Zarathustra has seen many lands and many peoples: thus he has discovered the good and evil of many peoples. Zarathustra has found no greater power on earth than good and evil.
No people could live without first valuing; if a people will maintain itself, however, it must not value as its neighbor values.
Much that seemed good to one people was regarded with scorn and contempt by another: thus I found. I found much that was called evil in one place was in another decked with purple honors.
One neighbor never understood another: his soul always marveled at his neighbor's madness and wickedness.
A tablet of the good hangs over every people. Behold, it is the tablet of their overcomings; behold, it is the voice of their will to power.
Whatever seems difficult to a people is praiseworthy; what is indispensable and difficult is called good; and whatever relives the greatest need, the rarest, the most difficult of all - they call holy.
Whatever makes them rule and conquer and shine, to the dread and envy of their neighbors, that is to them the high, the first, the measure, the meaning of all things.
Truly, my brother, if you only knew a people's need and land and sky and neighbor, you could surely divine the law of its overcomings, and why it climbs up the ladder to its hope.
"You should always be the first to outrival all others: your jealous soul should love no one, unless it be the friend" - that made the soul of a Greek quiver: thus he walked the path of his greatness.
"To speak the truth to handle bow and arrow well" - this seemed both dear and difficult to the people from whom I got my name - the name which is both dear and difficult to me.
"To honor father and mother, and from the root of the soul to do their will" - another people hung this tablet of overcoming over itself and became powerful and eternal thereby.
"To practice loyalty, and for the sake of loyalty to risk honor and and blood even in evil and dangerous things" - another people mastered itself with this teaching, and thus mastering itself it became pregant and heavy with great hopes.
Truly, men have given to themselves all their good and evil. Truly, they did not take it, they did not find it, it did noot come to them as a voice from heaven.
Only man assigned values to things in order to maintain himself - he created the meaning of things, a human meaning! Therefore, calls he himself: "Man," that is: the evaluator.
Evaluation is creation: hear this, you creators! Valuation itself is of all valued things the most valuable treasure.
Through valuation only is there value; and without valuation the nut of existence would be hollow. Hear this, you creators!
Change of values - that is a change of creators. Whoever must be a creator always destroys.
First, peoples were creators; and only in later times, individuals. Truly, the individual himself is still the lastest creation.
Once peoples hung a tablet of the good over themselves. Love which would rule and love which would obey have together created such tablets.
Joy in the herd is older than joy in the "I": and as long as the good conscience is identified with the herd, only the bad conscience says "I".
Truly, the cunning "I", the loveless one, that seeks its advantage in the advantage of many - that is not the origin of the herd, but its going under.
Good and evil have always been created by lovers and creators. The fire of love glows in the name of all the virtues and the fire of wrath.
Zarathustra has seen many lands and many peoples: Zarathustra has found no greater power on earth than the works of the lovers - "good" and "evil" are their names.
Truly, this power of praising and blaming is a monster. Tell me, O brothers, who will subdue it for me? Tell me, who will throw a yoke upon the thousand necks of this beast?
A thousand goals have been so far, for a thousand peoples have there been. Only the yoke for the thousand necks is still lacking: the one goal is lacking. As yet humanity has no goal.
But tell me, my brothers, if the goal of humanity is still lacking, is there not also still lacking -humanity itself?-
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
Friedrich Nietzsche
A tablet of the good hangs over every people. Behold, it is the tablet of their overcomings; behold, it is the voice of their will to power.
Whatever seems difficult to a people is praiseworthy; what is indispensable and difficult is called good; and whatever relives the greatest need, the rarest, the most difficult of all - they call holy.
Whatever makes them rule and conquer and shine, to the dread and envy of their neighbors, that is to them the high, the first, the measure, the meaning of all things.
Truly, my brother, if you only knew a people's need and land and sky and neighbor, you could surely divine the law of its overcomings, and why it climbs up the ladder to its hope.
"You should always be the first to outrival all others: your jealous soul should love no one, unless it be the friend" - that made the soul of a Greek quiver: thus he walked the path of his greatness.
"To speak the truth to handle bow and arrow well" - this seemed both dear and difficult to the people from whom I got my name - the name which is both dear and difficult to me.
"To honor father and mother, and from the root of the soul to do their will" - another people hung this tablet of overcoming over itself and became powerful and eternal thereby.
"To practice loyalty, and for the sake of loyalty to risk honor and and blood even in evil and dangerous things" - another people mastered itself with this teaching, and thus mastering itself it became pregant and heavy with great hopes.
Truly, men have given to themselves all their good and evil. Truly, they did not take it, they did not find it, it did noot come to them as a voice from heaven.
Only man assigned values to things in order to maintain himself - he created the meaning of things, a human meaning! Therefore, calls he himself: "Man," that is: the evaluator.
Evaluation is creation: hear this, you creators! Valuation itself is of all valued things the most valuable treasure.
Through valuation only is there value; and without valuation the nut of existence would be hollow. Hear this, you creators!
Change of values - that is a change of creators. Whoever must be a creator always destroys.
First, peoples were creators; and only in later times, individuals. Truly, the individual himself is still the lastest creation.
Once peoples hung a tablet of the good over themselves. Love which would rule and love which would obey have together created such tablets.
Joy in the herd is older than joy in the "I": and as long as the good conscience is identified with the herd, only the bad conscience says "I".
Truly, the cunning "I", the loveless one, that seeks its advantage in the advantage of many - that is not the origin of the herd, but its going under.
Good and evil have always been created by lovers and creators. The fire of love glows in the name of all the virtues and the fire of wrath.
Zarathustra has seen many lands and many peoples: Zarathustra has found no greater power on earth than the works of the lovers - "good" and "evil" are their names.
Truly, this power of praising and blaming is a monster. Tell me, O brothers, who will subdue it for me? Tell me, who will throw a yoke upon the thousand necks of this beast?
A thousand goals have been so far, for a thousand peoples have there been. Only the yoke for the thousand necks is still lacking: the one goal is lacking. As yet humanity has no goal.
But tell me, my brothers, if the goal of humanity is still lacking, is there not also still lacking -humanity itself?-
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
Friedrich Nietzsche
