The hour in which ye say: 'What is my reason worth! Longeth it for knowledge as a lion for its food? It is poverty and dirt and a miserable ease.'
The hour in which ye say: 'What is my virtue worth! It hath not yet lashed me into rage. How tired I am of my good and mine evil! All that is poverty and dirt and a miserable ease!'
The hour in which ye say: 'What is my justice worth! I do not see that I am flame and fuel. But the just one is flame and fuel!'
The hour in which ye say: 'What is my pity worth! Is pity not the cross to which he is being nailed who loveth men? But my pity is no crucifixion.'
Spake ye ever like that? Cried ye ever like that? Alas! would that I had heard you cry like that!
Not your sin, your moderation crieth unto heaven, your miserliness in sin even crieth unto heaven!
Where is the lightning to lick you with its tongue? Where is that insanity with which ye ought to be inoculated?
Behold! I teach you beyond-man: he is that lightning, he is that insanity!"
Zarathustra having spoken thus one of the folk shouted: "We have heard enough of the rope-dancer; let us see him now!" And all the folk laughed at Zarathustra. The rope-dancer, however, who thought he was meant by that word started with his performance.
