That asketh and asketh and never tireth: ‘How is man to maintain himself best, longest, most pleasantly?’ Thereby—are they the masters of today.

These masters of today—surpass them, O my brethren. These petty people: they are the Superman’s greatest danger!

Surpass, ye higher men, the petty virtues, the petty policy, the sand-grain considerateness, the ant-hill trumpery, the pitiable comfortableness, the ‘happiness of the greatest number’!

And rather despair than submit yourselves. And verily, I love you, because ye know not today how to live, ye higher men. For thus do ye live —best!

4

Have ye courage, O my brethren? Are ye stout-hearted? Not the courage before witnesses, but anchorite and eagle courage, which not even a God any longer beholdeth?

Cold souls, mules, the blind and the drunken I do not call stout-hearted. He hath heart who knoweth fear, but vanquisheth it; who seeth the abyss, but with pride.

He who seeth the abyss, but with eagle’s eyes—he who with eagle’s talons graspeth the abyss—he hath courage.

5

‘Man is evil’—so said to me for consolation all the wisest ones. Ah, if only it be still true today! For the evil is man’s best force.

Man must become better and eviler—so do I teach. The evilest is necessary for the Superman’s best.

It may have been well for the preacher of the petty people to suffer and be burdened by men’s sin. I, however, rejoice in great sin as my great consolation—

Such things, however, are not said for long ears. Every word, also, is not suited for every mouth. These are fine far-away things: at them sheep’s claws shall not grasp!

6

Ye higher men, think ye that I am here to put right what ye have put wrong?

Or that I wished henceforth to make snugger couches for you sufferers? Or show you restless, miswandering, misclimbing ones new and easier footpaths?

Nay! Nay! Three times Nay! Always more, always better ones of your type shall succumb—for ye shall always have it worse and harder. Thus only—

Thus only groweth man aloft to the height where the lightning striketh and shattereth him: high enough for the lightning!

Towards the few, the long, the remote go forth my soul and my seeking; of what account to me are your many little, short miseries!

Ye do not yet suffer enough for me! For ye suffer from yourselves, ye have not yet suffered from man. Ye would lie if ye spake otherwise! None of you suffereth from what I have suffered.