Twilight and Zarathustra.
Maxims and Arrows From Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols. See here.
I will list them and make comments about those I believe are particularly relevant to my views. Each comment refers to the maxim immediately preceding that comment.
Idleness is the beginning of all psychology. What? Is psychology a vice?
Even the most courageous among us only rarely has the courage to face what he already knows.
Apparently, the Quota Queens lack this courage.
To live alone one must be a beast or a god, says Aristotle. Leaving out the third case: one must be both — a philosopher.
Or a moralpath activist. Yockey?
“All truth is simple.” Is that not a double lie?
Indeed it is.
I want, once and for all, not to know many things. Wisdom requires moderation in knowledge as in other things.
In our own wild nature we find the best recreation from our un-nature, from our spirituality.
How? Man is only a mistake of God? Or God merely a mistake of man?
Out of life’s school of war: What does not kill me makes me stronger.
Perhaps Nietzsche’s most favorite phrase.
Help yourself, then everyone will help you. Principle of brotherly love.
Not to perpetrate cowardice against one’s own acts! Not to leave them in the lurch afterward! The bite of conscience is indecent.
Something those of us reared in a Christian culture need to struggle with.
Can an ass be tragic? To perish under a burden one can neither bear nor throw off? The case of the philosopher.
If we have our own why in life, we shall get along with almost any how. Man does not strive for pleasure; only the Englishman does.
By living in someone else’s country?
Man has created woman — out of what? Out of a rib of his god — of his “ideal.”
What? You search? You would multiply yourself by ten, by a hundred? You seek followers? Seek zeros!
Oh, indeed, what everyone who finds themselves, voluntarily or involuntarily, in some sort of leadership position rapidly discovers. Seek zeroes. Seek and you shall find!
In any case, I do not want followers; I want to stimulate others to do their own thing and spread the word of the Pan-European Resistance. From Thus Spake Zarathustra:
When Zarathustra had spoken these words, he paused, like one who had not yet said his last word; and long did he balance the staff doubtfully in his hand. At last he spoke thus- and his voice had changed:
I now go alone, my disciples! You too go now, alone! Thus I want it.
I advise you: depart from me, and guard yourselves against Zarathustra! And better still: be ashamed of him! Perhaps he has deceived you.
The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies, but also to hate his friends.
One requites a teacher badly if one remains merely a student.
Back to the maxims:
Posthumous men — I, for example — are understood worse than timely ones, but heard better. More precisely: we are never understood — hence our authority.
Ted Sallis?
Among women: “Truth? Oh, you don’t know truth! Is it not an attempt to kill our modesty?”
That is the kind of artist I love, modest in his needs: he really wants only two things, his bread and his art — panem et Circen [“bread and Circe”].
Whoever does not know how to lay his will into things, at least lays some meaning into them: that means, he has the faith that they already obey a will. (Principle of “faith”.)
What? You chose virtue and took pride in your virtue, and yet you leer enviously at the advantages of those without scruples? But virtue involves renouncing “advantages.” (Inscription for an anti-Semite’s door.)
What should we inscribe on the philo-Semites door?
The perfect woman indulges in literature just as she indulges in a small sin: as an experiment, in passing, looking around to see if anybody notices it — and to make sure that somebody does.
To venture into many situations where one cannot get by with sham virtues, but where, like the tightrope walker on his rope, one either stands or falls — or gets away.
“Evil men have no songs.” How is it, then, that the Russians have songs?
German spirit”: for the past eighteen years a contradiction in terms.
By searching out origins, one becomes a crab. The historian looks backward; eventually he also believes backward.
Or the activist who obsesses over the past, over traditionalism, over alleged racial history, instead of looking toward Futurism and ethnic genetic interests.
Being pleased with oneself protects even against the cold. Has a woman who knew herself to be well dressed ever caught a cold? I am assuming that she was barely dressed.
Describing an e-thot looking for handouts?
I mistrust all systematizers and avoid them. The will to a system is a lack of integrity.
Like Nordicists and Nordicism?
Women are considered profound. Why? Because we never fathom their depths. But women aren’t even shallow.
Bingo!
If a woman has only manly virtues, we run away; and if she has no manly virtues, she runs away herself.
Bingo!
“How much has conscience had to chew on in the past! And what excellent teeth it had! And today — what is lacking?” A dentist’s question.
One rarely falls into a single error. Falling into the first one, one always does too much. So one usually perpetrates another one — and now one does too little.
Well, the second step sounds like today’s “movement” “activists.”
When stepped on, a worm doubles up. That is clever. In that way he lessens the probability of being stepped on again. In the language of morality: humility.
Good insight.
We hate lies and hypocrisy because our sense of honor is easily provoked. But the same hatred can arise from cowardice, since lies are forbidden by divine commandment: in that case, we are too cowardly to lie.
How little is required for pleasure! The sound of a bagpipe. Without music, life would be an error. The German imagines that even God sings songs.
On ne peut penser et ecrire qu’assis [One cannot think and write except when seated] (G. Flaubert). There I have caught you, nihilist! The sedentary life is the very sin against the Holy Spirit.
Only thoughts reached by walking have value.
There are cases in which we are like horses, we psychologists, and become skittish: we see our own shadow looming up before us. A psychologist must turn his eyes from himself to see anything at all.
Are we immoralists harming virtue? No more than anarchists harm princes. Only because the latter are shot at do they once more sit securely on their thrones. Moral: morality must be shot at.
You run ahead? Are you doing it as a shepherd? Or as an exception? A third case would be as a fugitive. First question of conscience.
I don’t know. I’m doing a poor job as shepherd it seems. So I must be an exception.
Are you genuine? Or merely an actor? A representative? Or that which is represented? In the end, perhaps you are merely a copy of an actor. Second question of conscience.
Genuine.
Are you one who looks on? Or one who lends a hand? Or one who looks away and walks off? Third question of conscience.
Lends a hand.
Do you want to walk along? Or walk ahead? Or walk by yourself? One must know what one wants and that one wants. Fourth question of conscience.
I’m walking ahead, apparently by myself.
- The disappointed one speaks. I searched for great human beings; I always found only the imitators of their ideals.
- Those were steps for me, and I have climbed up over them: to that end I had to pass over them. Yet they thought that I wanted to retire on them.
- What does it matter if I am right? I am much too right. And he who laughs best today will also laugh last.
- The formula of my happiness: a Yes, a No, a straight line, a goal.
I teach you the Superman. Man is something that is to be surpassed. What have ye done to surpass man?
All beings hitherto have created something beyond themselves: and ye want to be the ebb of that great tide, and would rather go back to the beast than surpass man?
What is the ape to man? A laughing-stock, a thing of shame. And just the same shall man be to the Superman: a laughing-stock, a thing of shame.
Ye have made your way from the worm to man, and much within you is still worm. Once were ye apes, and even yet man is more of an ape than any of the apes.
Even the wisest among you is only a disharmony and hybrid of plant and phantom. But do I bid you become phantoms or plants?
Lo, I teach you the Superman!
The Superman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: The Superman shall be the meaning of the earth!
Lo, I teach you the Superman: he is that sea; in him can your great contempt be submerged.
What is the greatest thing ye can experience? It is the hour of great contempt. The hour in which even your happiness becometh loathsome unto you, and so also your reason and virtue.
The hour when ye say: “What good is my happiness! It is poverty and pollution and wretched self-complacency. But my happiness should justify existence itself!”
The hour when ye say: “What good is my reason! Doth it long for knowledge as the lion for his food? It is poverty and pollution and wretched self-complacency!”
The hour when ye say: “What good is my virtue! As yet it hath not made me passionate. How weary I am of my good and my bad! It is all poverty and pollution and wretched self-complacency!”
The hour when ye say: “What good is my justice! I do not see that I am fervour and fuel. The just, however, are fervour and fuel!”
The hour when we say: “What good is my pity! Is not pity the cross on which he is nailed who loveth man? But my pity is not a crucifixion.”
Have ye ever spoken thus? Have ye ever cried thus? Ah! would that I had heard you crying thus!
It is not your sin—it is your self-satisfaction that crieth unto heaven; your very sparingness in sin crieth unto heaven!
Where is the lightning to lick you with its tongue? Where is the frenzy with which ye should be inoculated?
Lo, I teach you the Superman: he is that lightning, he is that frenzy!—
If only today’s “pro-White activists” can have a bit of frenzy and lightning.
Zarathustra, however, looked at the people and wondered. Then he spake thus:
Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman—a rope over an abyss.
A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous trembling and halting.
What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what is lovable in man is that he is an over-going and a down-going.
I love those that know not how to live except as down-goers, for they are the over-goers.
I love the great despisers, because they are the great adorers, and arrows of longing for the other shore.
I love those who do not first seek a reason beyond the stars for going down and being sacrifices, but sacrifice themselves to the earth, that the earth of the Superman may hereafter arrive.
Complete passivity is not going to achieve the Superman, or anything else positive for that matter.
When Zarathustra had spoken these words, he again looked at the people, and was silent. “There they stand,” said he to his heart; “there they laugh: they understand me not; I am not the mouth for these ears.
Must one first batter their ears, that they may learn to hear with their eyes? Must one clatter like kettledrums and penitential preachers? Or do they only believe the stammerer?
Oh, I can empathize with that, Zarathustra.
I will speak unto them of the most contemptible thing: that, however, is the last man!”
The Italian?
And thus spake Zarathustra unto the people:
It is time for man to fix his goal. It is time for man to plant the germ of his highest hope.
Still is his soil rich enough for it. But that soil will one day be poor and exhausted, and no lofty tree will any longer be able to grow thereon.
Italy?
Alas! there cometh the time when man will no longer launch the arrow of his longing beyond man—and the string of his bow will have unlearned to whizz!
I tell you: one must still have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star. I tell you: ye have still chaos in you.
Since I’m labeled as “paranoid and insane” I obviously still have chaos in me. Where’s my dancing star? Is there a dancing star hidden among the pile of inert bricks?
Alas! There cometh the time when man will no longer give birth to any star. Alas! There cometh the time of the most despicable man, who can no longer despise himself.
Lo! I show you the last man.
“What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?”—so asketh the last man and blinketh.
The earth hath then become small, and on it there hoppeth the last man who maketh everything small. His species is ineradicable like that of the ground-flea; the last man liveth longest.
“We have discovered happiness”—say the last men, and blink thereby.
They have left the regions where it is hard to live; for they need warmth. One still loveth one’s neighbour and rubbeth against him; for one needeth warmth.
Turning ill and being distrustful, they consider sinful: they walk warily. He is a fool who still stumbleth over stones or men!
A little poison now and then: that maketh pleasant dreams. And much poison at last for a pleasant death.
One still worketh, for work is a pastime. But one is careful lest the pastime should hurt one.
One no longer becometh poor or rich; both are too burdensome. Who still wanteth to rule? Who still wanteth to obey? Both are too burdensome.
No shepherd, and one herd! Every one wanteth the same; every one is equal: he who hath other sentiments goeth voluntarily into the madhouse.
“Formerly all the world was insane,”—say the subtlest of them, and blink thereby.
They are clever and know all that hath happened: so there is no end to their raillery. People still fall out, but are soon reconciled—otherwise it spoileth their stomachs.
They have their little pleasures for the day, and their little pleasures for the night, but they have a regard for health.
“We have discovered happiness,”—say the last men, and blink thereby.—
And they eat pasta, drink wine, and sing on balconies. Hence, the Italian.
1. The Three Metamorphoses
Three metamorphoses of the spirit do I designate to you: now the spirit becometh a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child.
Many heavy things are there for the spirit, the strong load-bearing spirit in which the reverence dwelleth: for the heavy and the heaviest longeth its strength.
What is heavy? so asketh the load-bearing spirit; then kneeleth it down like the camel, and wanteth to be well laden.
What is the heaviest things, ye heroes? asketh the load-bearing spirit, that I may take it upon me and rejoice in my strength.
Is it not this: To humiliate oneself in order to mortify one’s pride? To exhibit one’s folly in order to mock at one’s wisdom?
Or is it this: To desert our cause when it celebrateth its triumph? To ascend high mountains to tempt the temper?
Or is it this: To feed on the acorns and grass of knowledge, and for the sake of truth to suffer hunger of soul?
Or is it this: To be sick and dismiss comforters, and make friends of the deaf, who never hear thy requests?
Or is it this: To go into foul water when it is the water of truth, and not disclaim cold frogs and hot toads?
Or is it this: To love those who despise us, and to give one’s hand to the phantom when it is going to frighten us?
All these heaviest things the load-bearing spirit taketh upon itself: and like the camel, which, when laden, hasteneth into the wilderness, so hasteneth the spirit into its wilderness.
But in the loneliest wilderness happeneth the second metamorphosis: here the spirit becometh a lion; freedom will it capture, and lordship in its own wilderness.
Its last Lord it here seeketh: hostile will it be to him, and to its last God; for victory will it struggle with the great dragon.
What is the great dragon which the spirit is no longer inclined to call Lord and God? “Thou-shalt,” is the great dragon called. But the spirit of the lion saith, “I will.”
“Thou-shalt,” lieth in its path, sparkling with gold—a scale-covered beast; and on every scale glittereth golden, “Thou shalt!”
The values of a thousand years glitter on those scales, and thus speaketh the mightiest of all dragons: “All the values of things—glitter on me.
All values have already been created, and all created values—do I represent. Verily, there shall be no ‘I will’ any more.” Thus speaketh the dragon.
My brethren, wherefore is there need of the lion in the spirit? Why sufficeth not the beast of burden, which renounceth and is reverent?
To create new values—that, even the lion cannot yet accomplish: but to create itself freedom for new creating—that can the might of the lion do.
To create itself freedom, and give a holy Nay even unto duty: for that, my brethren, there is no need of the lion.
To assume the ride into new values—that is the most formidable assumption for a load-bearing and reverent spirit. Verily, unto such a spirit it is preying, and the work of a beast of prey.
As its holiest, it once loved “Thou-shalt”: now it is forced to find illusion and arbitrariness even in the holiest things, that it may capture freedom from its love: the lion is needed for this capture.
But tell me, my brethren, what the child can do, which even the lion could not do? Why hath the preying lion still to become a child?
Innocence is the child, and forgetfulness, and a new beginning, a game, a self-rolling wheel, a first movement, a holy Yea.
Aye, for the game of creating, my brethren, there is needed a holy Yea unto life: its own will, willeth now the spirit; his own world winneth the world’s outcast.
Three metamorphoses of the spirit have I designated to you: how the spirit became a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child.—
It is not enough that ye should reconcile with him whom ye slay. Let your sorrow be love to the Superman: thus will ye justify your own survival!
“Enemy” shall ye say but not “villain,” “invalid” shall ye say but not “wretch,” “fool” shall ye say but not “sinner.”
And thou, red judge, if thou would say audibly all thou hast done in thought, then would every one cry: “Away with the nastiness and the virtulent reptile!”
True.
But one thing is the thought, another thing is the deed, and another thing is the idea of the deed. The wheel of causality doth not roll between them.
Even truer. It is one thing to think bad thoughts, another to actualize them.
An idea made this pale man pale. Adequate was he for his deed when he did it, but the idea of it, he could not endure when it was done.
Nietzsche’s maxim about the bite of conscience being indecent comes to mind here.
Evermore did he now see himself as the doer of one deed. Madness, I call this: the exception reversed itself to the rule in him.
The streak of chalk bewitcheth the hen; the stroke he struck bewitched his weak reason. Madness after the deed, I call this.
Hearken, ye judges! There is another madness besides, and it is before the deed. Ah! ye have not gone deep enough into this soul!
Is this because Christianity has warped our moral compass?
When Zarathustra had spoken these words, he paused, like one who had not yet said his last word; and long did he balance the staff doubtfully in his hand. At last he spoke thus- and his voice had changed:
I now go alone, my disciples! You too go now, alone! Thus I want it.
I advise you: depart from me, and guard yourselves against Zarathustra! And better still: be ashamed of him! Perhaps he has deceived you.
The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies, but also to hate his friends.
One requites a teacher badly if one remains merely a student.
Indeed. I do not want followers. I want to prepare people to become their own fighters for the cause.
eginotes 