Page:Thus Spake Zarathustra - Alexander Tille - 1896.djvu/42

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THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, I

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But Zarathustra looked at the folk and wondered. Then he spake thus:

"Man is a rope connecting animal and beyond-man,—a rope over a precipice.

Dangerous over, dangerous on-the-way, dangerous looking backward, dangerous shivering and making a stand.

What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what can be loved in man is that he is a transition and a destruction.

I love those who do not know how to live unless in perishing, for they are those going beyond.

I love the great despisers because they are the great adorers, they are arrows of longing for the other shore.

I love those who do not seek behind the stars for a reason to perish and be sacrificed, but who sacrifice themselves to earth in order that earth may some day become beyond-man's.

I love him who liveth to perceive, and who is longing for perception in order that some day beyond-man may live. And thus he willeth his own destruction.

I love him who worketh and inventeth to build a house for beyond-man and make ready for him earth, animal, and plant; for thus he willeth his own destruction.