Thus Spake Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche [top fiction books of all time .TXT] 📗

powerful soul, to which the high body appertaineth, the handsome, triumphing, refreshing body, around which everything becometh a mirror:

—The pliant, persuasive body, the dancer, whose symbol and epitome is the self-enjoying soul. Of such bodies and souls the self-enjoyment calleth itself “virtue.”

With its words of good and bad doth such self-enjoyment shelter itself as with sacred groves; with the names of its happiness doth it banish from itself everything contemptible.

Away from itself doth it banish everything cowardly; it saith: “Bad⁠—that is cowardly!” Contemptible seem to it the ever-solicitous, the sighing, the complaining, and whoever pick up the most trifling advantage.

It despiseth also all bittersweet wisdom: for verily, there is also wisdom that bloometh in the dark, a nightshade wisdom, which ever sigheth: “All is vain!”

Shy distrust is regarded by it as base, and everyone who wanteth oaths instead of looks and hands: also all over-distrustful wisdom⁠—for such is the mode of cowardly souls.

Baser still it regardeth the obsequious, doggish one, who immediately lieth on his back, the submissive one; and there is also wisdom that is submissive, and doggish, and pious, and obsequious.

Hateful to it altogether, and a loathing, is he who will never defend himself, he who swalloweth down poisonous spittle and bad looks, the all-too-patient one, the all-endurer, the all-satisfied one: for that is the mode of slaves.

Whether they be servile before Gods and divine spurnings, or before men and stupid human opinions: at all kinds of slaves doth it spit, this blessed selfishness!

Bad: thus doth it call all that is spirit-broken, and sordidly-servile⁠—constrained, blinking eyes, depressed hearts, and the false submissive style, which kisseth with broad cowardly lips.

And spurious wisdom: so doth it call all the wit that slaves, and hoary-headed and weary ones affect; and especially all the cunning, spurious-witted, curious-witted foolishness of priests!

The spurious wise, however, all the priests, the world-weary, and those whose souls are of feminine and servile nature⁠—oh, how hath their game all along abused selfishness!

And precisely that was to be virtue and was to be called virtue⁠—to abuse selfishness! And “selfless”⁠—so did they wish themselves with good reason, all those world-weary cowards and cross-spiders!

But to all those cometh now the day, the change, the sword of judgment, the great noontide: then shall many things be revealed!

And he who proclaimeth the ego wholesome and holy, and selfishness blessed, verily, he, the prognosticator, speaketh also what he knoweth: “Behold, it cometh, it is nigh, the great noontide!”

Thus spake Zarathustra.

LV The Spirit of Gravity I

My mouthpiece⁠—is of the people: too coarsely and cordially do I talk for Angora rabbits. And still stranger soundeth my word unto all ink-fish and pen-foxes.

My hand⁠—is a fool’s hand: woe unto all tables and walls, and whatever hath room for fool’s sketching, fool’s scrawling!

My foot⁠—is a horse-foot; therewith do I trample and trot over stick and stone, in the fields up and down, and am bedevilled with delight in all fast racing.

My stomach⁠—is surely an eagle’s stomach? For it preferreth lamb’s flesh. Certainly it is a bird’s stomach.

Nourished with innocent things, and with few, ready and impatient to fly, to fly away⁠—that is now my nature: why should there not be something of bird-nature therein!

And especially that I am hostile to the spirit of gravity, that is bird-nature:⁠—verily, deadly hostile, supremely hostile, originally hostile! Oh, whither hath my hostility not flown and misflown!

Thereof could I sing a song⁠—and will sing it: though I be alone in an empty house, and must sing it to mine own ears.

Other singers are there, to be sure, to whom only the full house maketh the voice soft, the hand eloquent, the eye expressive, the heart wakeful:⁠—those do I not resemble.⁠—

II

He who one day teacheth men to fly will have shifted all landmarks; to him will all landmarks themselves fly into the air; the earth will he christen anew⁠—as “the light body.”

The ostrich runneth faster than the fastest horse, but it also thrusteth its head heavily into the heavy earth: thus is it with the man who cannot yet fly.

Heavy unto him are earth and life, and so willeth the spirit of gravity! But he who would become light, and be a bird, must love himself:⁠—thus do I teach.

Not, to be sure, with the love of the sick and infected, for with them stinketh even self-love!

One must learn to love oneself⁠—thus do I teach⁠—with a wholesome and healthy love: that one may endure to be with oneself, and not go roving about.

Such roving about christeneth itself “brotherly love”; with these words hath there hitherto been the best lying and dissembling, and especially by those who have been burdensome to everyone.

And verily, it is no commandment for today and tomorrow to learn to love oneself. Rather is it of all arts the finest, subtlest, last and patientest.

For to its possessor is all possession well concealed, and of all treasure-pits one’s own is last excavated⁠—so causeth the spirit of gravity.

Almost in the cradle are we apportioned with heavy words and worths: “good” and “evil”⁠—so calleth itself this dowry. For the sake of it we are forgiven for living.

And therefore suffereth one little children to come unto one, to forbid them betimes to love themselves⁠—so causeth the spirit of gravity.

And we⁠—we bear loyally what is apportioned unto us, on hard shoulders, over rugged mountains! And when we sweat, then do people say to us: “Yea, life is hard to bear!”

But man himself only is hard to bear! The reason thereof is that he carrieth too many extraneous things on his shoulders. Like the camel kneeleth he down, and letteth himself be well laden.

Especially the strong load-bearing man in whom reverence resideth. Too many extraneous heavy words and worths loadeth he upon himself⁠—then seemeth life to him a desert!

And verily! Many a thing also that is our own is hard to bear! And many internal things in man are like the oyster⁠—repulsive and slippery and hard to grasp;⁠—

So that an elegant shell, with elegant adornment, must plead