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The Concealed Depth
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathustra

A reflection on the necessity of depth and concealment, where the soul's most profound truths are hidden beneath a mask of clarity to protect them from being violated.

...h diction and dice, I outwit the solemn assistants: all those stern watchers, shall my will and purpose elude. That no one might see down into my depth and into mine ultimate will—for that purpose did I devise the long clear silence. Many a shrewd one did I find: he veiled his countenance and made his water muddy, that no one might see therethrough and thereunder. But precisely unto him came the shrewder distrusters and nut-crackers: precisely from him did they fish his best-concealed fish!
But the clear, the honest, the transparent—these are for me the wisest silent ones: in them, so PROFOUND is the depth that even the clearest water doth not—betray it.— Thou snow-bearded, silent, winter-sky, thou round-eyed whitehead above me! Oh, thou heavenly simile of my soul and its wantonness! And MUST I not conceal myself like one who hath swallowed gold—lest my soul should be ripped up?
MUST I not wear stilts, that they may OVERLOOK my long legs—all those enviers and injurers around me? Those dingy, fire-warmed, used-up, green-tinted, ill-natured souls—how COULD their envy endure my happiness! Thus do I show them only the ice and winter of my peaks—and NOT that my mountain windeth all the solar girdles around it! They hear only the whistling of my winter-storms: and know NOT that I also travel over warm seas, like longing, heavy, hot south-winds. They commiserate also my...
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Winter's Wise Concealment
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathustra

Zarathustra describes how he conceals his happiness and strength behind a facade of suffering to protect himself from the envy and suffocating pity of others.

...gy, fire-warmed, used-up, green-tinted, ill-natured souls—how COULD their envy endure my happiness! Thus do I show them only the ice and winter of my peaks—and NOT that my mountain windeth all the solar girdles around it! They hear only the whistling of my winter-storms: and know NOT that I also travel over warm seas, like longing, heavy, hot south-winds. They commiserate also my accidents and chances:—but MY word saith: “Suffer the chance to come unto me: innocent is it as a little child!”
How COULD they endure my happiness, if I did not put around it accidents, and winter-privations, and bear-skin caps, and enmantling snowflakes! —If I did not myself commiserate their PITY, the pity of those enviers and injurers! —If I did not myself sigh before them, and chatter with cold, and patiently LET myself be swathed in their pity! This is the wise waggish-will and good-will of my soul, that it CONCEALETH NOT its winters and glacial storms; it concealeth not its chilblains either. To one man, lonesomeness is the flight of the sick one; to another, it is the flight FROM the sick ones. Let them HEAR me chattering and sighing with…
LI. ON PASSING-BY. Thus slowly wandering through many peoples and divers cities, did Zarathustra return by round-about roads to his mountains and his cave. And behold, thereby came he unawares also to the gate of the GREAT CITY. Here, however, a foaming fool, with extended hands, sprang forward to him and stood in his way. It was the same fool whom the people called “the ape of Zarathustra:” for he had learned from him something of the expression and modulation of language, and perhaps li...
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Now entering Chapter LI. ON PASSING-BY
City of Slaughtered Spirit
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathustra

A scathing condemnation of the city as a 'hell for anchorites' where great thoughts and sentiments are degraded into 'limp dirty rags' for public consumption. The author urges the free spirit to avoid this 'shambles of the spirit' where the collective atmosphere stifles individual greatness.

...e he unawares also to the gate of the GREAT CITY. Here, however, a foaming fool, with extended hands, sprang forward to him and stood in his way. It was the same fool whom the people called “the ape of Zarathustra:” for he had learned from him something of the expression and modulation of language, and perhaps liked also to borrow from the store of his wisdom. And the fool talked thus to Zarathustra: O Zarathustra, here is the great city: here hast thou nothing to seek and everything to lose.
Why wouldst thou wade through this mire? Have pity upon thy foot! Spit rather on the gate of the city, and—turn back! Here is the hell for anchorites’ thoughts: here are great thoughts seethed alive and boiled small. Here do all great sentiments decay: here may only rattle-boned sensations rattle! Smellest thou not already the shambles and cookshops of the spirit? Steameth not this city with the fumes of slaughtered spirit? Seest thou not the souls hanging like limp dirty rags?—And they make newspapers also out of these rags!
Hearest thou not how spirit hath here become a verbal game? Loathsome verbal swill doth it vomit forth!—And they make newspapers also out of this verbal swill. They hound one another, and know not whither! They inflame one another, and know not why! They tinkle with their pinchbeck, they jingle with their gold. They are cold, and seek warmth from distilled waters: they are inflamed, and seek coolness from frozen spirits; they are all sick and sore through public opinion. All lusts and vices...
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Inflamed Yet Cold
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathustra

A critique of the frantic and aimless nature of the masses, who are driven by public opinion and artificial stimulants. The author describes a society that is 'sick and sore,' seeking warmth and coolness in all the wrong places.

...e and boiled small. Here do all great sentiments decay: here may only rattle-boned sensations rattle! Smellest thou not already the shambles and cookshops of the spirit? Steameth not this city with the fumes of slaughtered spirit? Seest thou not the souls hanging like limp dirty rags?—And they make newspapers also out of these rags! Hearest thou not how spirit hath here become a verbal game? Loathsome verbal swill doth it vomit forth!—And they make newspapers also out of this verbal swill.
They hound one another, and know not whither! They inflame one another, and know not why! They tinkle with their pinchbeck, they jingle with their gold. They are cold, and seek warmth from distilled waters: they are inflamed, and seek coolness from frozen spirits; they are all sick and sore through public opinion.
All lusts and vices are here at home; but here there are also the virtuous; there is much appointable appointed virtue:— Much appointable virtue with scribe-fingers, and hardy sitting-flesh and waiting-flesh, blessed with small breast-stars, and padded, haunchless daughters. There is here also much piety, and much faithful spittle-licking and spittle-backing, before the God of Hosts. “From on high,” drippeth the star, and the gracious spittle; for the high, longeth every starless bosom. Th...
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The Pillar of Fire
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathustra

Zarathustra expresses his loathing for the stagnant 'great city' and advises that when one can no longer love a place or person, the only noble path is to pass by.

...st thou seat thyself beside this filth, that thou mightest have cause for much grunting,— —That thou mightest have cause for much VENGEANCE! For vengeance, thou vain fool, is all thy foaming; I have divined thee well! But thy fools’-word injureth ME, even when thou art right! And even if Zarathustra’s word WERE a hundred times justified, thou wouldst ever—DO wrong with my word! Thus spake Zarathustra. Then did he look on the great city and sighed, and was long silent. At last he spake thus:
I loathe also this great city, and not only this fool. Here and there— there is nothing to better, nothing to worsen. Woe to this great city!—And I would that I already saw the pillar of fire in which it will be consumed! For such pillars of fire must precede the great noontide. But this hath its time and its own fate.— This precept, however, give I unto thee, in parting, thou fool: Where one can no longer love, there should one—PASS BY!— Thus spake Zarathustra, and passed by the fool and the great city.
LII. THE APOSTATES. 1. Ah, lieth everything already withered and grey which but lately stood green and many-hued on this meadow! And how much honey of hope did I carry hence into my beehives! Those young hearts have already all become old—and not old even! only weary, ordinary, comfortable:—they declare it: “We have again become pious.” Of late did I see them run forth at early morn with valorous steps: but the feet of their knowledge became weary, and now do they malign even their mor...
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