For rather will I have noise and thunders and tempest-blasts than this discreet, doubting cat-repose; and also amongst men do I hate most of all the soft-treaders, and half-and-half ones, and the doubting, hesitating, passing clouds.

And ‘he who cannot bless shall learn to curse!’—this clear teaching dropt unto me from the clear heaven; this star standeth in my heaven even in dark nights.

I, however, am a blesser and a Yea-sayer, if thou be but around me, thou pure, thou luminous heaven! Thou abyss of light, into all abysses do I then carry my beneficent Yea-saying!

A blesser have I become and a Yea-sayer, and therefore strove I long and was a striver, that I might one day get my hands free for blessing.

This, however, is my blessing: to stand above everything as its own heaven, its round roof, its azure bell and eternal security; and blessed is he who thus blesseth!

For all things are baptized at the font of eternity, and beyond good and evil; good and evil themselves, however, are but fugitive shadows and damp afflictions and passing clouds.

Verily, it is a blessing and not a blasphemy when I teach that ‘above all things there standeth the heaven of chance, the heaven of innocence, the heaven of hazard, the heaven of wantonness’.

‘Of Hazard’—that is the oldest nobility in the world; that gave I back to all things; I emancipated them from bondage under purpose.

This freedom and celestial serenity did I put like an azure bell above all things, when I taught that over them and through them, no ‘eternal Will’—willeth.

This wantonness and folly did I put in place of that Will, when I taught that ‘In everything there is one thing impossible— rationality!’

A little reason, to be sure, a germ of wisdom scattered from star to star—this leaven is mixed in all things; for the sake of folly, wisdom is mixed in all things!

A little wisdom is indeed possible; but this blessed security have I found in all things, that they prefer—to dance on the feet of chance.

O heaven above me! Thou pure, thou lofty heaven! This is now thy purity unto me, that there is no eternal reason-spider and reason-cobweb—

That thou art to me a dancing-floor for divine chances, that thou art to me a table of the Gods, for divine dice and diceplayers!

But thou blushest? Have I spoken unspeakable things? Have I abused, when I meant to bless thee?

Or is it the shame of being two of us that maketh thee blush! Dost thou bid me go and be silent, because now—day cometh?

The world is deep—and deeper than e’er the day could read. Not everything may be uttered in presence of day. But day cometh; so let us part!

O heaven above me, thou modest one! Thou glowing one! O thou, my happiness before sunrise! The day cometh; so let us part!

Thus spake Zarathustra.