Verily, I have taken from you a hundred formulae and your virtue's favorite playthings; and now you upbraid me, as children upbraid.
They played by the sea- then came there a wave and swept their playthings into the deep: and now do they cry.
But the same wave shall bring them new playthings, and spread before them new speckled shells!
Thus will they be comforted; and like them shall you also, my friends, have your comforting- and new speckled shells!-
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
28. The Rabble
LIFE is a well of delight; but where the rabble also drink, there all fountains are poisoned.
To everything cleanly am I well disposed; but I hate to see the grinning mouths and the thirst of the unclean.
They cast their eye down into the fountain: and now glances up to me their odious smile out of the fountain.
The holy water have they poisoned with their lustfulness; and when they called their filthy dreams delight, then poisoned they also the words.
Indignant becomes the flame when they put their damp hearts to the fire; the spirit itself bubbles and smokes when the rabble approach the fire.
Mawkish and over-mellow becomes the fruit in their hands: unsteady, and withered at the top, does their look make the fruit-tree.
