On Reading and Writing

Of all that is written I love only what one writes with one’s blood. Write with blood: and you will learn that blood is spirit.

It is not easy to understand another’s blood: I hate the idlers who read.

Whoever knows the reader does nothing more for the reader. Another century of readers—and the spirit itself will stink.

That everyone may learn to read ruins in the long run not only writing but thinking as well.

Once the spirit was God, then it became human, and now it is even becoming rabble.

Whoever writes in blood and aphorisms does not want to be read but to be learned by heart.

In the mountains the shortest way is from peak to peak: but for that you must have long legs. Aphorisms should be peaks: and those to whom they are spoken, great and tall of stature.

The air thin and pure, danger near, and the spirit full of a gay malice: these go well together.

I want to have goblins around me, for I am courageous. Courage that scares away ghosts creates goblins for itself,—courage wants to laugh.

I no longer feel with you: this cloud that I see beneath me, this blackness and heaviness at which I laugh,—that is precisely your thundercloud.

You look upward when you long to be exalted. And I look down, because I am exalted.

Who among you can laugh and be exalted at the same time?

Whoever climbs the highest mountains laughs at all tragic plays and tragic solemnities.

Courageous, unconcerned, mocking, violent—so wisdom wants us: she is a woman and always loves only a warrior.

You tell me: “Life is hard to bear.” But why else would you have your pride in the morning and your resignation in the evening?

Life is hard to bear: but do not act so tender with me! We are all of us fine load-bearing donkeys, he-donkeys and she-donkeys.

What do we have in common with the rosebud that trembles because a drop of dew lies on its body?

It is true: we love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.

And to me too, who am fond of life, butterflies and soap bubbles, and whatever is of their kind among human beings, seem to know most about happiness.

To see these light, foolish, dainty, nimble little souls flutter about—that moves Zarathustra to tears and songs.

I would believe only in a god who knew how to dance.

And when I saw my devil, I found him serious, thorough, deep, solemn: it was the Spirit of Gravity,—through him all things fall.

One kills not with wrath but with laughter. Come, let us kill the Spirit of Gravity!

I have learned to walk: since then I let myself run. I have learned to fly: since then I do not want to be pushed before I move from the spot.

Now I am light, now I fly, now I see myself beneath myself, now a god dances through me.

Thus spoke Zarathustra.