The Self's Ascent
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathustra

The author prescribes marriage and procreation as a means of self-surpassing, urging individuals to first build themselves into a 'rectangular' wholeness before creating a 'higher body' or future.

...ake Zarathustra. XX. CHILD AND MARRIAGE. I have a question for thee alone, my brother: like a sounding-lead, cast I this question into thy soul, that I may know its depth. Thou art young, and desirest child and marriage. But I ask thee: Art thou a man ENTITLED to desire a child? Art thou the victorious one, the self-conqueror, the ruler of thy passions, the master of thy virtues? Thus do I ask thee. Or doth the animal speak in thy wish, and necessity? Or isolation? Or discord in thee?
I would have thy victory and freedom long for a child. Living monuments shalt thou build to thy victory and emancipation. Beyond thyself shalt thou build. But first of all must thou be built thyself, rectangular in body and soul. Not only onward shalt thou propagate thyself, but upward! For that purpose may the garden of marriage help thee! A higher body shalt thou create, a first movement, a spontaneously rolling wheel—a creating one shalt thou create.
Marriage: so call I the will of the twain to create the one that is more than those who created it. The reverence for one another, as those exercising such a will, call I marriage. Let this be the significance and the truth of thy marriage. But that which the many-too-many call marriage, those superfluous ones—ah, what shall I call it? Ah, the poverty of soul in the twain! Ah, the filth of soul in the twain! Ah, the pitiable self-complacency in the twain! Marriage they call it all; and they...
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Will to Procreation
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathustra

The author explores the relationship between creation, desire, and death, arguing that true beauty and purity of will are found in the desire to create beyond oneself. He asserts that the will to love inherently requires a readiness to perish.

...with hanging-out tongue: To be happy in gazing: with dead will, free from the grip and greed of selfishness—cold and ashy-grey all over, but with intoxicated moon-eyes! That would be the dearest thing to me”—thus doth the seduced one seduce himself,—“to love the earth as the moon loveth it, and with the eye only to feel its beauty. And this do I call IMMACULATE perception of all things: to want nothing else from them, but to be allowed to lie before them as a mirror with a hundred facets.”—
Oh, ye sentimental dissemblers, ye covetous ones! Ye lack innocence in your desire: and now do ye defame desiring on that account! Verily, not as creators, as procreators, or as jubilators do ye love the earth! Where is innocence? Where there is will to procreation. And he who seeketh to create beyond himself, hath for me the purest will. Where is beauty? Where I MUST WILL with my whole Will; where I will love and perish, that an image may not remain merely an image. Loving and perishing: these have rhymed from eternity. Will to love: that is to be ready also for death. Thus do I speak unto you cowards!
But now doth your emasculated ogling profess to be “contemplation!” And that which can be examined with cowardly eyes is to be christened “beautiful!” Oh, ye violators of noble names! But it shall be your curse, ye immaculate ones, ye pure discerners, that ye shall never bring forth, even though ye lie broad and teeming on the horizon! Verily, ye fill your mouth with noble words: and we are to believe that your heart overfloweth, ye cozeners? But MY words are poor, contemptible, stammering...
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Creation's Uncleanliness
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathustra

Nietzsche observes that the act of creation is inherently painful and 'unclean,' much like childbirth. He suggests that creators must distance themselves and 'wash their souls' after the filth of bringing something new into the world.

...e 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! 12.
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!
13. 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...
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Fellow Creators
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathustra

Zarathustra declares his intention to stop preaching to the masses and the 'dead,' choosing instead to seek out fellow creators and 'reapers' who are ready to follow the path toward the Superman.

...r tables of values, the breaker, the law-breaker—he, however, is the creator. Companions, the creator seeketh, not corpses—and not herds or believers either. Fellow-creators the creator seeketh—those who grave new values on new tables. Companions, the creator seeketh, and fellow-reapers: for everything is ripe for the harvest with him. But he lacketh the hundred sickles: so he plucketh the ears of corn and is vexed. Companions, the creator seeketh, and such as know how to whet their sickles.
Destroyers, will they be called, and despisers of good and evil. But they are the reapers and rejoicers. Fellow-creators, Zarathustra seeketh; fellow-reapers and fellow-rejoicers, Zarathustra seeketh: what hath he to do with herds and herdsmen and corpses! And thou, my first companion, rest in peace! Well have I buried thee in thy hollow tree; well have I hid thee from the wolves. But I part from thee; the time hath arrived. ‘Twixt rosy dawn and rosy dawn there came unto me a new truth. I am not to be a herdsman, I am not to be a grave-digger. Not any more will I discourse unto the people; for the last time have I spoken unto the dead. With…
To the lone-dwellers will I sing my song, and to the twain-dwellers; and unto him who hath still ears for the unheard, will I make the heart heavy with my happiness. I make for my goal, I follow my course; over the loitering and tardy will I leap. Thus let my on-going be their down-going! 10. This had Zarathustra said to his heart when the sun stood at noontide. Then he looked inquiringly aloft,—for he heard above him the sharp call of a bird. And behold! An eagle swept through the air in w...
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Create the Superman
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathustra

Nietzsche challenges his readers to redirect their creative energy away from the conjecture of God and toward the creation of the Superman. He insists that one's will should be restricted to what is humanly achievable.

...re good and sweet; and in falling the red skins of them break. A north wind am I to ripe figs. Thus, like figs, do these doctrines fall for you, my friends: imbibe now their juice and their sweet substance! It is autumn all around, and clear sky, and afternoon. Lo, what fulness is around us! And out of the midst of superabundance, it is delightful to look out upon distant seas. Once did people say God, when they looked out upon distant seas; now, however, have I taught you to say, Superman.
God is a conjecture: but I do not wish your conjecturing to reach beyond your creating will. Could ye CREATE a God?—Then, I pray you, be silent about all Gods! But ye could well create the Superman. Not perhaps ye yourselves, my brethren! But into fathers and forefathers of the Superman could ye transform yourselves: and let that be your best creating!— God is a conjecture: but I should like your conjecturing restricted to the conceivable.
Could ye CONCEIVE a God?—But let this mean Will to Truth unto you, that everything be transformed into the humanly conceivable, the humanly visible, the humanly sensible! Your own discernment shall ye follow out to the end! And what ye have called the world shall but be created by you: your reason, your likeness, your will, your love, shall it itself become! And verily, for your bliss, ye discerning ones! And how would ye endure life without that hope, ye discerning ones? Neither in the inco...
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