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Zarathustra descends from the mountain to proclaim the Superman to the people. The Superman is a mentally and spiritually evolved version of humanity that’s characterized by a form of higher morality (itself marked by the creation of new values and the exercise of the will to power). Zarathustra teaches that humanity, in its current state, must be overcome; people must long for, strive for, and evolve to become the Superman. Therefore, in the absence of a deity or a system of objective values, the Superman is the meaning of the world; the current day’s best and highest individuals are still just bridges to the Superman. When the great noontide comes, Zarathustra will descend from his mountain for the last time, and the Superman will come.
Superman Quotes in Thus Spoke Zarathustra
The Thus Spoke Zarathustra quotes below are all either spoken by Superman or refer to Superman. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Zarathustra’s Prologue
Quotes
“With singing, weeping, laughing, and muttering I praise the God who is my God. But what do you bring us as a gift?”
When Zarathustra heard these words, he saluted the saint and said: “What should I have to give you! But let me go quickly, that I may take nothing from you!” And thus they parted from one another, the old man and Zarathustra, laughing as two boys laugh.
But when Zarathustra was alone, he spoke thus to his heart: “Could it be possible! This old saint has not yet heard in his forest that God is dead!”
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I teach you the Superman. Man is something that should be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?
All creatures hitherto have created something beyond themselves: and do you want to be the ebb of this great tide, and return to the animals rather than overcome man? […]
The Superman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: The Superman shall be the meaning of the earth!
I entreat you, my brothers, remain true to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of superterrestrial hopes! They are poisoners, whether they know it or not.
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A light has dawned for me: Zarathustra shall not speak to the people but to companions! Zarathustra shall not be herdsman and dog to the herd! […]
Behold the good and the just! Whom do they hate most? Him who smashes their tables of values, the breaker, the lawbreaker—but he is the creator. […]
The creator seeks companions, not corpses or herds or believers. The creator seeks fellow-creators, those who inscribe new values on new tables.
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Of the Afterworldsmen
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It was the sick and dying who despised the body and the earth and invented the things of heaven and the redeeming drops of blood: but even these sweet and dismal poisons they took from the body and the earth!
They wanted to escape from their misery and the stars were too far for them. Then they sighed: 'Oh if only there were heavenly paths by which to creep into another existence and into happiness!'—then they contrived for themselves their secret ways and their draughts of blood!
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Of the Thousand and One Goals
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Zarathustra has seen many lands and many peoples: thus he has discovered the good and evil of many peoples. Zarathustra has found no greater power on earth than good and evil. […]
Much that seemed good to one people seemed shame and disgrace to another: thus I found. I found much that was called evil in one place was in another decked with purple honours. […]
Truly, men have given themselves all their good and evil. Truly, they did not take it, they did not find it, it did not descend to them as a voice from heaven.
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Of Love of One’s Neighbour
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Do I exhort you to love of your neighbour? I exhort you rather to flight from your neighbour and to love of the most distant!
Higher than love of one's neighbour stands love of the most distant man and of the man of the future […]
You cannot endure to be alone with yourselves and do not love yourselves enough: now you want to mislead your neighbour into love and gild yourselves with his mistake.
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Of the Bestowing Virtue
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You solitaries of today, you who have seceded from society, you shall one day be a people: from you, who have chosen out yourselves, shall a chosen people spring—and from this chosen people, the Superman.
Truly, the earth shall yet become a house of healing! And already a new odour floats about it, an odour that brings health—and a new hope!
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One repays a teacher badly if one remains only a pupil. And why, then, should you not pluck at my laurels? […]
Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when you have all denied me will I return to you. […]
And once more you shall have become my friends and children of one hope: and then I will be with you a third time, that I may celebrate the great noontide with you.
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On the Blissful Islands
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This will lured me away from God and gods; for what would there be to create if gods – existed!
But again and again it drives me to mankind, my ardent, creative will; thus it drives the hammer to the stone.
Ah, you men, I see an image sleeping in the stone, the image of my visions! […]
The beauty of the Superman came to me as a shadow. Ah, my brothers! What are the gods to me now!
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Of the Famous Philosophers
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Free from the happiness of serfs, redeemed from gods and worship, fearless and fearful, great and solitary: that is how the will of the genuine man is.
The genuine men, the free spirits, have always dwelt in the desert, as the lords of the desert; but in the towns dwell the well-fed famous philosophers – the draught animals. For they always, as asses, pull—the people’s cart!
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Of Manly Prudence
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My will clings to mankind, I bind myself to mankind with fetters, because I am drawn up to the Superman: for my other will wants to draw me up to the Superman. […]
And he who does not want to die of thirst among men must learn to drink out of all glasses; and he who wants to stay clean among men must know how to wash himself even with dirty water.
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Of the Vision and the Riddle
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The shepherd […] bit as my cry had advised him; he bit with a good bite! He spat far away the snake's head—and sprang up.
No longer a shepherd, no longer a man—a transformed being, surrounded with light, laughing! Never yet on earth had any man laughed as he laughed!
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Of the Three Evil Things
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Whether one be servile before gods and divine kicks, or before men and the silly opinions of men: it spits at slaves of all kinds, this glorious selfishness!
Bad: that is what it calls all that is broken-down and niggardly-servile, unclear, blinking eyes, oppressed hearts, and that false, yielding type of man who kisses with broad, cowardly lips. […]
And he who declares the Ego healthy and holy and selfishness glorious – truly he, a prophet, declares too what he knows: 'Behold, it comes, it is near, the great noontide!'
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The Convalescent
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Man is the cruellest animal towards himself; and […] all who call themselves "sinners" and “bearers of the Cross" and "penitents" […]
Ah, my animals, this alone have I learned, that the wickedest in man is necessary for the best in him,
that all that is most wicked in him is his best strength and the hardest stone for the highest creator; and that man must grow better and wickeder: […]
[I cried] ‘Alas, that his wickedest is so very small! Alas, that his best is so very small!’
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'For your animals well know, O Zarathustra, who you are and must become: behold, you are the teacher of the eternal recurrence, that is now your destiny!
That you have to be the first to teach this doctrine—how should this great destiny not also be your greatest danger and sickness!
Behold, we know what you teach: that all things recur eternally and we ourselves with them, and that we have already existed an infinite number of times before and all things with us.
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The Greeting
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You are only bridges: may higher men than you step across upon you! […]
From your seed there may one day grow for me a genuine son and perfect heir: but that is far ahead. You yourselves are not those to whom my heritage and name belong. […]
It is for others that I wait here in these mountains and I will not lift my foot from here without them, for higher, stronger, more victorious, more joyful men, such as are square-built in body and soul: laughing lions must come!
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The Sign
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‘Pity! Pity for the Higher Man!’ he cried out, and his countenance was transformed into brass. 'Very well! That—has had its time! […]
‘The lion has come, my children are near, Zarathustra has become ripe, my hour has come!
This is my morning, my day begins: rise up now, rise up, great noontide!’
Thus spoke Zarathustra and left his cave, glowing and strong, like a morning sun emerging from behind dark mountains.
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Get the entire Thus Spoke Zarathustra LitChart as a printable PDF.
Superman Term Timeline in Thus Spoke Zarathustra
The timeline below shows where the term Superman appears in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Zarathustra’s Prologue
...walker’s performance in the market square. Zarathustra addresses the people, saying, “I teach you the Superman. Man is something that should be overcome.” Compared to the Superman, he says, man is...
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The Superman is and shall be the meaning of the world. Zarathustra urges people to believe this,...
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...that it’s not sin but moderation in sinning that offends heaven. Zarathustra says that the Superman is the cleansing lightning that such a person needs. But the people, eager to watch...
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...people and then continues. He explains that “man is a rope, fastened between animal and Superman,” and that this rope stretches across a dangerous abyss. Zarathustra loves the one who cannot...
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...just laughs and mocks him, saying that they’d prefer the Ultimate Man—he can keep the Superman. Saddened, Zarathustra wonders if he has lived in solitude for too long.
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...is mysterious, susceptible even to a buffoon. He still wants to teach people about the Superman, but he can’t seem to reach them.
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...to speak to the people. Instead, he will join other creators and teach them the Superman.
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Of the Despisers of the Body
...body, angry with life on Earth. Despisers of the body are “not bridges to the Superman.”
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Of the Pale Criminal
...merciful, the only way to be reconciled with the Ego; it is love for the Superman.
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Of the New Idol
...the necessary man, can begin. Where the state ceases, that’s where the bridges to the Superman can be found.
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Of the Friend
To your friend, you should be “an arrow and a longing for the Superman.” Man is something that must be overcome; neither a slave nor a tyrant can be...
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Of Love of One’s Neighbour
...should instead love “the most distant”—in other words, “the man of the future,” or the Superman. But people fear the Superman and hide by loving their neighbor instead.
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Zarathustra distinguishes between the “friend,” who is a preview of the Superman, and the neighbor. The friend is creative, a whole world unto himself. In a friend,...
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Of Old and Young Women
...the recreation of the warrior; a woman’s hope should be that she might bear the Superman. Zarathustra describes woman’s nature as “a changeable, stormy film upon shallow waters,” while a man’s...
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Of Marriage and Children
...higher calling. The bitterness in even the best love should make someone long for the Superman, the desire of every creator.
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Of the Bestowing Virtue
...givers have—this is degeneration. Zarathustra and his followers, by contrast, are progressing upward to the Superman.
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...Today’s solitaries will one day be a “chosen people,” out of whom will spring the Superman. Then, the whole earth will become a place of healing.
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...is when a human being stands in the middle of the course between animal and Superman and celebrates his journey toward his highest hope. At that time, the sun of knowledge...
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On the Blissful Islands
...upon the seas and spoke of “God,” but he has now taught them to say “Superman.” God is something that the human will creates; likewise, the Superman is a creation. If...
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...to create? Rather, a person’s will drives them to humankind, to the beauty of the Superman. Compared to this, the gods are nothing.
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Of the Priests
...Cross. Redemption can only come by a greater man than any who has yet existed—the Superman.
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Of the Sublime Men
...overcoming of oneself. The secret of the soul is to abandon oneself—only then will the Superman approach.
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Of Manly Prudence
...the abyss and simultaneously grasping upward. His will clings to humanity and also toward the Superman. Zarathustra’s first “manly prudence” is to allows himself to be deceived so that he will...
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...and just” are so unfamiliar with what is truly great that they would fear the Superman’s goodness—they would even think that the Superman was a devil. Zarathustra wants to see his...
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Of Old and New Law-Tables
3. In this envisioned future, Zarathustra saw the Superman and learned that humanity has to be overcome—it’s a bridge to the goal, not the...
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...for dancing. (24) Marriage should be contracted for the sake of the future and the Superman, not just for the sake of propagation.
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The Convalescent
...or better life, but to the same life. He teaches the great noontide and the Superman. And now, it’s time for Zarathustra’s down-going. His animals fall silent, and Zarathustra silently communes...
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Of the Higher Man
...after his death can noontide come, and the Men be masters. Now they desire the Superman. (3) While most ask how humanity can be preserved, Zarathustra asks how man can be...
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...when faced with the abyss. (5) Evil is man’s greatest strength and necessary for the Superman. Sin is Zarathustra’s consolation. But these things aren’t meant for everyone’s ears. (6) Life must...
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