Thus Spake Zarathustra Friedrich Nietzsche (best thriller novels of all time .txt) đ
- Author: Friedrich Nietzsche
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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!â â
Thus spake Zarathustra, and laughed thereby a second time. Then, however, he thought of his abandoned friendsâ âand as if he had done them a wrong with his thoughts, he upbraided himself because of his thoughts. And forthwith it came to pass that the laugher weptâ âwith anger and longing wept Zarathustra bitterly.
XLVI The Vision and the Enigma IWhen it got abroad among the sailors that Zarathustra was on board the shipâ âfor a man who came from the Happy Isles had gone on board along with himâ âthere was great curiosity and expectation. But Zarathustra kept silent for two days, and was cold and deaf with sadness; so that he neither answered looks nor questions. On the evening of the second day, however, he again opened his ears, though he still kept silent: for there were many curious and dangerous things to be heard on board the ship, which came from afar, and was to go still further. Zarathustra, however, was fond of all those who make distant voyages, and dislike to live without danger. And behold! when listening, his own tongue was at last loosened, and the ice of his heart broke. Then did he begin to speak thus:
To you, the daring venturers and adventurers, and whoever hath embarked with cunning sails upon frightful seasâ â
To you the enigma-intoxicated, the twilight-enjoyers, whose souls are allured by flutes to every treacherous gulf:
âFor ye dislike to grope at a thread with cowardly hand; and where ye can divine, there do ye hate to calculateâ â
To you only do I tell the enigma that I sawâ âthe vision of the lonesomest one.â â
Gloomily walked I lately in corpse-coloured twilightâ âgloomily and sternly, with compressed lips. Not only one sun had set for me.
A path which ascended daringly among boulders, an evil, lonesome path, which neither herb nor shrub any longer cheered, a mountain-path, crunched under the daring of my foot.
Mutely marching over the scornful clinking of pebbles, trampling the stone that let it slip: thus did my foot force its way upwards.
Upwards:â âin spite of the spirit that drew it downwards, towards the abyss, the spirit of gravity, my devil and arch-enemy.
Upwards:â âalthough it sat upon me, half-dwarf, half-mole; paralysed, paralysing; dripping lead in mine ear, and thoughts like drops of lead into my brain.
âO Zarathustra,â it whispered scornfully, syllable by syllable, âthou stone of wisdom! Thou threwest thyself high, but every thrown stone mustâ âfall!
âO Zarathustra, thou stone of wisdom, thou sling-stone, thou star-destroyer! Thyself threwest thou so highâ âbut every thrown stoneâ âmust fall!
âCondemned of thyself, and to thine own stoning: O Zarathustra, far indeed threwest thou thy stoneâ âbut upon thyself will it recoil!â
Then was the dwarf silent; and it lasted long. The silence, however, oppressed me; and to be thus in pairs, one is verily lonesomer than when alone!
I ascended, I ascended, I dreamt, I thoughtâ âbut everything oppressed me. A sick one did I resemble, whom bad torture wearieth, and a worse dream reawakeneth out of his first sleep.â â
But there is something in me which I call courage: it hath hitherto slain for me every dejection. This courage at last bade me stand still and say: âDwarf! Thou! Or I!ââ â
For courage is the best slayerâ âcourage which attacketh: for in every attack there is sound of triumph.
Man, however, is the most courageous animal: thereby hath he overcome every animal. With sound of triumph hath he overcome every pain; human pain, however, is the sorest pain.
Courage slayeth also giddiness at abysses: and where doth man not stand at abysses! Is not seeing itselfâ âseeing abysses?
Courage is the best slayer: courage slayeth also fellow-suffering. Fellow-suffering, however, is the deepest abyss: as deeply as man looketh into life, so deeply also doth he look into suffering.
Courage, however, is the best slayer, courage which attacketh: it slayeth even death itself; for it saith: âWas that life? Well! Once more!â
In such speech, however, there is much sound of triumph. He who hath ears to hear, let him hear.â â
IIâHalt, dwarf!â said I. âEither Iâ âor thou! I, however, am the stronger of the two:â âthou knowest not mine abysmal thought! Itâ âcouldst thou not endure!â
Then happened that which made me lighter: for the dwarf sprang from my shoulder, the prying sprite! And it squatted on a stone in front of me. There was however a gateway just where we halted.
âLook at this gateway! Dwarf!â I continued, âit hath two faces. Two roads come together here: these hath no one yet gone to the end of.
âThis long lane backwards: it continueth for an eternity. And that long lane forwardâ âthat is another eternity.
âThey are antithetical to one another, these roads; they directly abut on one another:â âand it is here, at this gateway, that they come together. The name of the gateway is inscribed above: âThis Moment.â
âBut should one follow them furtherâ âand ever further and further on, thinkest thou, dwarf, that these roads would be eternally antithetical?ââ â
âEverything straight lieth,â murmured the dwarf, contemptuously. âAll truth is crooked; time itself is a circle.â
âThou spirit of gravity!â said I wrathfully, âdo not take it too lightly! Or I shall let thee squat where thou squattest, Haltfootâ âand I carried thee high!â
âObserve,â continued I, âThis Moment! From the gateway, This Moment, there runneth a long eternal lane backwards: behind us lieth an eternity.
âMust not whatever can run its course of all things, have already run along that lane? Must not whatever can happen of all things have already happened, resulted, and gone by?
âAnd if everything have already existed, what thinkest thou, dwarf, of This Moment? Must not this gateway alsoâ âhave already existed?
âAnd are not all things closely bound together in such wise that This Moment draweth all coming things after it? Consequentlyâ âžșitself also?
âFor whatever can run its course of all things, also in this long
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