Friedrich Nietzsche: Thus Spake Zarathustra

FOURTH AND LAST PART. 73. LXXIII. THE HIGHER MAN. (continued)

In solitude there groweth what any one bringeth into it--also the brute in one's nature. Thus is solitude inadvisable unto many.

Hath there ever been anything filthier on earth than the saints of the wilderness? AROUND THEM was not only the devil loose--but also the swine.

14.

Shy, ashamed, awkward, like the tiger whose spring hath failed--thus, ye higher men, have I often seen you slink aside. A CAST which ye made had failed.

But what doth it matter, ye dice-players! Ye had not learned to play and mock, as one must play and mock! Do we not ever sit at a great table of mocking and playing?

And if great things have been a failure with you, have ye yourselves therefore--been a failure? And if ye yourselves have been a failure, hath man therefore--been a failure? If man, however, hath been a failure: well then! never mind!

15.

The higher its type, always the seldomer doth a thing succeed. Ye higher men here, have ye not all--been failures?

Be of good cheer; what doth it matter? How much is still possible! Learn to laugh at yourselves, as ye ought to laugh!

What wonder even that ye have failed and only half-succeeded, ye half-shattered ones! Doth not--man's FUTURE strive and struggle in you?

Man's furthest, profoundest, star-highest issues, his prodigious powers--do not all these foam through one another in your vessel?

What wonder that many a vessel shattereth! Learn to laugh at yourselves, as ye ought to laugh! Ye higher men, Oh, how much is still possible!

And verily, how much hath already succeeded! How rich is this earth in small, good, perfect things, in well-constituted things!