God's Death as Dawn
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathustra

The author proclaims that the death of God is the necessary condition for the 'higher man' to become master and for the Superman to live. He encourages his followers to face the resulting 'abyss' with courage, as it marks the beginning of the human future.

...and populace-noise and long populace-ears!” Ye higher men, learn THIS from me: On the market-place no one believeth in higher men. But if ye will speak there, very well! The populace, however, blinketh: “We are all equal.” “Ye higher men,”—so blinketh the populace—“there are no higher men, we are all equal; man is man, before God—we are all equal!” Before God!—Now, however, this God hath died. Before the populace, however, we will not be equal. Ye higher men, away from the market-place! 2.
Before God!—Now however this God hath died! Ye higher men, this God was your greatest danger. Only since he lay in the grave have ye again arisen. Now only cometh the great noontide, now only doth the higher man become—master! Have ye understood this word, O my brethren? Ye are frightened: do your hearts turn giddy? Doth the abyss here yawn for you? Doth the hell-hound here yelp at you? Well! Take heart! ye higher men! Now only travaileth the mountain of the human future. God hath died: now do WE desire—the Superman to live.
3. The most careful ask to-day: “How is man to be maintained?” Zarathustra however asketh, as the first and only one: “How is man to be SURPASSED?” The Superman, I have at heart; THAT is the first and only thing to me—and NOT man: not the neighbour, not the poorest, not the sorriest, not the best.— O my brethren, what I can love in man is that he is an over-going and a down-going. And also in you there is much that maketh me love and hope. In that ye have despised, ye higher men, that make...
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Die at the Right Time
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathustra

Zarathustra advocates for the importance of dying at the 'right time,' suggesting that those who fail to live meaningfully are merely superfluous burdens on existence.

...nd yourselves shall ye love some day! Then LEARN first of all to love. And on that account ye had to drink the bitter cup of your love. Bitterness is in the cup even of the best love: thus doth it cause longing for the Superman; thus doth it cause thirst in thee, the creating one! Thirst in the creating one, arrow and longing for the Superman: tell me, my brother, is this thy will to marriage? Holy call I such a will, and such a marriage.— Thus spake Zarathustra. XXI. VOLUNTARY DEATH.
Many die too late, and some die too early. Yet strange soundeth the precept: “Die at the right time!” Die at the right time: so teacheth Zarathustra. To be sure, he who never liveth at the right time, how could he ever die at the right time? Would that he might never be born!—Thus do I advise the superfluous ones. But even the superfluous ones make much ado about their death, and even the hollowest nut wanteth to be cracked.
Every one regardeth dying as a great matter: but as yet death is not a festival. Not yet have people learned to inaugurate the finest festivals. The consummating death I show unto you, which becometh a stimulus and promise to the living. His death, dieth the consummating one triumphantly, surrounded by hoping and promising ones. Thus should one learn to die; and there should be no festival at which such a dying one doth not consecrate the oaths of the living! Thus to die is best; the next...
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Between Fool and Corpse
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathustra

The author laments that his message of the Superman is currently met with indifference, as he finds himself carrying a 'corpse' rather than a living follower. He resolves to continue his gloomy path, seeking to bury the past while still aiming to teach the lightning of the Superman.

...is the dying one did not reply further; but he moved his hand as if he sought the hand of Zarathustra in gratitude. 7. Meanwhile the evening came on, and the market-place veiled itself in gloom. Then the people dispersed, for even curiosity and terror become fatigued. Zarathustra, however, still sat beside the dead man on the ground, absorbed in thought: so he forgot the time. But at last it became night, and a cold wind blew upon the lonely one. Then arose Zarathustra and said to his heart:
Verily, a fine catch of fish hath Zarathustra made to-day! It is not a man he hath caught, but a corpse. Sombre is human life, and as yet without meaning: a buffoon may be fateful to it. I want to teach men the sense of their existence, which is the Superman, the lightning out of the dark cloud—man. But still am I far from them, and my sense speaketh not unto their sense. To men I am still something between a fool and a corpse. Gloomy is the night, gloomy are the ways of Zarathustra. Come, thou cold and stiff companion! I carry thee to the place where I shall bury thee with mine own hands.
8. When Zarathustra had said this to his heart, he put the corpse upon his shoulders and set out on his way. Yet had he not gone a hundred steps, when there stole a man up to him and whispered in his ear—and lo! he that spake was the buffoon from the tower. “Leave this town, O Zarathustra,” said he, “there are too many here who hate thee. The good and just hate thee, and call thee their enemy and despiser; the believers in the orthodox belief hate thee, and call thee a danger to the multitude...
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The Great Disgust
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathustra

The author reflects on a profound existential disgust and the wearying realization that the 'small man' eternally returns, stalling spiritual progress.

...ints and accusations! And I myself—do I thereby want to be man’s accuser? Ah, mine animals, this only have I learned hitherto, that for man his baddest is necessary for his best,— —That all that is baddest is the best POWER, and the hardest stone for the highest creator; and that man must become better AND badder:— Not to THIS torture-stake was I tied, that I know man is bad,—but I cried, as no one hath yet cried: “Ah, that his baddest is so very small! Ah, that his best is so very small!”
The great disgust at man—IT strangled me and had crept into my throat: and what the soothsayer had presaged: “All is alike, nothing is worth while, knowledge strangleth.” A long twilight limped on before me, a fatally weary, fatally intoxicated sadness, which spake with yawning mouth. “Eternally he returneth, the man of whom thou art weary, the small man”—so yawned my sadness, and dragged its foot and could not go to sleep.
A cavern, became the human earth to me; its breast caved in; everything living became to me human dust and bones and mouldering past. My sighing sat on all human graves, and could no longer arise: my sighing and questioning croaked and choked, and gnawed and nagged day and night: —“Ah, man returneth eternally! The small man returneth eternally!” Naked had I once seen both of them, the greatest man and the smallest man: all too like one another—all too human, even the greatest man! All too...
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The Body's Despair
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathustra

A vision suggesting that the concept of an 'other world' is merely a product of the body's despair and that existence can only be understood through human experience.

...To me the convalescent would it now be suffering and torment to believe in such phantoms: suffering would it now be to me, and humiliation. Thus speak I to backworldsmen. Suffering was it, and impotence—that created all backworlds; and the short madness of happiness, which only the greatest sufferer experienceth. Weariness, which seeketh to get to the ultimate with one leap, with a death-leap; a poor ignorant weariness, unwilling even to will any longer: that created all Gods and backworlds.
Believe me, my brethren! It was the body which despaired of the body—it groped with the fingers of the infatuated spirit at the ultimate walls. Believe me, my brethren! It was the body which despaired of the earth—it heard the bowels of existence speaking unto it. And then it sought to get through the ultimate walls with its head—and not with its head only—into “the other world.” But that “other world” is well concealed from man, that dehumanised, inhuman world, which is a celestial naught; and the bowels of existence do not speak unto man, except as man. Verily, it is difficult to prove all being, and hard to make it speak.
Tell me, ye brethren, is not the strangest of all things best proved? Yea, this ego, with its contradiction and perplexity, speaketh most uprightly of its being—this creating, willing, evaluing ego, which is the measure and value of things. And this most upright existence, the ego—it speaketh of the body, and still implieth the body, even when it museth and raveth and fluttereth with broken wings. Always more uprightly learneth it to speak, the ego; and the more it learneth, the more doth it...
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