Zarathustra Quotes

• When Zarathustra was alone . . . he said to his heart: "Could it be possible! This old saint in the forest hath not yet heard of it, that God is dead!"

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Heart, Saint, Forests

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2016). “Thus spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None”, p.37, Friedrich Nietzsche

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• From the sun did I learn this, when it goeth down, the exuberant one: gold doth it then pour into the sea, out of inexhaustible riches, -So that the poorest fisherman roweth even with golden oars! For this did I once see, and did not tire of weeping in beholding it. - Like the sun will also Zarathustra go down: now sitteth he here and waiteth, old broken tables around him, and also new tables half-written.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Sea, Broken, Gold

  Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1931). “The Works of Friedrich Nietzsche”

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• But like infection is the petty thought: it creeps and hides, and wants to be nowhere--until the whole body is decayed and withered by the petty infection... Thus spoke Zarathustra.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Body, Want, Infection

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• Now know I well what people sought formerly above all else when they sought Teachers of virtue. Good sleep they sought for themselves, and poppy-head virtues to promote it! To all those be-lauded sages of the academic chairs, wisdom was sleep Without dreams: they knew no higher significance of life. Even at present, to be sure, there are some like this preacher of virtue, and not always so honorable: but their time is past. And not much longer do they stand: there they already lie. Blessed are those drowsy ones: for they shall soon nod to sleep.-Thus spoke Zarathustra.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Dream, Teacher, Lying

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• I have somehow something like "influence" ... In the Anti-Semitic Correspondence ... my name is mentioned in almost every issue. Zarathustra ... has charmed the anti-Semites; there is a special anti-Semitic interpretation of it that made me laugh very much.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Names, Issues, Laughing

  "Idea of Anti-Semitism Filled Nietzsche With Ire and Melancholy". The New York Times, www.nytimes.com. December 19, 1987.

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• I am Zarathustra the Godless: where shall I find my equal? All those who give themselves their own will and renounce all submission, they are my equals.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Fear, Giving, Atheism

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• You call yourself free? I want to hear your ruling thought and not that you have escaped a yoke. Are you such a one as was permitted to escape a yoke? There are some who threw away their ultimate worth when they threw away their servitude. Free from what? What is that to Zarathustra! But your eyes should announce to me brightly: free for what?

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Freedom, Eye, Yoke

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• Zarathustra was the first to consider the fight of good and evil the very wheel in the machinery of things: the transposition of morality into the metaphysical realm, as a force, cause, and end in itself, is his work. [...] Zarathustra created this most calamitous error, morality; consequently, he must also be the first to recognize it.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Fighting, Errors, Evil

  Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1995). “Philosophical Writings: Friedrich Nietzsche”, p.229, A&C Black

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• I loved Debussy, Stravinsky, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, anything with romantic melodies, especially the nocturnes. Nietzsche was a hero, especially with Thus Spoke Zarathustra. He gets a bad rap; hes very misunderstood. Hes a maker of individuals, and he was a teacher of teachers.

  Joni Mitchell

  Teacher, Rap, Hero

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• Willing sets you free: that is the true doctrine of will and freedom--thus Zarathustra instructs you.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Freedom, Doctrine, Willing

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• I guess I could be singing about Superman, or about Zarathustra coming down from the mountain, but in my mind I was singing about Julian Assange. I wish I could say that Nietzsche inspired my lyrics but all I can honestly say is I was inspired by the graphic design of these '70s paperback covers for Beyond Good & Evil and The Birth of Tragedy and The Gay Science.

  Dean Wareham

  Gay, Evil, Design

  Source: therumpus.net

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• [Zarathustra] never abandoned the watchword of not having any end, not serving a cause, because, as he knew, causes pluck off the wings we fly with.

  Georges Bataille

  Wings, Causes, Abandoned

  Georges Bataille (2004). “On Nietzsche”, p.29, A&C Black

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• To live as I incline, or not to live at all: so do I wish; so wisheth also the holiest. But alas! how have I still - inclination? Have I-still a goal? A haven towards which MY sail is set?A good wind? Ah, he only who knoweth WHITHER he saileth, knoweth what wind is good, and a fair wind for him.What still remaineth to me? A heart weary and flippant; and unstable will; fluttering wings; a broken backbone.This seeking for MY home: O Zarathustra, dost thou know that this seeking hath been MY home-sickening; it eateth me up.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Heart, Home, Wind

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2016). “Thus spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None”, p.281, Friedrich Nietzsche

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• Nietzsche is absolutely correct, even more correct today than when he wrote it in Thus Spake Zarathustra: I looked all about me for human beings but all I saw were fragments, deformed creatures with too much eye or too much ear. This is what the modern culture of specialized intellect-the kind of one-sidedness that banausic utilitarianism alone can value-works so hard to produce.

  Kenny Smith

  Philosophy, Eye, Too Much

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• It is I, the ungodly Zarathustra, who says:Who is more ungodly than I, that I may rejoice in his teaching?

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Teaching, Religion, May

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• Free from what? What does that matter to Zarathustra! Clearly, however, shall your eye show to me: free for what?

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Independent, Eye, Doe

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• Willing emancipateth: that is the true doctrine of will and emancipation - so teacheth you Zarathustra. No longer willing, and no longer valuing, and no longer creating! Ah, that that great debility may ever be far from me! And also in discerning do I feel only my will's procreating and evolving delight.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Creating, Doctrine, Delight

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2016). “THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA - A Book for All and None (World Classics Series): Philosophical Novel”, p.91, e-artnow

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• But Zarathustra made it clear in which direction the answer lay; it is towards the artist-psychologist, the intuitional thinker. There are very few such men in the world's literature; the great artists are not thinkers, the great thinkers are seldom artists.

  Colin Wilson

  Artist, Men, Answers

  Colin Wilson (2014). “The Outsider”, p.191, Diversion Books

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