The Portable Nietzsche

by Friedrich Nietzsche

  And verily, this is no command for today and tomorrow, to learn to love oneself. Rather, it is of all arts the subtlest, the most cunning, the ultimate, and the most patient. For whatever is his own is well concealed from the owner; and of all treasures, it is our own that we dig up last: thus the spirit of gravity orders it.

  We are presented with grave words and values almost from the cradle: “good” and “evil” this gift is called. For its sake we are forgiven for living.

  And therefore one suffers little children to come unto one—in order to forbid them betimes to love themselves: thus the spirit of gravity orders it.

  And we—we carry faithfully what one gives us to bear, on hard shoulders and over rough mountains. And should we sweat, we are told: “Yes, life is a grave burden.” But only man is a grave burden for himself! That is because he carries on his shoulders too much that is alien to him. Like a camel, he kneels down and lets himself be well loaded. Especially the strong, reverent spirit that would bear much: he loads too many alien grave words and values on himself, and then life seems a desert to him.

  And verily, much that is our own is also a grave burden! And much that is inside man is like an oyster: nauseating and slippery and hard to grasp, so that a noble shell with a noble embellishment must plead for it. But this art too one must learn: to have a shell and shiny sheen and shrewd blindness. Moreover, one is deceived about many things in man because many a shell is shabby and sad and altogether too much shell. Much hidden graciousness and strength is never guessed; the most exquisite delicacies find no tasters. Women know this—the most exquisite do: a little fatter, a little slimmer—oh, how much destiny lies in so little!

  Man is hard to discover—hardest of all for himself: often the spirit lies about the soul. Thus the spirit of gravity orders it. He, however, has discovered himself who says, “This is my good and evil”; with that he has reduced to silence the mole and dwarf who say, “Good for all, evil for all.”

  Verily, I also do not like those who consider everything good and this world the best. Such men I call the omni-satisfied. Omni-satisfaction, which knows how to taste everything, that is not the best taste. I honor the recalcitrant choosy tongues and stomachs, which have learned to say “I” and “yes” and “no.” But to chew and digest everything—that is truly the swine’s manner. Always to bray Yea-Yuh—that only the ass has learned, and whoever is of his spirit.

  Deep yellow and hot red: thus my taste wants it; it mixes blood into all colors. But whoever whitewashes his house betrays a whitewashed soul to me. Some in love with mummies, the others with ghosts, and both alike enemies of all flesh and blood—oh, how both offend my taste. For I love blood.

  And I do not want to reside and abide where everybody spits and spews: that happens to be my taste; rather I would live even among thieves and perjurers. Nobody has gold in his mouth. Still more revolting, however, I find all lickspittles; and the most revolting human animal that I found I baptized “parasite”: it did not want to love and yet it wanted to live on love.

  Cursed I call all who have only one choice: to become evil beasts or evil tamers of beasts; among such men I would not build my home.

  Cursed I call those too who must always wait; they offend my taste: all the publicans and shopkeepers and kings and other land- and storekeepers. Verily, I too have learned to wait—thoroughly—but only to wait for myself. And above all I learned to stand and walk and run and jump and climb and dance. This, however, is my doctrine: he who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance: one cannot fly into flying. With rope ladders I have learned to climb to many a window; with swift legs I climbed high masts; and to sit on high masts of knowledge seemed to me no small happiness: to flicker like small flames on high masts—a small light only and yet a great comfort for shipwrecked sailors and castaways.

  By many ways, in many ways, I reached my truth: it was not on one ladder that I climbed to the height where my eye roams over my distance. And it was only reluctantly that I ever inquired about the way: that always offended my taste. I preferred to question and try out the ways themselves.

  A trying and questioning was my every move; and verily, one must also learn to answer such questioning. That, however, is my taste—not good, not bad, but my taste of which I am no longer ashamed and which I have no wish to hide.

  “This is my way; where is yours?”—thus I answered those who asked me “the way.” For the way—that does not exist.

  Thus spoke Zarathustra.

  ON OLD AND NEW TABLETS

  1

  Here I sit and wait, surrounded by broken old tablets and new tablets half covered with writing. When will my hour come? The hour of my going down and going under; for I want to go among men once more. For that I am waiting now, for first the signs must come to me that my hour has come: the laughing lion with the flock of doves. Meanwhile I talk to myself as one who has time. Nobody tells me anything new: so I tell myself—myself.

  2

  When I came to men I found them sitting on an old conceit: the conceit that they have long known what is good and evil for man. All talk of virtue seemed an old and weary matter to man; and whoever wanted to sleep well still talked of good and evil before going to sleep.

  I disturbed this sleepiness when I taught: what is good and evil no one knows yet, unless it be he who creates. He, however, creates man’s goal and gives the earth its meaning and its future. That anything at all is good and evil—that is his creation.

  And I bade them overthrow their old academic chairs and wherever that old conceit had sat; I bade them laugh at their great masters of virtue and saints and poets and world-redeemers. I bade them laugh at their gloomy sages and at whoever had at any time sat on the tree of life like a black scarecrow. I sat down by their great tomb road among cadavers and vultures, and I laughed at all their past and its rotting, decaying glory.

  Verily, like preachers of repentance and fools, I raised a hue and cry of wrath over what among them is great and small, and that their best is still so small. And that their greatest evil too is still so small—at that I laughed.

  My wise longing cried and laughed thus out of me —born in the mountains, verily, a wild wisdom—my great broad-winged longing! And often it swept me away and up and far, in the middle of my laughter; and I flew, quivering, an arrow, through sun-drunken delight, away into distant futures which no dream had yet seen, into hotter souths than artists ever dreamed of, where gods in their dances are ashamed of all clothes—to speak in parables and to limp and stammer like poets; and verily, I am ashamed that I must still be a poet.

  Where all becoming seemed to me the dance of gods and the prankishness of gods, and the world seemed free and frolicsome and as if fleeing back to itself—as an eternal fleeing and seeking each other again of many gods, as the happy controverting of each other, conversing again with each other, and converging again of many gods.

  Where all time seemed to me a happy mockery of moments, where necessity was freedom itself playing happily with the sting of freedom.

  Where I also found again my old devil and archenemy, the spirit of gravity, and all that he created: constraint, statute, necessity and consequence and purpose and will and good and evil.

  For must there not be that over which one dances and dances away? For the sake of the light and the lightest, must there not be moles and grave dwarfs?

  3

  There it was too that I picked up the word “overman” by the way, and that man is something that must be overcome—that man is a bridge and no end: proclaiming himself blessed in view of his noon and evening, as the way to new dawns—Zarathustra’s word of the great noon, and whatever else I hung up over man like the last crimson light of evening.

  Verily, I also let them see new stars along with new nights; and over clouds and day and night I still spread out laughter as a colorful tent.

  I taught them all my creating and striving, to create and carry together into One wha
t in man is fragment and riddle and dreadful accident; as creator, guesser of riddles, and redeemer of accidents, I taught them to work on the future and to redeem with their creation all that has been. To redeem what is past in man and to re-create all “it was” until the will says, “Thus I willed it! Thus I shall will it”—this I called redemption and this alone I taught them to call redemption.

  Now I wait for my own redemption—that I may go to them for the last time. For I want to go to men once more; under their eyes I want to go under; dying, I want to give them my richest gift. From the sun I learned this: when he goes down, overrich; he pours gold into the sea out of inexhaustible riches, so that even the poorest fisherman still rows with golden oars. For this I once saw and I did not tire of my tears as I watched it.

  Like the sun, Zarathustra too wants to go under; now he sits here and waits, surrounded by broken old tablets and new tablets half covered with writing.

  4

  Behold, here is a new tablet; but where are my brothers to carry it down with me to the valley and into hearts of flesh?

  Thus my great love of the farthest demands it: do not spare your neighbor! Man is something that must be overcome.

  There are many ways of overcoming: see to that yourself! But only a jester thinks: “Man can also be skipped over.”

  Overcome yourself even in your neighbor: and a right that you can rob you should not accept as a gift.

  What you do, nobody can do to you in turn. Behold, there is no retribution.

  He who cannot command himself should obey. And many can command themselves, but much is still lacking before they also obey themselves.

  5

  This is the manner of noble souls: they do not want to have anything for nothing; least of all, life. Whoever is of the mob wants to live for nothing; we others, however, to whom life gave itself, we always think about what we might best give in return. And verily, that is a noble speech which says, “What life promises us, we ourselves want to keep to life.”

  One shall not wish to enjoy where one does not give joy. And one shall not wish to enjoy! For enjoyment and innocence are the most bashful things: both do not want to be sought. One shall possess them—but rather seek even guilt and suffering.

  6

  My brothers, the firstling is always sacrificed. We, however, are firstlings. All of us bleed at secret sacrificial altars; all of us burn and roast in honor of old idols. What is best in us is still young: that attracts old palates. Our flesh is tender, our hide is a mere lambskin: how could we fail to attract old idol-priests? Even in ourselves the old idol-priest still lives who roasts what is best in us for his feast. Alas, my brothers, how could firstlings fail to be sacrifices?

  But thus our kind wants it; and I love those who do not want to preserve themselves. Those who are going under I love with my whole love: for they cross over.

  7

  To be true—only a few are able! And those who are still lack the will. But the good have this ability least of all. Oh, these good men! Good men never speak the truth; for the spirit, to be good in this way is a disease. They give in, these good men; they give themselves up; their heart repeats and their ground obeys: but whoever heeds commands does not heed himself.

  Everything that the good call evil must come together so that one truth may be born. O my brothers, are you evil enough for this truth? The audacious daring, the long mistrust, the cruel No, the disgust, the cutting into the living—how rarely does all this come together. But from such seed is truth begotten.

  Alongside the bad conscience, all science has grown so far. Break, break, you lovers of knowledge, the old tablets!

  8

  When the water is spanned by planks, when bridges and railings leap over the river, verily, those are not believed who say, “Everything is in flux.” Even the blockheads contradict them. “How now?” say the blockheads. “Everything should be in flux? After all, planks and railings are over the river. Whatever is over the river is firm; all the values of things, the bridges, the concepts, all ‘good’ and ‘evil’—all that is firm.”

  But when the hard winter comes, the river-animal tamer, then even the most quick-witted learn mistrust; and verily, not only the blockheads then say, “Does not everything stand still?”

  “At bottom everything stands still”—that is truly a winter doctrine, a good thing for sterile times, a fine comfort for hibemators and hearth-squatters.

  “At bottom everything stands still”—against this the thawing wind preaches. The thawing wind, a bull that is no plowing bull, a raging bull, a destroyer who breaks the ice with wrathful horns. Ice, however, breaks bridges!

  O my brothers, is not everything in flux now? Have not all railings and bridges fallen into the water? Who could still cling to “good” and “evil”?

  “Woe to us! Hail to us! The thawing wind blows!”—thus preach in every street, my brothers.

  9

  There is an old illusion, which is called good and evil. So far the wheel of this illusion has revolved around soothsayers and stargazers. Once man believed in soothsayers and stargazers, and therefore believed: “All is destiny: you ought to, for you must.”

  Then man again mistrusted all soothsayers and stargazers, and therefore believed: “All is freedom: you can, for you will.”

  O my brothers, so far there have been only illusions about stars and the future, not knowledge; and therefore there have been only illusions so far, not knowledge, about good and evil.

  10

  “Thou shalt not rob! Thou shalt not kill!” Such words were once called holy; one bent the knee and head and took off one’s shoes before them. But I ask you: where have there ever been better robbers and killers in this world than such holy words?

  Is there not in all life itself robbing and killing? And that such words were called holy—was not truth itself killed thereby? Or was it the preaching of death that was called holy, which contradicted and contravened all life? O my brothers, break, break the old tablets!

  11

  This is my pity for all that is past: I see how all of it is abandoned—abandoned to the pleasure, the spirit, the madness of every generation, which comes along and reinterprets all that has been as a bridge to itself.

  A great despot might come along, a shrewd monster who, according to his pleasure and displeasure, might constrain and strain all that is past till it becomes a bridge to him, a harbinger and herald and cockcrow.

  This, however, is the other danger and what prompts my further pity: whoever is of the rabble, thinks back as far as the grandfather; with the grandfather, however, time ends.

  Thus all that is past is abandoned: for one day the rabble might become master and drown all time in shallow waters.

  Therefore, my brothers, a new nobility is needed to be the adversary of all rabble and of all that is despotic and to write anew upon new tablets the word “noble.”

  For many who are noble are needed, and noble men of many kinds, that there may be a nobility. Or as I once said in a parable: “Precisely this is godlike that there are gods, but no God.”

  12

  O my brothers, I dedicate and direct you to a new nobility: you shall become procreators and cultivators and sowers of the future—verily, not to a nobility that you might buy like shopkeepers and with shopkeepers’ gold: for whatever has its price has little value.

  Not whence you come shall henceforth constitute your honor, but whither you are going! Your will and your foot which has a will to go over and beyond yourselves—that shall constitute your new honor.

  Verily, not that you have served a prince—what do princes matter now?—or that you became a bulwark for what stands that it might stand more firmly.

  Not that your tribe has become courtly at court and that you have learned, like a flamingo, to stand for long hours in a colorful costume in shallow ponds—for the ability to stand is meritorious among courtiers; and all courtiers believe that blessedness after death must comprise permission to sit.
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br />   Nor that a spirit which they call holy led your ancestors into promised lands, which I do not praise—for where the worst of all trees grew, the cross, that land deserves no praise. And verily, wherever this “Holy Spirit” led his knights, on all such crusades goose aids goat in leading the way, and the contrary and crude sailed foremost.

  O my brothers, your nobility should not look backward but ahead! Exiles shall you be from all father- and forefather-lands! Your children’s land shall you love: this love shall be your new nobility—the undiscovered land in the most distant sea. For that I bid your sails search and search.

  In your children you shall make up for being the children of your fathers: thus shall you redeem all that is past. This new tablet I place over you.

  13

  “Why live? All is vanity! Living—that is threshing straw; living—that is consuming oneself in flames without becoming warm.” Such antiquarian babbling is still considered “wisdom”; it is honored all the more for being old and musty. Mustiness too ennobles.

  Children might speak thus: they fear the fire because it burned them. There is much childishness in the old books of wisdom. And why should those who always “thresh straw” be allowed to blaspheme threshing? Such oxen should be muzzled after all.

  Such men sit down to the table and bring nothing along, not even a good appetite; and then they blaspheme: “All is vanity.” But eating and drinking well, O my brothers, is verily no vain art. Break, break the old tablets of the never gay!