra. Among the notes of this period, we found a page on which is written the first definite plan of "Thus Spake Zarathustra":-- ¶120
• "GUIDE-POSTS TO A NEW WAY OF LIVING." ¶122
• "Zarathustra born on lake Urmi; left his home in his thirtieth year, went into the province of Aria, and, during ten years of solitude in the mountains, composed the Zend-Avesta." ¶124
• "The sun of knowledge stands once more at midday; and the serpent of eternity lies coiled in its light--: It is YOUR time, ye midday brethren." ¶125
• The first part of "Zarathustra" was written in about ten days--that is to say, from the beginning to about the middle of February 1883. "The last lines were written precisely in the hallowed hour when Richard Wagner gave up the ghost in Venice." ¶129
• When Zarathustra was thirty years old, he left his home and the lake of his home, and went into the mountains. There he enjoyed his spirit and solitude, and for ten years did not weary of it. But at last his heart changed,--and rising one morning with the rosy dawn, he went before the sun, and spake thus unto it: ¶145
• Thou great star! What would be thy happiness if thou hadst not those for whom thou shinest! ¶146
• For ten years hast thou climbed hither unto my cave: thou wouldst have wearied of thy light and of the journey, had it not been for me, mine eagle, and my serpent. ¶147
• But we awaited thee every morning, took from thee thine overflow and blessed thee for it. ¶148
• Lo! I am weary of my wisdom, like the bee that hath gathered too much honey; I need hands outstretched to take it. ¶149
• I would fain bestow and distribute, until the wise have once more become joyous in their folly, and the poor happy in their riches. ¶150
• Therefore must I descend into the deep: as thou doest in the evening, when thou goest behind the sea, and givest light also to the nether-world, thou exuberant star! ¶151

Next →Books of sayings