FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
IN THE PRIME OF LIFE.
Zarathustra preaches to a crowd in the market:
"I teach you the overman. Man is a something that shall be surpassed. What have ye done to surpass him?
"All beings hitherto have created something beyond themselves: and are ye going to be the ebb of this great tide and rather revert to the animal than surpass man?
"What with man is the ape? A joke or a sore shame. Man shall be the same for the overman, a joke or a sore shame.
"Behold, I teach you the overman!
"The overman is the significance of the earth. Your will shall say; the overman shall be the significance of the earth.
"I conjure you, my brethren, remain faithful to the earth and do not believe those who speak unto you of superterrestrial hopes! Poisoners they are whether they know it or not.
"Verily, a muddy stream is man. One must be the ocean to be able to receive a muddy stream without becoming unclean.
"Behold, I teach you the overman: he is that ocean, in him your great contempt can sink.
"What is the greatest thing ye can experience? That is the hour of great contempt. The hour in which not only your happiness, but your reason and virtue as well, turn loathsome.
"I love him who is of a free spirit and of a free heart: thus his head is merely the intestine of his heart, but his heart driveth him to destruction.
"I love all those who are like heavy drops falling one by one from the dark cloud lowering over men: they announce the coming of the lightning and perish in the announcing.
"Behold, I am an announcer of the lightning and a heavy drop from the clouds; that lightning's name it the overman."
Zarathustra comes as an enemy of the good and the just. He says:
"Lo, the good and just! Whom do they hate most? Him who breaketh to pieces their tables of values,—the law-breaker, the criminal:—but he is the creator.
"The destroyer of morality I am called by the good and just: my tale is immoral."