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!
When thou reachest thy goal, when thou alightest from thy horse: precisely on thy height, thou higher man—then wilt thou stumble!
XI
Ye creating ones, ye higher men! One is only pregnant with one’s own child.
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!
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.
“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!
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.
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!
XII
Ye creating ones, ye higher men! Whoever hath to give birth is sick; whoever hath given birth, however, is unclean.
Ask women: one giveth birth, not because it giveth pleasure. The pain maketh hens and poets cackle.
Ye creating ones, in you there is much uncleanliness. That is because ye have had to be mothers.
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!
XIII
Be not virtuous beyond your powers! And seek nothing from yourselves opposed to probability!
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?
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!
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?
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.
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!
He hath founded for himself a penance-house and refuge-house: much good may it do! But I do not believe in it.
In solitude there groweth what anyone bringeth into it—also the brute in one’s nature. Thus is solitude inadvisable unto many.
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.
XIV
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.
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?
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!
XV
The higher its type, always the seldomer doth a thing succeed. Ye higher men here, have ye not all—been failures?
Be of good cheer; what doth it matter? How much is still possible! Learn to laugh at yourselves, as ye ought to laugh!
What wonder even that ye have failed and only half-succeeded, ye half-shattered ones! Doth not—man’s future strive and struggle in you?
Man’s furthest, profoundest, star-highest issues, his prodigious powers—do not all these foam through one another in your vessel?
What wonder that many a vessel shattereth! Learn to laugh at yourselves, as ye ought to laugh! Ye higher men, O, how much is still possible!
And verily, how much hath already succeeded! How rich is this earth in small, good, perfect things, in well-constituted things!
Set around you small, good, perfect things, ye higher men. Their golden maturity healeth the heart. The perfect teacheth one to hope.
XVI
What hath hitherto been the greatest sin here on earth? Was it not the word of him who said: “Woe unto them that laugh now!”
Did he himself find no cause for laughter on the earth? Then he sought badly. A child even findeth cause for it.
He—did not love sufficiently: otherwise would he also have loved us, the laughing ones! But he hated and hooted us; wailing and teeth-gnashing did he promise us.
Must one then curse immediately, when one doth not love? That—seemeth to me bad taste. Thus did he, however, this absolute one. He sprang from the populace.
And he himself just did not love sufficiently; otherwise would he have raged less because people did not love him. All great love doth not seek love:—it seeketh more.
Go out of the way of all such absolute ones! They are a poor sickly type, a populace-type: they look at this life with ill-will, they have an evil eye for this earth.
Go out of the way of all such absolute ones! They have heavy feet and sultry hearts:—they do not know how to dance. How could the earth be light to such ones!
XVII
Tortuously do all good things come nigh to their goal. Like cats they curve their backs, they purr inwardly with their approaching happiness—all good
