Page 49 of 51
We it was who created the gravest thought,—let us now create a being unto whom it will be not only light but blessed.
In order to be able to create we must allow ourselves greater freedom than has ever been vouch-safed us before; to this end we must be emancipated from morality, and we must be relieved by means of feasts (Premonitions of the future! We must celebrate the future and no longer the past! We must compose the myth poetry of the future! We must live in hopes!) Blessed moments I And then we must once again pull down the curtain and turn our thoughts to the next unswerving purpose.
43
Mankind must set its goal above itself—not in a false world, however, but in one which would be a continuation of humanity.
44
The half-way house is always present when the will to the future arises: the greatest event stands immediately before it.
45
Our very essence is to create a being higher than ourselves. We must create beyond ourselves. That is the instinct of procreation, that is the instinct of action and of work.—Just as all willing presupposes a purpose, so does mankind presuppose a creature which is not yet formed but which provides the aim of life. This is the freedom of all will. Love, reverence, yearning for perfection, longing, all these things are inherent in a purpose.
46
My desire: to bring forth creatures which stand sublimely above the whole species man: and to sacrifice "one's neighbours" and oneself to this end.
The morality which has existed hitherto was limited within the confines of the species: all moralities that have existed hitherto have been useful in the first place in order to give unconditional stability to this species: once this has been achieved the aim can be elevated.
One movement is absolute; it is nothing more than the levelling down of mankind, great ant-organisations, &c.
The other movement, my movement, is conversely the accentuation of all contrasts and gulfs, and the elimination of equality, together with the creation of supremely powerful creatures.
The first movement brings forth the last man, my movement brings forth the Superman. It is by no means the goal to regard the latter as the master of the first: two races ought to exist side by side,—separated as far asunder as possible; the one, like the Epicurean gods, not concerning themselves in the least with the others.
47
The opposite of the Superman is the last man: I created him simultaneously with the former.
48
The more an individual is free and firm, the more exacting becomes his love: at last he yearns for Superman, because nothing else is able to appease his love,
49
Half-way round the course Superman arises.
50
Among men I was frightened: among men I desired a host of things and nothing satisfied me. It was then that I went into solitude and created Superman. And when I had created him I draped him in the great veil of Becoming and let the light of midday shine upon him.
51
"We wish to create a Being," we all wish to have a hand in it, to love it. We all want to be pregnant—and to honour and respect ourselves on that account.
We must have a goal in view of which we may all love each other! All other goals are only fit for the scrap heap.
52
The strongest in body and soul are the best—Zarathustra's fundamental proposition—; from them is generated that higher morality of the creator. Man must be regenerated after his own image: this is what he wants, this is his honesty.
53
Genius to Zarathustra seems like the incarnation of his thought.
54
Loneliness for a certain time is necessary in order that a creature may become completely permeated with his own soul—cured and hard. A new form of community would be one in which we should assert ourselves martially. Otherwise the spirit becomes tame. No Epicurean "gardens" and mere "retirement from the masses." War (but without powder) between different thoughts and the hosts who support them I
A new nobility, the result of breeding. Feasts celebrating the foundation of families.
The day divided up afresh; bodily exercise for all ages. as a principle.
The love of the sexes as a contest around the principle in becoming and coming.—Ruling will be taught and practised, its hardness as well as its mildness. As soon as one faculty is acquired in a masterly manner another one must be striven after.
We must let ourselves be taught by the evil, and allow them an opportunity of a contest. We must make use of the degenerate—The right of punishment will consist in this, that the offender may be used as an experimental subject (in dietetics): this is the consecration of punishment, that one man be used for the highest needs of a future being.
We protect our new community because it is the bridge to our ideal of the future And for it we work and let others work.
55
The measure and mean must be found in striving to attain to something beyond mankind: the highest and strongest kind of man must be discovered! The highest tendency must be represented continually in small things:—perfection, maturity, rosy-cheeked health, mild discharges of power. Just as an artist works, must we apply ourselves to our daily task and bring ourselves to perfection in everything we do. We must be honest in acknowledging our real motives to ourselves, as is becoming in the mighty man.
56
No impatience! Superman is our next stage and to this end, to this limit, moderation and manliness are necessary.
Mankind must surpass itself, as the Greeks did—and no fleshless fantasies must be indulged. The higher mind which is associated with a sickly and nervous character must be suppressed. The goal: the higher culture of the whole body and not only of the brain.
57
"Man is something that must be surpassed":—it is a matter of tempo: the Greeks were wonderful, there was no haste about them.—My predecessors: Heraclitus, Empedocles, Spinoza, Goethe.
58
1. Dissatisfaction with ourselves. An antidote to repentance. The transformation of temperament (e.g., by means of inorganic substances). Good will to this dissatisfaction. We should wait for our thirst and let it become great in order to discover its source.
2. Death must be transformed into a means of victory and triumph.
3. The attitude towards disease. Freedom where death is concerned.
4. The love of the sexes is a means to an ideal (it is the striving of a being to perish through his opposite). The love for a suffering deity.
5. Procreation is the holiest of all things. Pregnancy, the creation of a woman and a man, who wish to enjoy their unity, and erect a monument to it by means of a child.
6. Pity as a danger. Circumstances must be created which enable everyone to be able to help[Pg 274] himself, and which leave him to choose whether he would be helped.
7. Education must be directed at making men evil, at developing their inner devil.
8. Inner war as "development"
