Good and Evil's Self-Surpassing
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathustra

Nietzsche argues that good and evil are not eternal truths but tools of power that must constantly be surpassed by the creative force of life.

...walketh even on the feet of thy Will to Truth! He certainly did not hit the truth who shot at it the formula: ‘Will to existence’: that will—doth not exist! For what is not, cannot will; that, however, which is in existence—how could it still strive for existence! Only where there is life, is there also will: not, however, Will to Life, but—so teach I thee—Will to Power! Much is reckoned higher than life itself by the living one; but out of the very reckoning speaketh—the Will to Power!”—
Thus did Life once teach me: and thereby, ye wisest ones, do I solve you the riddle of your hearts. Verily, I say unto you: good and evil which would be everlasting—it doth not exist! Of its own accord must it ever surpass itself anew. With your values and formulae of good and evil, ye exercise power, ye valuing ones: and that is your secret love, and the sparkling, trembling, and overflowing of your souls. But a stronger power groweth out of your values, and a new surpassing: by it breaketh egg and egg-shell.
And he who hath to be a creator in good and evil—verily, he hath first to be a destroyer, and break values in pieces. Thus doth the greatest evil pertain to the greatest good: that, however, is the creating good.— Let us SPEAK thereof, ye wisest ones, even though it be bad. To be silent is worse; all suppressed truths become poisonous. And let everything break up which—can break up by our truths! Many a house is still to be built!— Thus spake Zarathustra. XXXV. THE SUBLIME ONES. Calm...
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Awaken the Corpses
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathustra

A call to action for 'higher men' to awaken the dead and transcend their current limitations. The author uses the imagery of muttering sepulchres to urge a spiritual resurrection and a higher flight of the soul.

...courage for it? —Who is to be master of the world? Who is going to say: THUS shall ye flow, ye great and small streams!” —The hour approacheth: O man, thou higher man, take heed! this talk is for fine ears, for thine ears—WHAT SAITH DEEP MIDNIGHT’S VOICE INDEED? 5. It carrieth me away, my soul danceth. Day’s-work! Day’s-work! Who is to be master of the world? The moon is cool, the wind is still. Ah! Ah! Have ye already flown high enough? Ye have danced: a leg, nevertheless, is not a wing.
Ye good dancers, now is all delight over: wine hath become lees, every cup hath become brittle, the sepulchres mutter. Ye have not flown high enough: now do the sepulchres mutter: “Free the dead! Why is it so long night? Doth not the moon make us drunken?” Ye higher men, free the sepulchres, awaken the corpses!
Ah, why doth the worm still burrow? There approacheth, there approacheth, the hour,— —There boometh the clock-bell, there thrilleth still the heart, there burroweth still the wood-worm, the heart-worm. Ah! Ah! THE WORLD IS DEEP! 6. Sweet lyre! Sweet lyre! I love thy tone, thy drunken, ranunculine tone!—how long, how far hath come unto me thy tone, from the distance, from the ponds of love! Thou old clock-bell, thou sweet lyre! Every pain hath torn thy heart, father-pain, fathers’-pain, fore...
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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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Man as Bridge
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathustra

Nietzsche defines man as a bridge toward the 'Superman,' a transitional being meant to be surpassed through joy, laughter, and new perspectives.

...any Gods:— Where all time seemed to me a blessed mockery of moments, where necessity was freedom itself, which played happily with the goad of freedom:— Where I also found again mine old devil and arch-enemy, the spirit of gravity, and all that it created: constraint, law, necessity and consequence and purpose and will and good and evil:— For must there not be that which is danced OVER, danced beyond? Must there not, for the sake of the nimble, the nimblest,—be moles and clumsy dwarfs?— 3.
There was it also where I picked up from the path the word “Superman,” and that man is something that must be surpassed. —That man is a bridge and not a goal—rejoicing over his noontides and evenings, as advances to new rosy dawns: —The Zarathustra word of the great noontide, and whatever else I have hung up over men like purple evening-afterglows. Verily, also new stars did I make them see, along with new nights; and over cloud and day and night, did I spread out laughter like a gay-coloured canopy.
I taught them all MY poetisation and aspiration: to compose and collect into unity what is fragment in man, and riddle and fearful chance;— —As composer, riddle-reader, and redeemer of chance, did I teach them to create the future, and all that HATH BEEN—to redeem by creating. The past of man to redeem, and every “It was” to transform, until the Will saith: “But so did I will it! So shall I will it—” —This did I call redemption; this alone taught I them to call redemption.— Now do I await...
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Surpassing Man
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathustra

The central call to surpass the current state of humanity and strive toward the Superman, viewing man as a mere bridge or transition between the beast and a higher state of being.

...!”—And thus they parted from one another, the old man and Zarathustra, laughing like schoolboys. When Zarathustra was alone, however, he said to his heart: “Could it be possible! This old saint in the forest hath not yet heard of it, that GOD IS DEAD!” 3. When Zarathustra arrived at the nearest town which adjoineth the forest, he found many people assembled in the market-place; for it had been announced that a rope-dancer would give a performance. And Zarathustra spake thus unto the people:
I TEACH YOU THE SUPERMAN. Man is something that is to be surpassed. What have ye done to surpass man? All beings hitherto have created something beyond themselves: and ye want to be the ebb of that great tide, and would rather go back to the beast than surpass man? What is the ape to man? A laughing-stock, a thing of shame. And just the same shall man be to the Superman: a laughing-stock, a thing of shame. Ye have made your way from the worm to man, and much within you is still worm. Once were ye apes, and even yet man is more of an ape than any of the apes.
Even the wisest among you is only a disharmony and hybrid of plant and phantom. But do I bid you become phantoms or plants? Lo, I teach you the Superman! The Superman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: The Superman SHALL BE the meaning of the earth! I conjure you, my brethren, REMAIN TRUE TO THE EARTH, and believe not those who speak unto you of superearthly hopes! Poisoners are they, whether they know it or not. Despisers of life are they, decaying ones and poisoned ones them...
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