Masks.
There are women who, no matter how much we search them, have no interior; they are pure masks. The man who becomes involved with these almost spectral beings, inevitably unsatisfactory, is to be pitied, but it is precisely they who are capable of awakening man's desire in the most intense way: he searches for her soul—and continues searching forever.
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Prayer to the unknown GOD.
Before continuing on my way and looking ahead, once again I raise my hands alone to You, from whom I flee. To You, from the depths of my heart, I have dedicated festive altars so that, at every moment, Your voice might call me. On these altars are engraved in fire the words:
"To the unknown God." I am Yours, even though until now I have associated myself with sacrilegious acts.
I am Yours, despite the ties that pull me into the abyss. Even though I want to flee, I feel compelled to serve You. I want to know You, unknown one. You, who penetrate my soul and, like a whirlwind, invade my life. You, the incomprehensible one, but my fellow man, I want to know You, I want to serve only You.
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I know my fate.
One day my name will be remembered for something terrible.
For a crisis unlike any other that has ever occurred on Earth.
For the deepest collision of consciousnesses.
For a decision conspired against everything that had been believed, sanctified, and required until then.
I am not a human being, I am dynamite, in the transvaluation of all values.
This is my formula for an act of supreme octognosis of humanity that became gene and flesh in me...
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Suffering, however, is necessary for the formation of man; every man of good character must follow this path:
"These pains can be quite painful: but without pain it is not possible to become a guide and educator of humanity; and woe to him who would wish to be one and did not have this pure conscience!"
(Human, All Too Human)
Finally, the genius who survives the suffering that creates and accompanies him ends up overcoming the notions of "good" and "bad," and morality will exist only as a vestige of an inferior culture:
"Finally, when the tablet of his soul is completely covered with experiences, he will neither despise nor hate existence, nor will he love it, but he will be above it, sometimes with a look of joy, sometimes with a look of sadness, and like nature, he will have a disposition that is sometimes summery, sometimes autumnal. (...)
When his gaze has become strong enough to see the depths, in the dark source of his being and his knowledge, perhaps the distant constellations of future cultures will also become visible to you in his mirror."
(Human, All Too Human)
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Another distinctive feature of theologians is their philological incompetence. By philology, I mean (...) the art of reading well—of knowing how to distinguish facts without distorting them through interpretation, without losing caution, patience, and finesse in the desire to understand.
(The Antichrist)
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Truth and lies are constructs that arise from life in the herd and the language that corresponds to it. The man of the herd calls truth that which keeps him in the herd and calls a lie that which threatens or excludes him from the herd. (...) Therefore, first and foremost, truth is the truth of the herd.
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My formula for greatness in man is Amor Fati: to want nothing different, neither forward nor backward, for all eternity. Not just to endure what is necessary, much less to conceal it—all idealism is falsehood in the face of what is necessary—but to love it...
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God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of murderers? What the world has hitherto held sacred and most powerful has bled to death under our blades. Who will cleanse us of this blood? What water will wash us? What solemnities of atonement, what sacred games shall we invent? Will the grandeur of this act not be too much for us? Will we not have to become gods ourselves, to seem worthy of it? There has never been a more grandiose act, and whoever is born after us will, thanks to this act, become part of a history greater than all history to date!
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"God," "immortality of the soul," "redemption," "the afterlife"—these are all concepts I have never considered; I have never wasted my time on them, not even as a child; perhaps I was never naive enough to do so? For me, atheism is neither a consequence nor even a new fact: it exists within me instinctively. I am too curious, too skeptical, too insolent to be satisfied with such a crude answer. God is a rude answer, an indelicacy against us thinkers; rather, to tell the truth, it is nothing but a crude obstacle against ourselves: you must not think about it!
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As long as the priest, that denier, slanderer, and poisoner of life by profession, is accepted as a superior type of man, there can be no answer to the question: What is truth? Truth has already been turned upside down when the advocate of nothingness has been mistaken for the representative of truth.
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Christianity took the side of everything that is weak, low, incapable, and transformed opposition to the instincts of healthy life preservation into an ideal; it even corrupted the faculty of those intellectually powerful natures, teaching that the higher values of the intellect are nothing more than sins, deviations, 'temptations'. The most regrettable example: the conception of Pascal, who believed his reason to be corrupted by original sin; it was corrupted, yes, but only by his Christianity!
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And is there anything more beautiful than seeking one's own virtues? Isn't this equivalent to having faith in one's own virtues? But isn't having faith equivalent to what we once called a good conscience, a venerable concept that our grandparents instilled in our intellect like a tail on the back of our necks?
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- Here you are, friends! - Ah, but it is not me. Who did you want? You hesitate, you are stunned - alas, it would be better if you felt resentment!
I - am I no longer me? Are my hands, my gait, my face different? And what I am, am I no longer - for you, my friends? Will you leave? - O heart, you have endured well, Your hope has remained strong:
Keep your doors open to new friends!
Leave the old ones! Leave the memories!
If you were once young, now you are young in a better way!
Oh, longing for youth that did not understand itself!
Those I waited for, whom I thought had changed like me, the fact that they had grown old drove them away:
Only those who change remain my friends.
Oh, midday of life! Second youth!
Oh, summer garden!
Restless fortune in scrutinizing and waiting!
I wait for friends, night and day, willing, New friends! Come! It is time! It is time! "
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Judging and condemning morally is the preferred revenge of limited souls on those who are less than them, a kind of compensation for everything they have received less from nature. Here is an opportunity to show spirit and become refined—malice spiritualizes man. Deep down in their hearts, they would like there to be a measure by which even rich and privileged men are their equals.