Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 515

Many too many are born: for the superfluous ones was the state devised!

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 2602

—For a divine table is the earth, and trembling with new creative dictums and dice-casts of the Gods:

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 325

“Body am I, and soul”—so saith the child. And why should one not speak like children?

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 103

I TEACH YOU THE SUPERMAN. Man is something that is to be surpassed. What have ye done to surpass man?

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 2716

What have I just heard? answered Zarathustra. What wisdom in kings! I am enchanted, and verily, I have already promptings to make a rhyme thereon:—

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 8

The notion of rearing the Superman is only a new form of an ideal Nietzsche already had in his youth, that “THE OBJECT OF MANKIND SHOULD LIE IN ITS HIGHEST INDIVIDUALS” (or, as he writes in “Schopenhauer as Educator”: “Mankind ought constantly to be striving to produce great men—this and nothing else is its duty.”) But the ideals he most revered in those days are no longer held to be the highest types of men. No, around this future ideal of a coming humanity—the Superman—the poet spread the veil of becoming. Who can tell to what glorious heights man can still ascend? That is why, after having tested the worth of our noblest ideal—that of the Saviour, in the light of the new valuations, the poet cries with passionate emphasis in “Zarathustra”:

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 2750

—What matter if it be great or small? If it be called swamp or sky? A handbreadth of basis is enough for me, if it be actually basis and ground!

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 1059

Indignant becometh the flame when they put their damp hearts to the fire; the spirit itself bubbleth and smoketh when the rabble approach the fire.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 235

Or is it this: To desert our cause when it celebrateth its triumph? To ascend high mountains to tempt the tempter?

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 941

And on that account doth the noble one enjoin upon himself not to abash: bashfulness doth he enjoin on himself in presence of all sufferers.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 1906

Foot and eye shall not lie, nor give the lie to each other. But there is much lying among small people.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 3456

In morality, Nietzsche starts out by adopting the position of the relativist. He says there are no absolute values “good” and “evil”; these are mere means adopted by all in order to acquire power to maintain their place in the world, or to become supreme. It is the lion’s good to devour an antelope. It is the dead-leaf butterfly’s good to tell a foe a falsehood.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 745

Devise me, then, the justice which acquitteth every one except the judge!

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 1976

Thou snow-bearded, silent, winter-sky, thou round-eyed whitehead above me! Oh, thou heavenly simile of my soul and its wantonness!

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 2208

With rope-ladders learned I to reach many a window, with nimble legs did I climb high masts: to sit on high masts of perception seemed to me no small bliss;—

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 552

Slow is the experience of all deep fountains: long have they to wait until they know WHAT hath fallen into their depths.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 1995

Here do all great sentiments decay: here may only rattle-boned sensations rattle!

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 1414

See there! Surprised and pale doth it stand—before the rosy dawn!

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 1478

And fain would they thereby prove themselves reconcilers: but mediaries and mixers are they unto me, and half-and-half, and impure!—

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 160

Alas! There cometh the time when man will no longer give birth to any star. Alas! There cometh the time of the most despicable man, who can no longer despise himself.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 2381

See how these peoples themselves now do just like the traders: they pick up the smallest advantage out of all kinds of rubbish!

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 2097

He who would understand everything in man must handle everything. But for that I have too clean hands.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 2497

—“O ye wags and barrel-organs, do be silent!” answered Zarathustra, and smiled at his animals. “How well ye know what consolation I devised for myself in seven days!

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 2031

Ah, lieth everything already withered and grey which but lately stood green and many-hued on this meadow! And how much honey of hope did I carry hence into my beehives!

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 3497

In the “Dawn of Day”, Nietzsche actually cautions young writers against THE DANGER OF ALLOWING THEIR THOUGHTS TO BE MOULDED BY THE WORDS AT THEIR DISPOSAL.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 2979

What still remaineth to me? A heart weary and flippant; an unstable will; fluttering wings; a broken backbone.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 128

Zarathustra, however, looked at the people and wondered. Then he spake thus:

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 1693

Then was there again spoken unto me without voice: “What matter about their mockery! Thou art one who hast unlearned to obey: now shalt thou command!

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 2743

It hath gone badly with thee, thou unfortunate one, in this life: first a beast bit thee, and then—a man trod upon thee!”—

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 1038

And again there are those who sit in their swamp, and speak thus from among the bulrushes: “Virtue—that is to sit quietly in the swamp.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 733

One day had Zarathustra fallen asleep under a fig-tree, owing to the heat, with his arms over his face. And there came an adder and bit him in the neck, so that Zarathustra screamed with pain. When he had taken his arm from his face he looked at the serpent; and then did it recognise the eyes of Zarathustra, wriggled awkwardly, and tried to get away. “Not at all,” said Zarathustra, “as yet hast thou not received my thanks! Thou hast awakened me in time; my journey is yet long.” “Thy journey is short,” said the adder sadly; “my poison is fatal.” Zarathustra smiled. “When did ever a dragon die of a serpent’s poison?”—said he. “But take thy poison back! Thou art not rich enough to present it to me.” Then fell the adder again on his neck, and licked his wound.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 1189

Like a storm do the suns pursue their courses: that is their travelling. Their inexorable will do they follow: that is their coldness.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 1618

All “It was” is a fragment, a riddle, a fearful chance—until the creating Will saith thereto: “But thus would I have it.”—

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 482

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!

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 2170

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.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 3636

The figure of Christ has been introduced often enough into fiction, and many scholars have undertaken to write His life according to their own lights, but few perhaps have ever attempted to present Him to us bereft of all those characteristics which a lack of the sense of harmony has attached to His person through the ages in which His doctrines have been taught.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 2465

For me—how could there be an outside-of-me? There is no outside! But this we forget on hearing tones; how delightful it is that we forget!

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 618

As yet woman is not capable of friendship: women are still cats, and birds. Or at the best, cows.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 3245

Thus spake the conscientious one; but Zarathustra, who had just come back into his cave and had heard and divined the last discourse, threw a handful of roses to the conscientious one, and laughed on account of his “truths.” “Why!” he exclaimed, “what did I hear just now? Verily, it seemeth to me, thou art a fool, or else I myself am one: and quietly and quickly will I put thy ‘truth’ upside down.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 476

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?

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 2003

There is here also much piety, and much faithful spittle-licking and spittle-backing, before the God of Hosts.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 1746

LOVE is the danger of the lonesomest one, love to anything, IF IT ONLY LIVE! Laughable, verily, is my folly and my modesty in love!—

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 1349

Then did I fly backwards, homewards—and always faster. Thus did I come unto you, ye present-day men, and into the land of culture.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 1573

Thus spake the disciple; and all the others then thronged around Zarathustra, grasped him by the hands, and tried to persuade him to leave his bed and his sadness, and return unto them. Zarathustra, however, sat upright on his couch, with an absent look. Like one returning from long foreign sojourn did he look on his disciples, and examined their features; but still he knew them not. When, however, they raised him, and set him upon his feet, behold, all on a sudden his eye changed; he understood everything that had happened, stroked his beard, and said with a strong voice:

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 2629

Ah, where in the world have there been greater follies than with the pitiful? And what in the world hath caused more suffering than the follies of the pitiful?

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 3327

Thou thyself—verily! even thou couldst well become an ass through superabundance of wisdom.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 1870

This freedom and celestial serenity did I put like an azure bell above all things, when I taught that over them and through them, no “eternal Will”—willeth.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 2645

—My happiness itself do I throw out into all places far and wide ‘twixt orient, noontide, and occident, to see if many human fish will not learn to hug and tug at my happiness;—

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 3312

Better to adore God so, in this form, than in no form at all! Think over this saying, mine exalted friend: thou wilt readily divine that in such a saying there is wisdom.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, passage 2702

This loathing choketh me, that we kings ourselves have become false, draped and disguised with the old faded pomp of our ancestors, show-pieces for the stupidest, the craftiest, and whosoever at present trafficketh for power.