or body! What it suffered and craved, the poor soul
interpreted to itself--it interpreted it as murderous desire, and
eagerness for the happiness of the knife.

Him who now turneth sick, the evil overtaketh which is now the evil: he
seeketh to cause pain with that which causeth him pain. But there have
been other ages, and another evil and good.

Once was doubt evil, and the will to Self. Then the invalid became a
heretic or sorcerer; as heretic or sorcerer he suffered, and sought to
cause suffering.

But this will not enter your ears; it hurteth your good people, ye tell
me. But what doth it matter to me about your good people!

Many things in your good people cause me disgust, and verily, not their
evil. I would that they had a madness by which they succumbed, like this
pale criminal!

Verily, I would that their madness were called truth, or fidelity,
or justice: but they have their virtue in order to live long, and in
wretched self-complacency.

I am a railing alongside the torrent; whoever is able to grasp me may
grasp me! Your crutch, however, I am not.--

Thus spake Zarathustra.

VII. READING AND WRITING.

Of all that is written, I love only what a person hath written with his
blood. Write with blood, and thou wilt find that blood is spirit.

It is no easy task to understand unfamiliar blood; I hate the reading
idlers.

He who knoweth the reader, doeth nothing more for the reader. Another
century of readers--and spirit itself will stink.

Every one being allowed to learn to read, ruineth in the long run not
only writing but also thinking.

Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it even becometh
populace.

He that writeth in blood and proverbs doth not want to be read, but
learnt by heart.

In the mountains the shortest way is from peak to peak, but for that
route thou must have long legs. Proverbs should be peaks, and those
spoken to should be big and tall.

The atmosphere rare and pure, danger near and the spirit full of a
joyful wickedness: thus are things well matched.

I want to have goblins about me, for I am courageous. The courage which
scareth away ghosts, createth for itself goblins--it wanteth to laugh.

I no longer feel in common with you; the very cloud which I see
beneath me, the blackness and heaviness at which I laugh--that is your
thunder-cloud.

Ye look aloft when ye long for exaltation; and I look downward because I
am exalted.

Who among you can at the