Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None

“Once the soul gazed contemptuously at the body, and then such contempt was the highest thing: it wanted the body gaunt, ghastly, starved. Thus it intended to escape the body and the earth. Oh this soul was gaunt, ghastly, and starved, and cruelty was the lust of this soul! But you, too, my brothers, tell me: what does your body proclaim about your soul? Is your soul not poverty and filth and a pitiful contentment?”

The relationship between the soul and the body remains a prominent theme throughout Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In this quote, Zarathustra critiques the pre-existing desire of the soul to escape the body. If one spends their life living in virtue of the soul, then they have fallen susceptible to the preachers of death. And the embrace of the body becomes an embrace of life.

“Mankind is a rope fastened between animal and overman—a rope over an abyss. A dangerous crossing, a dangerous on-the-way, a dangerous looking back, a dangerous shuddering and standing still. What is great about human beings is that they are a bridge and not a purpose: what is lovable about human beings is that they are a crossing over and a going under.”

Nietzsche juxtaposes the tightrope walker with his understanding of the overman. Man is like the rope extended between two pillars, or rather, between animal and the overman. As such, man is not a purpose but a connection between two worlds.

“But I am leaving you, the time is up. Between dawn and dawn a new truth came to me. I shall not be a shepherd, nor a gravedigger. I do not want to even speak again with the people—for the last time have I spoken to a dead person.”

Zarathustra has just left the corpse of the tightrope walker in the trunk of a tree. He realizes that his followers should not be dead bodies that he carries on his back. Instead, they should be willing listeners who are ready for his wisdom. Zarathustra distinguishes himself from shepherds, who embrace herd mentality, and gravediggers, who embrace death.

“Good and evil and joy and suffering and I and you—colorful smoke it seemed to me before creative eyes. The creator wanted to look away from himself and so he created the world. It is drunken joy to the suffering one to look away from one’s suffering and to lose oneself. Drunken joy and losing oneself the world once seemed to me. This world, the eternally imperfect, the mirror image and imperfect image of an eternal contradiction—a drunken joy to its imperfect creator: thus the world once seemed to me.”

Zarathustra used to view this world as a representation of something more perfect. He used to believe that a god created this world to avoid looking at himself and his suffering. Yet, he soon realized that the god he once worshiped was the making of man. The theme that man is a creator comes to the forefront.

“They have not even become human beings, these terrible ones: may they preach departure from life and pass away themselves! They are the consumptive of the soul: scarcely are they born when they begin to die and long for the teachings of weariness and resignation. They would like to be dead and we shall honor their will! Let us beware of waking these dead and disturbing these living coffins.”

Zarathustra is speaking about the preachers of death. These preachers spend their lives thinking about death. Therefore, they never truly live. Zarathustra cautions against their teachings and states that if they wish to become living coffins, then we should let them.

“But you shall have your highest thought commanded by me—and it says: human being is something that shall be overcome. So live your life of obedience and war! What matters living long! Which warrior wants to be spared!”

Zarathustra is speaking on the importance of war and enemies. One should put more effort into their enemies and be willing to fight. In fighting, honesty always wins and, therefore, knowledge of the overman is strengthened. War is not meant to pursue nationalism but rather should be used to promote the well-being of man. Further, our enemies are important as they expose the part of ourselves we loathe the most.

“State I call it, where all are drinkers of poison, the good and the bad; state, where all lose themselves, the good and the bad; state, where the slow suicide of everyone is called—life.”

The state, according to Zarathustra, is the new idol. People, good and bad, are susceptible to the state’s promise of order. When one accepts the mentality of the state, they become a member of another herd. They cease creating their own values and instead use the values of the state to feel contempt towards themselves and others.

“All too long a slave and a tyrant have been concealed in woman. That is why woman is not yet capable of friendship: she knows only love. In the love of a woman are injustice and blindness toward everything that she does not love. And even in the knowing love of a woman there is everywhere still assault and lightning and night next to light. Woman is not yet capable of friendship: women are still cats, and birds. Or, at best, cows.”

Nietzsche includes various sexist remarks throughout Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In this quote, women are incapable of friendship because it requires a certain level of autonomy and self-reflection.

“Are you a new strength and a new right? A first movement? A wheel rolling out of itself? Can you compel even the stars to revolve around you? Oh, there is so much lust for the heights! There are so many spasms of the ambitious! Show me that you are not one of the lustful and the ambitious!”

Zarathustra speaks of the hardship involved in a life of solitude. Leaving the herd can cause extreme loneliness and suffering. When one does leave the herd, it should not be because of selfish reasons but for the pursuit of knowledge that one then shares with all humankind.

“If only he had remained in the desert and far away from the good and the just! Perhaps he would have learned to live and to love the earth—and even to laugh!”

Zarathustra makes an explicit critique of Jesus. He alludes to the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert overcoming temptation by the devil. Zarathustra argues that Jesus should have stayed in isolation and learned how to love the earth instead of preparing for the afterlife.

“She has her eyes, her laugh and even her little golden fishing rod—is it my fault that the two look so much alike? And when life once asked me: ‘Who is this wisdom anyway?’—I hastened to reply: ‘Oh yes! Wisdom! One thirsts for her and does not become sated, one peeks through veils, one snatches through nets. Is she beautiful? What do I know! But even the oldest carps are baited by her.”

When Zarathustra gazes into life, he begins to sink into the unfathomable but is saved by a golden fishing rod. The above quote is his response to a woman who critiques Zarathustra’s praise of life as nothing more than the coveting of women. Themes of gender come to the forefront, as Zarathustra believes the equation of wisdom and life with the feminine is enough justification for coveting women.

Where is innocence? Where there is will to beget. And whoever wants to create over and beyond himself, he has the purest will. Where is beauty? Where I must will with my entire will; where I want to love and perish so that an image does not remain merely an image. Loving and perishing: these have gone together since the beginning of time. Will to love: that means being willing also for death. Thus I speak to you cowards!”

Zarathustra has just contemplated how the moon does not want to give birth, or rather, serve as a precursor to the sun. He concludes that the man in the moon, who would beget the sun, is a lecherous and jealous. The moon may love the earth but there is shame in this love. Those who have seduced themselves into loving the earth as the moon does take part in immaculate perception. To love the earth, you must love it as a begetter.

“Your wild cats must first have turned to tigers and your poisonous toads to crocodiles; for the good hunter shall have a good hunt! And truly, you good and just! In you there is much to laugh at and especially your fear of what up till now has been called “devil!” So estranged from greatness are you in your souls that the overman would seem terrible to you in his kindness! And you wise and knowing ones, you would flee from the sunburn of wisdom in which the overman joyfully bathes his nakedness! You highest human beings whom I have ever laid eyes on—this is my doubt in you and my secret laughter: I suspect you would call my overman—devil!”

Zarathustra again critiques traditional notions of good and evil. He routinely argues for the embrace of creativity and the bestowing of virtue as the highest value. Thus, the man who is distanced from the greatness of his soul believes in the devil and fears the goodness of the overman. Further, these so-called wise and good men would confuse the overman for the devil. Yet, this seems to arise from the misunderstanding that the annihilator of values is evil.

“This I say to you as a parable. Yesterday, at the stillest hour, the ground faded from me, the dream began. The hand advanced, the clock of my life drew a breath—never had I heard such stillness around me, so that my heart was terrified. Then without voice it spoke to me: “You know it, Zarathustra?”—And I cried out in terror on hearing this whispering, and the blood drained from my face, but I kept silent.”

Zarathustra has a dream that he initially struggles to interpret. He is told by the voice that the time has come once again to return to solitude. The voice tells Zarathustra that he must go as a shadow of what must come and that he will lead the way for a new future. He is told to become a child again and shed the shame he seemingly acquired from spending too much time in the village.

“‘See this gateway, dwarf!’ I continued. ‘It has two faces. Two paths come together here; no one has yet walked them to the end. This long lane back: it lasts an eternity. And that long lane outward—that is another eternity. They contradict each other, these paths; they blatantly offend each other—and here at this gateway is where they come together. The name of the gateway is inscribed at the top: ‘Moment.’’”

This quote explains the doctrine of eternal recurrence. This doctrine requires one to learn how to embrace the present moment insofar as it cannot be changed. In so doing, one overcomes themselves.

“But here you are in your own home and house; here you can speak everything out and pour out all the reasons, nothing here is ashamed of obscure, obstinate feelings. Here all things come caressingly to your rhetoric and they flatter you, for they want to ride on your back. Here you ride on every parable to every truth.”

Zarathustra differentiates between solitude and being forsaken. Solitude he equates to the home, where one’s external environment validates one’s sense of self. To be forsaken, contrastingly, is to have your environment reject you. 

“To them all talk of virtue seemed an old worn out thing; and whoever wanted to sleep well even spoke about “good” and “evil” before going to bed. I disturbed this sleepiness when I taught: what is good and evil no one knows yet—except for the creator!”

Virtue, a reoccurring theme, is addressed. Before Zarathustra, virtue was not questioned but deemed to be transcendent laws handed down from a higher power. Zarathustra exposes the role of the creator and how all virtue is manmade, blurring the lines between good and evil.

“Everything goes, everything comes back; the wheel of being rolls eternally. Everything dies, everything blossoms again, the year of being runs eternally.”

This line is spoken by the animal companions of Zarathustra. They describe the doctrine of eternal recurrence, emphasizing their valuable role in Zarathustra’s life.

“For your animals know well, oh Zarathustra, who you are and must become; behold, you are the teacher of the eternal recurrence—that now is your destiny!”

The animals bestow on Zarathustra his purpose in life. This bestowing on the part of the animals is interesting, as it shows how they can reach their own level of enlightenment as well. 

“Open up and toss me your fishes and glittering crabs! With my best bait today I bait the oddest human fishes!—my very happiness I cast far and wide, between sunrise, noon and sunset, to see if many human fishes learn to jiggle and wiggle on my happiness.”

Zarathustra has decided that mankind will have to ascend to him, as he has yet to receive any sign that he should journey down the mountain. He casts his bait, which is honey, but which he equates to happiness, hoping to lure in humans.

“But today that is what passes for virtue itself among all small people, pity—they have no respect for great misfortune, for great ugliness, for great failure.”

This quote is spoken by the ugliest human being, or the one who murdered God. He exposes God’s biggest vice as pity, which disgraces and irritates all shame. He could not withstand the constant pitying by God, who bears witness to all mankind.

“‘Was that—life?’ I want to say to death. ‘Well then! One More Time!’ My friends, what do you think? Do you not want to say to death, as I do: Was that—life? For Zarathustra’s sake, well then! One More Time!”

This quote is spoken by the ugliest human being after he has resurrected God in the form of a donkey. The Ass Festival is the first time he has ever felt happiness and praised life. He utters the phrase “One More Time” perfectly capturing the mentality of eternal recurrence. 

“Joy wants the eternity of all things, wants deep, wants deep eternity!”

Joy is more important than pain, as pain restrains and limits one whereas joy embraces eternity. By stating that the world is deep, Zarathustra could be referencing the depth of the soul which must be explored.