To lure many away from the herd, for that I have come.
I love those who do not know how to live, except by going under, for they are those who cross over. I love the great despisers because they are the great reverers and arrows of longing for the other shore. I love those who do not first seek behind the stars for a reason to go under and be a sacrifice, but who sacrifice themselves for the earth, that the earth may some day become the overman's. I love him who loves his virtue, for virtue is the will to go under and an arrow of longing. I love him who makes his virtue his addiction and his catastrophe: for his virtue's sake he wants to live on and to live no longer. I love him who chastens his god because he loves his god: for he must perish of the wrath of his god. I love him who has a free spirit and a free heart: thus his head is only the entrails of his heart, but his heart drives him to go under. I love all those who are as heavy drops, falling one by one out of the dark cloud that hangs over men: they herald the advent of lightning, and, as heralds, they perish.
I have grown weary of the poets, the old and the new:superficial they all seem to me, and shallow seas. Their thoughts have not penetrated deeply enough; therefore their feelings did not touch bottom. Some lust and some boredom:that has so far been their best reflection. All their harp jingling is to me the breathing and flitting of ghosts; what have they ever known of the fervor of tones?
Little do the people comprehend the great-that is, the creating. But they have a mind for all showmen and actors of great things.
Of all that is written I love only what a man has written with his blood. Write with blood, and you will experience that blood is spirit.