life hath given itself—we are ever considering WHAT we can best give IN RETURN!
And verily, it is a noble dictum which saith: “What life promiseth US, that promise will WE keep—to life!”
One should not wish to enjoy where one doth not contribute to the enjoyment. And one should not WISH to enjoy!
For enjoyment and innocence are the most bashful things. Neither like to be sought for. One should HAVE them,—but one should rather SEEK for guilt and pain!—

O my brethren, he who is a firstling is ever sacrificed. Now, however, are we firstlings!
We all bleed on secret sacrificial altars, we all burn and broil in honour of ancient idols.
Our best is still young: this exciteth old palates. Our flesh is tender, our skin is only lambs’ skin:—how could we not excite old idol-priests!
IN OURSELVES dwelleth he still, the old idol-priest, who broileth our best for his banquet. Ah, my brethren, how could firstlings fail to be sacrifices!
But so wisheth our type; and I love those who do not wish to preserve themselves, the down-going ones do I love with mine entire love: for they go beyond.—

To be true—that CAN few be! And he who can, will not! Least of all, however, can the good be true.
Oh, those good ones! GOOD MEN NEVER SPEAK THE TRUTH. For the spirit, thus to be good, is a malady.
They yield, those good ones, they submit themselves; their heart repeateth, their soul obeyeth: HE, however, who obeyeth, DOTH NOT LISTEN TO HIMSELF!
All that is called evil by the good, must come together in order that one truth may be born. O my brethren, are ye also evil enough for THIS truth?
The daring venture, the prolonged distrust, the cruel Nay, the tedium, the cutting-into-the-quick—how seldom do THESE come together! Out of such seed, however—is truth produced!
BESIDE the bad conscience hath hitherto grown all KNOWLEDGE! Break up, break up, ye discerning ones, the old tables!

When the water hath planks, when gangways and railings o’erspan the stream, verily, he is not believed who then saith: “All is in flux.”
But even the simpletons contradict him. “What?” say the simpletons, “all in flux? Planks and railings are still OVER the stream!
“OVER the stream all is stable, all the values of things, the bridges and bearings, all ‘good’ and ‘evil’: these are all STABLE!”—
Cometh, however, the hard winter, the stream-tamer, then learn even the wittiest distrust, and verily, not only the simpletons then say: “Should not everything—STAND STILL?”
“Fundamentally standeth everything still”—that is an appropriate winter doctrine, good cheer for an unproductive period, a great comfort for winter-sleepers and fireside-loungers.
“Fundamentally standeth everything still”—: but CONTRARY thereto, preacheth the thawing wind!
The thawing wind, a bullock, which is no ploughing bullock—a furious bullock, a destroyer, which with angry horns breaketh the ice! The ice however—BREAKETH GANGWAYS!
O my brethren, is not everything AT PRESENT IN FLUX? Have not all railings and gangways fallen into the water? Who would still HOLD ON to “good” and “evil”?
“Woe to us! Hail to us! The thawing wind bloweth!”—Thus preach, my brethren, through all the streets!

There is an old illusion—it is called good and evil. Around soothsayers and astrologers hath hitherto revolved the orbit of this illusion.
Once did one BELIEVE in soothsayers and astrologers; and THEREFORE did one believe, “Everything is fate: thou shalt, for thou must!”
Then again did one distrust all soothsayers and astrologers; and THEREFORE did one believe, “Everything is freedom: thou canst, for thou willest!”
O my brethren, concerning the stars and the future there hath hitherto been only illusion, and not knowledge; and THEREFORE concerning good and evil there hath hitherto been only illusion and not knowledge!

“Thou shalt not rob! Thou shalt not slay!”—such precepts were once called holy; before them did one bow the knee and the head, and take off one’s shoes.
But I ask you: Where have there ever been better robbers and slayers in the world than such holy precepts?
Is there not even in all life—robbing and slaying? And for such precepts to be called holy, was not TRUTH itself thereby—slain?
—Or was it a sermon of death that called holy what contradicted and dissuaded from life?—O my brethren, break up, break up for me the old tables!

It is my sympathy with all the past that I see it is abandoned,—
—Abandoned to the favour, the spirit and the madness of every generation that cometh, and reinterpreteth all that hath been as its bridge!
A great potentate might arise, an artful prodigy, who with approval and disapproval could strain and constrain all the past, until it became for him a bridge, a harbinger, a herald, and a cock-crowing.
This however is the other danger, and mine other sympathy:—he who is of the populace, his thoughts go back to his grandfather,—with his grandfather, however, doth time cease.
Thus is all the past abandoned: for it might some day happen for the populace to become master, and drown all time in shallow waters.
Therefore, O my brethren, a NEW NOBILITY is needed, which shall be the adversary of all populace and potentate rule, and shall inscribe anew the word “noble” on new tables.
For many noble ones are needed, and many kinds of noble ones, FOR A NEW NOBILITY! Or, as I once said in parable: “That is just divinity, that there are Gods, but no God!”

O my brethren, I consecrate you and point you to a new nobility: ye shall become procreators and cultivators and sowers of the future;—
—Verily, not to a nobility which ye could purchase like traders with traders’ gold; for little worth is all that hath its price.
Let it not be your honour henceforth whence ye come, but whither ye go! Your Will and your feet which seek to surpass you—let these be your new honour!
Verily, not that ye have served a prince—of what account are princes now!—nor that ye have become a bulwark to that which standeth, that it may stand more firmly.
Not that your family have become courtly at courts, and that ye have learned—gay-coloured, like the flamingo—to stand long hours in shallow pools:
(For ABILITY-to-stand is a merit in courtiers; and all courtiers believe that unto blessedness after death pertaineth—PERMISSION-to-sit!)
Nor even that a Spirit called Holy, led your forefathers into promised lands, which I do not praise: for where the worst of all trees grew—the cross,—in that land there is nothing to praise!—
—And verily, wherever this “Holy Spirit” led its knights, always in such campaigns did—goats and geese, and wryheads and guyheads run FOREMOST!—
O my brethren, not backward shall your nobility gaze, but OUTWARD! Exiles shall ye be from all fatherlands and forefather-lands!
Your CHILDREN’S LAND shall ye love: let this love be your new nobility,—the undiscovered in the remotest seas! For it do I bid your sails search and search!
Unto your children shall ye MAKE AMENDS for being the children of your fathers: all the past shall ye THUS redeem! This new table do I place over you!

“Why should one live? All is vain! To live—that is to thrash straw; to live—that is to burn oneself and yet not get warm.”—
Such ancient babbling still passeth for “wisdom”; because it is old, however, and smelleth mustily, THEREFORE is it the more honoured. Even mould ennobleth.—
Children might thus speak: they SHUN the fire because it hath burnt them! There is much childishness in the old books of wisdom.
And he who ever “thrasheth straw,” why should he be allowed to rail at thrashing! Such a fool one would have to muzzle!
Such persons sit down to the table and bring nothing with them, not even good hunger:—and then do they rail: “All is vain!”
But to eat and drink well, my brethren, is verily no vain art! Break up, break up for me the tables of the never-joyous ones!

“To the clean are all things clean”—thus say the people. I, however, say unto you: To the swine all things become swinish!
Therefore preach the visionaries and bowed-heads (whose hearts are also bowed down): “The world itself is a filthy monster.”
For these are all unclean spirits; especially those, however, who have no peace or rest, unless they see the world FROM THE BACKSIDE—the backworldsmen!
TO THOSE do I say it to the face, although it sound unpleasantly: the world resembleth man, in that it hath a backside,—SO MUCH is true!
There is in the world much filth: SO MUCH is true! But the world itself is not therefore a filthy monster!
There is wisdom in the fact that much in the world smelleth badly: loathing itself createth wings, and fountain-divining powers!
In the best there is still something to loathe; and the best is still something that must be surpassed!—
O my brethren, there is much wisdom in the fact that much filth is in the world!—

Such sayings did I hear pious backworldsmen speak to their consciences, and verily without wickedness or guile,—although there is nothing more guileful in the world, or more wicked.
“Let the world be as it is! Raise not a finger against it!”
“Let whoever will choke and stab and skin and scrape the people: raise not a finger against it! Thereby will they learn to renounce the world.”
“And thine own reason—this shalt thou thyself stifle and choke; for it is a reason of this world,—thereby wilt thou learn thyself to renounce the world.”—
—Shatter, shatter, O my brethren, those old tables of the pious! Tatter the maxims of the world-maligners!—

“He who learneth much unlearneth all violent cravings”—that do people now whisper to one another in all the dark lanes.
“Wisdom wearieth, nothing is worth while; thou shalt not crave!”—this new table found I hanging even in the public markets.
Break up for me, O my brethren, break up also that NEW table! The weary-o’-the-world put it up, and the preachers