Friedrich Nietzsche: Thus Spake Zarathustra

SECOND PART. 24. XXIV. IN THE HAPPY ISLES. (continued)

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; and if there be innocence in my knowledge, it is because there is will to procreation in it.

Away from God and Gods did this will allure me; what would there be to create if there were--Gods!

But to man doth it ever impel me anew, my fervent creative will; thus impelleth it the hammer to the stone.

Ah, ye men, within the stone slumbereth an image for me, the image of my visions! Ah, that it should slumber in the hardest, ugliest stone!

Now rageth my hammer ruthlessly against its prison. From the stone fly the fragments: what's that to me?

I will complete it: for a shadow came unto me--the stillest and lightest of all things once came unto me!

The beauty of the Superman came unto me as a shadow. Ah, my brethren! Of what account now are--the Gods to me!--

Thus spake Zarathustra.