First Part · XXI. Voluntary Death

Die at the right time

Many die too late, and some die too early. Yet strange soundeth the precept: “Die at the right time!”

Die at the right time: so teacheth Zarathustra.

To be sure, he who never liveth at the right time, how could he ever die at the right time? Would that he might never be born!—Thus do I advise the superfluous ones.

But even the superfluous ones make much ado about their death, and even the hollowest nut wanteth to be cracked.

Every one regardeth dying as a great matter: but as yet death is not a festival. Not yet have people learned to inaugurate the finest festivals.

Zarathustra opens with his precept and says those who never live at the right time cannot die at the right time. He says death is not yet a festival.

Voluntary deathStates the precept 'Die at the right time!' and contrasts those who die too late or too early with the superfluous who make a fuss over death.

Commentary on this chapter

What the critics said

Anthony M. Ludovici, Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra (1909)

Voluntary death, not suicideAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici says that Nietzsche disliked the word 'suicide' for its suggestion of evil and renamed the act Voluntary Death to raise it to the dignity it held in classical antiquity.