No More Learning

But they want to be rid of life; what care they


## p. 51 (#125) #############################################

IX. —THE PREACHERS OF DEATH. 51
if they bind others still faster with their chains
and gifts! —
And ye also, to whom life is rough labour and
disquiet, are ye not very tired of life? Are ye not
very ripe for the sermon of death?
All ye to whom rough labour is dear, and the
rapid, new, and strange—ye put up with yourselves
badly; your diligence is flight, and the will to self-
forgetfulness.
If ye believed more in life, then would ye devote
yourselves less to the momentary. But for waiting,
ye have not enough of capacity in you—nor even
for idling!
Everywhere resoundeth the voice of those who
preach death; and the earth is full of those to
whom death hath to be preached.
Or "life eternal"; it is all the same to me—if
only they pass away quickly ! —
Thus spake Zarathustra.
X. —WAR AND WARRIORS.
By our best enemies we do not want to be spared,
nor by those either whom we love from the very
heart. So let me tell you the truth!
My brethren in war! I love you from the very
heart. I am, and was ever, your counterpart. And
I am also your best enemy So let me tell you the
truth!
I know the hatred and envy of your hearts. Ye
are not great enough not to know of hatred and
envy. Then be great enough not to be ashamed
of them!
s


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52 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, I.
And if ye cannot be saints of knowledge, then,
I pray you, be at least its warriors. They are the
companions and forerunners of such saintship.
I see many soldiers; could I but see many
warriors ! " Uniform " one calleth what they wear;
may it not be uniform what they therewith
hide!
Ye shall be those whose eyes ever seek for an
enemy—for your enemy. And with some of you
there is hatred at first sight.
Your enemy shall ye seek; your war shall ye
wage, and for the sake of your thoughts! And
if your thoughts succumb, your uprightness shall
still shout triumph thereby!
Ye shall love peace as a means to new wars—
and the short peace more than the long.
You I advise not to work, but to fight. You I
advise not to peace, but to victory. Let your work
be a fight, let your peace be a victory!
One can only be silent and sit peacefully when
one hath arrow and bow; otherwise one prateth
and quarrelleth. Let your peace be a victory!
Ye say it is the good cause which halloweth even
war? I say unto you: it is the good war which
halloweth every cause.
War and courage have done more great things
than charity. Not your sympathy, but your bravery
hath hitherto saved the victims.
"What is good ? " ye ask. To be brave is good.
Let the little girls say: "To be good is what is
pretty, and at the same time touching. "
They call you heartless: but your heart is true,
and I love the bashfulness of your goodwill. Ye



## p. 53 (#127) #############################################

X. —WAR AND WARRIORS. 53
are ashamed of your flow, and others are ashamed
of their ebb.
Ye are ugly? Well then, my brethren, take the
sublime about you, the mantle of the ugly!
And when your soul becometh great, then doth
it become haughty, and in your sublimity there is
wickedness. I know you.
In wickedness the haughty man and the weakling
meet. But they misunderstand one another. I
know you.
Ye shall only have enemies to be hated, but not
enemies to be despised. Ye must be proud of your
enemies; then, the successes of your enemies are
also your successes.
Resistance—that is the distinction of the slave.
Let your distinction be obedience. Let your com-
manding itself be obeying!
To the good warrior soundeth "thou shalt"
pleasanter than " I will. " And all that is dear unto
you, ye shall first have it commanded unto you.
Let your love to life be love to your highest hope;
and let your highest hope be the highest thought
of life!
Your highest thought, however, ye shall have it
commanded unto you by me—and it is this: man
is something that is to be surpassed.
So live your life of obedience and of war! What
matter about long life! What warrior wisheth to
be spared!
I spare you not, I love you from my very heart,
my brethren in war! —
Thus spake Zarathustra,


## p. 54 (#128) #############################################

54 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, I.
XI. —THE NEW IDOL.
Somewhere there are still peoples and herds, but
not with us, my brethren: here there are states.
A state? What is that? Well! open now your
ears unto me, for now will I say unto you my word
concerning the death of peoples.
A state, is called the coldest of all cold monsters.
Coldly lieth it also; and this lie creepeth from its
mouth: "I, the state, am the people. "
It is a lie! Creators were they who created
peoples, and hung a faith and a love over them:
thus they served life.
Destroyers, are they who lay snares for many,
and call it the state: they hang a sword and a
hundred cravings over them.
Where there is still a people, there the state is
not understood, but hated as the evil eye, and as
sin against laws and customs.
This sign I give unto you: every people speaketh
its language of good and evil: this its neighbour
understandeth not. Its language hath it devised
for itself in laws and customs.
But the state lieth in all languages of good and
evil; and whatever it saith it lieth; and whatever
it hath it hath stolen.
False is everything in it; with stolen teeth it
biteth, the biting one. False are even its bowels.
Confusion of language of good and evil; this
sign I give unto you as the sign of the state. Verily,
the will to death, indicateth this sign! Verily, it
beckoneth unto the preachers of death!


## p. 55 (#129) #############################################

XI. —THE NEW IDOL. 55
Many too many are born: for the superfluous
ones was the state devised!
See just how it enticeth them to it, the many-too-
many! How it swalloweth and cheweth and re-
cheweth them!
"On earth there is nothing greater than I : it is
I who am the regulating finger of God"—thus
roareth the monster. And not only the long-eared
and short-sighted fall upon their knees!
Ah! even in your ears, ye great souls, it
whispereth its gloomy lies! Ah! it findeth out
the rich hearts which willingly lavish themselves!
Yea, it findeth you out too, ye conquerors of the
old God! Weary ye became of the conflict, and
now your weariness serveth the new idol!
Heroes and honourable ones, it would fain set up
around it, the new idol! Gladly it basketh in the
sunshine of good consciences,—the cold monster!
Everything will it give you, if ye worship it, the
new idol: thus it purchaseth the lustre of your
virtue, and the glance of your proud eyes.
It seeketh to allure by means of you, the many-
too-many! Yea, a hellish artifice hath here been
devised, a death-horse jingling with the trappings
of divine honours!
Yea, a dying for many hath here been devised,
which glorifieth itself as life: verily, a hearty
service unto all preachers of death!
The state, I call it, where all are poison-drinkers,
the good and the bad: the state, where all lose
themselves, the good and the bad: the state, where
the slow suicide of all—is called "life. "
Just see these superfluous ones! They steal the


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56 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, I.
works of the inventors and the treasures of the
wise. Culture, they call their theft—and everything
becometh sickness and trouble unto them!
Just see these superfluous ones! Sick are they
always; they vomit their bile and call it a news-
paper. They devour one another, and cannot even
digest themselves.
Just see these superfluous ones! Wealth they
acquire and become poorer thereby. Power they
seek for, and above all, the lever of power, much
money—these impotent ones!
See them clamber, these nimble apes! They
clamber over one another, and thus scuffle into the
mud and the abyss.
Towards the throne they all strive: it is their
madness—as if happiness sat on the throne! Oft-
times sitteth filth on the throne,—and ofttimes also
the throne on filth.
Madmen they all seem to me, and clambering
apes, and too eager. Badly smelleth their idol to
me, the cold monster: badly they all smell to me,
these idolaters.
My brethren, will ye suffocate in the fumes of
their maws and appetites! Better break the
windows and jump into the open air!
Do go out of the way of the bad odour! With-
draw from the idolatry of the superfluous!
Do go out of the way of the bad odour! With-
draw from the steam of these human sacrifices!
Open still remaineth the earth for great souls.
Empty are still many sites for lone ones and twain
ones, around which floateth the odour of tranquil
seas.


## p. 57 (#131) #############################################

XI. -THE NEW IDOL.
57
Open still remaineth a free life for great souls.
Verily, he who possesseth little is so much the less
possessed : blessed be moderate poverty!
There, where the state ceaseth-there only com-
menceth the man who is not superfluous: there
commenceth the song of the necessary ones, the
single and irreplaceable melody.
There, where the state ceaseth-pray look thither,
my brethren! Do ye not see it, the rainbow and
the bridges of the Superman ? —
Thus spake Zarathustra.
XII. —THE FLIES IN THE MARKET-
PLACE.
Flee, my friend, into thy solitude! I see thee
deafened with the noise of the great men, and stung
all over with the stings of the little ones.
Admirably do forest and rock know how to be
silent with thee. Resemble again the tree which
thou lovest, the broad-branched one-silently and
attentively it o'erhangeth the sea.
Where solitude endeth, there beginneth the
market-place; and where the market-place begin-
neth, there beginneth also the noise of the great
actors, and the buzzing of the poison-flies.
In the world even the best things are worthless
without those who represent them: those repre-
senters, the people call great men.
Little do the people understand what is great,
that is to say, the creating agency. But they have a
taste for all representers and actors of great things.


## p. 58 (#132) #############################################

58 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, I.
Around the devisers of new values revolveth the
world :—invisibly it revolveth. But around the
actors revolve the people and the glory: such is
the course of things.
Spirit, hath the actor, but little conscience of the
spirit. He believeth always in that wherewith he
maketh believe most strongly—in himself!
To-morrow he hath a new belief, and the day
after, one still newer. Sharp perceptions hath he,
like the people, and changeable humours.
To upset—that meaneth with him to prove. To
drive mad—that meaneth with him to convince.
And blood is counted by him as the best of all
arguments.
A truth which only glideth into fine ears, he calleth
falsehood and trumpery. Verily, he believeth only
in gods that make a great noise in the world!
Full of clattering buffoons is the market-place,
—and the people glory in their great men! These
are for them the masters of the hour.
But the hour presseth them; so they press thee.
And also from thee they want Yea or Nay. Alas!
thou wouldst set thy chair betwixt For and
Against?
On account of those absolute and impatient ones,
be not jealous, thou lover of truth! Never yet
did truth cling to the arm of an absolute one.
On account of those abrupt ones, return into thy
security: only in the market-place is one assailed
by Yea? or Nay?
Slow is the experience of all deep fountains:
long have they to wait until they know what hath
fallen into their depths,


## p. 59 (#133) #############################################

XII. —THE FLIES IN THE MARKET-PLACE. 59
Away from the market-place and from fame
taketh place all that is great: away from the
market-place and from fame have ever dwelt the
devisers of new values.
Flee, my friend, into thy solitude: I see thee
stung all over by the poisonous flies. Flee thither,
where a rough, strong breeze bloweth!
Flee into thy solitude! Thou hast lived too
closely to the small and the pitiable. Flee from
their invisible vengeance! Towards thee they have
nothing but vengeance.
Raise no longer an arm against them! Innumer-
able are they, and it is not thy lot to be a fly-flap.
Innumerable are the small and pitiable ones;
and of many a proud structure, rain-drops and
weeds have been the ruin.
Thou art not stone; but already hast thou
become hollow by the numerous drops. Thou wilt
yet break and burst by the numerous drops.
Exhausted I see thee, by poisonous flies; bleed-
ing I see thee, and torn at a hundred spots; and
thy pride will not even upbraid.
Blood they would have from thee in all innocence;
blood their bloodless souls crave for—and they
sting, therefore, in all innocence.
But thou, profound one, thou sufferest too pro-
foundly even from small wounds; and ere thou
hadst recovered, the same poison-worm crawled
over thy hand.
Too proud art thou to kill these sweet-tooths.
But take care lest it be thy fate to suffer all their
poisonous injustice!
They buzz around thee also with their praise;


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60 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, I.
obtrusiveness, is their praise. They want to be
close to thy skin and thy blood.
They flatter thee, as one flattereth a God or devil;
they whimper before thee, as before a God or devil.
What doth it come to! Flatterers are they, and
whimperers, and nothing more.
Often, also, do they show themselves to thee as
amiable ones. But that hath ever been the prudence
of the cowardly. Yea! the cowardly are wise!
They think much about thee with their circum-
scribed souls—thou art always suspected by them!
Whatever is much thought about is at last thought
suspicious.
They punish thee for all thy virtues. They
pardon thee in their inmost hearts only—for thine
errors.
Because thou art gentle and of upright character,
thou sayest: "Blameless are they for their small
existence. " But their circumscribed souls think:
"Blamable is all great existence. "
Even when thou art gentle towards them, they
still feel themselves despised by thee; and they
repay thy beneficence with secret maleficence.
Thy silent pride is always counter to their taste;
they rejoice if once thou be humble enough to be
frivolous.
What we recognise in a man, we also irritate in
him. Therefore be on your guard against the
small ones!
In thy presence they feel themselves small, and
their baseness gleameth and gloweth against thee
in invisible vengeance.
Sawest thou not how often they became dumb


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XII. —THE FLIES IN THE MARKET-PLACE. 6l
when thou approachedst them, and how their energy
left them like the smoke of an extinguishing fire?
Yea, my friend, the bad conscience art thou of
thy neighbours; for they are unworthy of thee.
Therefore they hate thee, and would fain suck thy
blood.
Thy neighbours will always be poisonous flies;
what is great in thee—that itself must make them
more poisonous, and always more fly-like.
Flee, my friend, into thy solitude—and thither,
where a rough strong breeze bloweth. It is not thy
lot to be a fly-flap. —
Thus spake Zarathustra.
XIII. —CHASTITY.
I love the forest. It is bad to live in cities:
there, there are too many of the lustful.
Is it not better to fall into the hands of a
murderer, than into the dreams of a lustful woman?
And just look at these men: their eye saith it—
they know nothing better on earth than to lie with
a woman.
Filth is at the bottom of their souls; and alas!
if their filth hath still spirit in it!
Would that ye were perfect—at least as animals!
But to animals belongeth innocence.
Do I counsel you to slay your instincts? I
counsel you to innocence in your instincts.
Do I counsel you to chastity? Chastity is a
virtue with some, but with many almost a vice.
These are continent, to be sure: but doggish lust
looketh enviously out of all that they do.



## p. 62 (#136) #############################################

62
THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, I.
Even into the heights of their virtue and into
their cold spirit doth this creature follow them,
with its discord.
And how nicely can doggish lust beg for a piece
of spirit, when a piece of flesh is denied it !
Ye love tragedies and all that breaketh the heart?
But I am distrustful of your doggish lust.
Ye have too cruel eyes, and ye look wantonly
towards the sufferers. Hath not your lust just
disguised itself and taken the name of fellow-
suffering ?
And also this parable give I unto you: Not a
few who meant to cast out their devil, went thereby
into the swine themselves.
To whom chastity is difficult, it is to be dissuaded :
lest it become the road to hell—to filth and lust
of soul.
Do I speak of filthy things? That is not the
worst thing for me to do.
Not when the truth is filthy, but when it is
shallow, doth the discerning one go unwillingly
into its waters.
Verily, there are chaste ones from their very
nature; they are gentler of heart, and laugh better
and oftener than you.
They laugh also at chastity, and ask: “What is
chastity?
Is chastity not folly? But the folly came unto
us, and not we unto it.
We offered that guest harbour and heart: now it
dwelleth with us-let it stay as long as it will! ”-
Thus spake Zarathustra.


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XIV. —THE FRIEND. 63
XIV. —THE FRIEND.
"One, is always too many about me "—thinketh
the anchorite. "Always once one—that maketh
two in the long run! "
I and me are always too earnestly in conversa-
tion: how could it be endured, if there were not a
friend?
The friend of the anchorite is always the third
one: the third one is the cork which preventeth
the conversation of the two sinking into the depth.
Ah! there are too many depths for all anchorites.
Therefore, do they long so much for a friend, and
for his elevation.
Our faith in others betrayeth wherein we would
fain have faith in ourselves. Our longing for a
friend is our betrayer.
And often with our love we want merely to
overleap envy. And often we attack and make
ourselves enemies, to conceal that we are vulnerable.
"Be at least mine enemy ! "—thus speaketh the
true reverence, which doth not venture to solicit
friendship.
If one would have a friend, then must one also
be willing to wage war for him: and in order to
wage war, one must be capable of being an enemy.
One ought still to honour the enemy in one's
friend. Canst thou go nigh unto thy friend, and
not go over to him?
In one's friend one shall have one's best enemy.
Thou shalt be closest unto him with thy heart
when thou withstandest him.
S


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64
THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, I.
Thou wouldst wear no raiment before thy friend ?
It is in honour of thy friend that thou showest
thyself to him as thou art ? But he wisheth thee
to the devil on that account !
He who maketh no secret of himself shocketh :
so much reason have ye to fear nakedness! Aye,
if ye were Gods, ye could then be ashamed of
clothing !
Thou canst not adorn thyself fine enough for thy
friend ; for thou shalt be unto him an arrow and a
longing for the Superman.
Sawest thou ever thy friend asleep-to know
how he looketh? What is usually the countenance
of thy friend ? It is thine own countenance, in a
coarse and imperfect mirror.
Sawest thou ever thy friend asleep? Wert thou
not dismayed at thy friend looking so? O my
friend, man is something that hath to be surpassed.
In divining and keeping silence shall the friend
be a master : not everything must thou wish to
see. Thy dream shall disclose unto thee what thy
friend doeth when awake.
Let thy pity be a divining: to know first if thy
friend wanteth pity. Perhaps he loveth in thee the
unmoved eye, and the look of eternity.
Let thy pity for thy friend be hid under a hard
shell; thou shalt bite out a tooth upon it. Thus
will it have delicacy and sweetness.
Art thou pure air and solitude and bread and
medicine to thy friend ? Many a one cannot loosen
his own fetters, but is nevertheless his friend's
emancipator.
Art thou a slave? Then thou canst not be a


## p. 65 (#139) #############################################

XIV. —THE FRIEND. 65
friend. Art thou a tyrant? Then thou canst not
have friends.
Far too long hath there been a slave and a tyrant
concealed in woman. On that account woman is not
yet capable of friendship: she knoweth only love.
In woman's love there is injustice and blindness
to all she doth not love. And even in woman's
conscious love, there is still always surprise and
lightning and night, along with the light.
As yet woman is not capable of friendship:
women are still cats, and birds. Or at the best,
cows.
As yet woman is not capable of friendship.
But tell me, ye men, who of you are capable of
friendship?
Oh! your poverty, ye men, and your sordidness
of soul! As much as ye give to your friend, will
I give even to my foe, and will not have become
poorer thereby.
There is comradeship: may there be friendship!
Thus spake Zarathustra.
XV—THE THOUSAND AND ONE GOALS.
Many lands saw Zarathustra, and many peoples:
thus he discovered the good and bad of many
peoples. No greater power did Zarathustra find
on earth than good and bad.
No people could live without first valuing; if
a people will maintain itself, however, it must not
value as its neighbour valueth.
Much that passed for good with one people was
E


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66 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, I.
regarded with scorn and contempt by another:
thus I found it. Much found I here called bad.
which was there decked with purple honours.
Never did the one neighbour understand the
other: ever did his soul marvel at his neighbour's
delusion and wickedness.
A table of excellencies hangeth over every
people. Lo! it is the table of their triumphs; lo!
it is the voice of their Will to Power.
It is laudable, what they think hard; what is
indispensable and hard they call good; and what
relieveth in the direst distress, the unique and
hardest of all,—they extol as holy.
Whatever maketh them rule and conquer and
shine, to the dismay and envy of their neighbours,
they regard as the high and foremost thing, the
test and the meaning of all else.
Verily, my brother, if thou knewest but a people's
need, its land, its sky, and its neighbour, then
wouldst thou divine the law of its surmountings,
and why it climbeth up that ladder to its hope.
"Always shalt thou be the foremost and pro-
minent above others: no one shall thy jealous soul
love, except a friend "—that made the soul of a
Greek thrill: thereby went he his way to greatness.
"To speak truth, and be skilful with bow and
arrow"—so seemed it alike pleasing and hard
to the people from whom cometh my name—the
name which is alike pleasing and hard to me.
"To honour father and mother, and from the
root of the soul to do their will"—this table of
surmounting hung another people over them, and
became powerful and permanent thereby.


## p. 67 (#141) #############################################

XV. —THE THOUSAND AND ONE GOALS. 67
"To have fidelity, and for the sake of fidelity
to risk honour and blood, even in evil and
dangerous courses"—teaching itself so, another
people mastered itself, and thus mastering itself,
became pregnant and heavy with great hopes.
Verily, men have given unto themselves all
their good and bad. Verily, they took it not, they
found it not, it came not unto them as a voice from
heaven.
Values did man only assign to things in order
to maintain himself—he created only the signifi-
cance of things, a human significance! Therefore,
calleth he himself " man," that is, the valuator.
Valuing is creating: hear it, ye creating ones!
Valuation itself is the treasure and jewel of the
valued things.
Through valuation only is there value; and
without valuation the nut of existence would be
hollow. Hear it, ye creating ones!
Change of values—that is, change of the creating
ones. Always doth he destroy who hath to be a
creator.
Creating ones were first of all peoples, and only
in late times individuals; verily, the individual
himself is still the latest creation.
Peoples once hung over them tables of the good.
Love which would rule and love which would obey,
created for themselves such tables.
Older is the pleasure in the herd than the
pleasure in the ego: and as long as the good
conscience is for the herd, the bad conscience only
saith: ego.
Verily, the crafty ego, the loveless one, that


## p. 68 (#142) #############################################

66 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, I.
regarded with scorn and contempt by another:
thus I found it. Much found I here called bad,
which was there decked with purple honours.
Never did the one neighbour understand the
other: ever did his soul marvel at his neighbour's
delusion and wickedness.
A table of excellencies hangeth over every
people. Lo! it is the table of their triumphs; lo!
it is the voice of their Will to Power.
It is laudable, what they think hard; what is
indispensable and hard they call good; and what
relieveth in the direst distress, the unique and
hardest of all,—they extol as holy.
Whatever maketh them rule and conquer and
shine, to the dismay and envy of their neighbours,
they regard as the high and foremost thing, the
test and the meaning of all else.
Verily, my brother, if thou knewest but a people's
need, its land, its sky, and its neighbour, then
wouldst thou divine the law of its surmountings,
and why it climbeth up that ladder to its hope.
"Always shalt thou be the foremost and pro-
minent above others: no one shall thy jealous soul
love, except a friend "—that made the soul of a
Greek thrill: thereby went he his way to greatness.
"To speak truth, and be skilful with bow and
arrow"—so seemed it alike pleasing and hard
to the' people from whom cometh my name—the
name which is alike pleasing and hard to me.
"To honour father and mother, and from the
root of the soul to do their will"—this table of
surmounting hung another people over them, and
became powerful and permanent thereby.
*


## p. 69 (#143) #############################################

XV. -1HE THOOSABD AHi OK COA^. fr
ve
ot
DU
Ot
ad
ir-
69
an
«To have fideUty, and for the sac a iasiq
to risk honour and blood, evo z. en. at do
dangerous courses "-teaching rats iz. ssoaer d
people mastered itself, and thus maSCTg aer to
became pregnant and heavy with greaz acoes
Verily, men have given unto taenserres al
their good and bad. Verily, they look it«. Sty ^
found it not, it came not unto them as a voej rai
heaven.
Values did man only assign to tings - aoer
to maintain himself—be created only *je sagisaV
cance of things, a human significance! ThereER.
calleth he himself" man," that is. the viator.
Valuing is creating: hear it, ye creacmg as!