--- title: "Thus Spake Zarathustra" author: "Friedrich Nietzsche" translator: "Thomas Common" languages: [en] shelf: "Philosophy" section: 86 of 95 url: https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/86/ cite: "Friedrich Nietzsche, tr. Thomas Common, Thus Spake Zarathustra, section 86. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/86/" --- # Thus Spake Zarathustra *Friedrich Nietzsche, tr. Thomas Common* A prophet comes down from his mountain to teach the overman, in sermons and songs. ## 86. LXXIII. The Higher Man · 2 of 3 Source: https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/86/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/nietzsche-zarathustra/86/#p-N [¶0] Do not will anything beyond your power: there is a bad falseness in those who will beyond their power. [¶1] Especially when they will great things! For they awaken distrust in great things, these subtle false-coiners and stage-players:— [¶2] —Until at last they are false towards themselves, squint-eyed, whited cankers, glossed over with strong words, parade virtues and brilliant false deeds. [¶3] Take good care there, ye higher men! For nothing is more precious to me, and rarer, than honesty. [¶4] Is this to-day not that of the populace? The populace however knoweth not what is great and what is small, what is straight and what is honest: it is innocently crooked, it ever lieth. ### 9 [¶6] Have a good distrust to-day ye, higher men, ye enheartened ones! Ye open-hearted ones! And keep your reasons secret! For this to-day is that of the populace. [¶7] What the populace once learned to believe without reasons, who could— refute it to them by means of reasons? [¶8] And on the market-place one convinceth with gestures. But reasons make the populace distrustful. [¶9] And when truth hath once triumphed there, then ask yourselves with good distrust: “What strong error hath fought for it?” [¶10] Be on your guard also against the learned! They hate you, because they are unproductive! They have cold, withered eyes before which every bird is unplumed. [¶11] Such persons vaunt about not lying: but inability to lie is still far from being love to truth. Be on your guard! [¶12] Freedom from fever is still far from being knowledge! Refrigerated spirits I do not believe in. He who cannot lie, doth not know what truth is. ### 10 [¶14] If ye would go up high, then use your own legs! Do not get yourselves CARRIED aloft; do not seat yourselves on other people’s backs and heads! [¶15] Thou hast mounted, however, on horseback? Thou now ridest briskly up to thy goal? Well, my friend! But thy lame foot is also with thee on horseback! [¶16] When thou reachest thy goal, when thou alightest from thy horse: precisely on thy HEIGHT, thou higher man,—then wilt thou stumble! ### 11 [¶18] Ye creating ones, ye higher men! One is only pregnant with one’s own child. [¶19] Do not let yourselves be imposed upon or put upon! Who then is YOUR neighbour? Even if ye act “for your neighbour”—ye still do not create for him! [¶20] Unlearn, I pray you, this “for,” ye creating ones: your very virtue wisheth you to have naught to do with “for” and “on account of” and “because.” Against these false little words shall ye stop your ears. [¶21] “For one’s neighbour,” is the virtue only of the petty people: there it is said “like and like,” and “hand washeth hand”:—they have neither the right nor the power for YOUR self-seeking! [¶22] In your self-seeking, ye creating ones, there is the foresight and foreseeing of the pregnant! What no one’s eye hath yet seen, namely, the fruit—this, sheltereth and saveth and nourisheth your entire love. [¶23] Where your entire love is, namely, with your child, there is also your entire virtue! Your work, your will is YOUR “neighbour”: let no false values impose upon you! ### 12 [¶25] Ye creating ones, ye higher men! Whoever hath to give birth is sick; whoever hath given birth, however, is unclean. [¶26] Ask women: one giveth birth, not because it giveth pleasure. The pain maketh hens and poets cackle. [¶27] Ye creating ones, in you there is much uncleanliness. That is because ye have had to be mothers. [¶28] A new child: oh, how much new filth hath also come into the world! Go apart! He who hath given birth shall wash his soul! ### 13 [¶30] Be not virtuous beyond your powers! And seek nothing from yourselves opposed to probability! [¶31] Walk in the footsteps in which your fathers’ virtue hath already walked! How would ye rise high, if your fathers’ will should not rise with you? [¶32] He, however, who would be a firstling, let him take care lest he also become a lastling! And where the vices of your fathers are, there should ye not set up as saints! [¶33] He whose fathers were inclined for women, and for strong wine and flesh of wildboar swine; what would it be if he demanded chastity of himself? [¶34] A folly would it be! Much, verily, doth it seem to me for such a one, if he should be the husband of one or of two or of three women. [¶35] And if he founded monasteries, and inscribed over their portals: “The way to holiness,”—I should still say: What good is it! it is a new folly! [¶36] He hath founded for himself a penance-house and refuge-house: much good may it do! But I do not believe in it. [¶37] In solitude there groweth what any one bringeth into it—also the brute in one’s nature. Thus is solitude inadvisable unto many. [¶38] Hath there ever been anything filthier on earth than the saints of the wilderness? AROUND THEM was not only the devil loose—but also the swine. ### 14 [¶40] Shy, ashamed, awkward, like the tiger whose spring hath failed—thus, ye higher men, have I often seen you slink aside. A CAST which ye made had failed. [¶41] But what doth it matter, ye dice-players! Ye had not learned to play and mock, as one must play and mock! Do we not ever sit at a great table of mocking and playing? [¶42] And if great things have been a failure with you, have ye yourselves therefore—been a failure? And if ye yourselves have been a failure, hath man therefore—been a failure? If man, however, hath been a failure: well then! never mind! ### 15 [¶44] The higher its type, always the seldomer doth a thing succeed. Ye higher men here, have ye not all—been failures?