doctrine Die at the right time; the consummating death that becomes a spur and a promise to the living.
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…
States 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.
Read in the book →The consummating death I show unto you, which becometh a stimulus and promise to the living. His death, dieth the consummating one triumphantly, surrounded by hoping and promising ones. Thus should one learn to die; and…
Describes the consummating death as a stimulus and promise to the living, and the voluntary death chosen for the sake of a goal and an heir.
Read in the book →My death, praise I unto you, the voluntary death, which cometh unto me because _I_ want it.
The chapter's central formulation of dying by one's own will.
Read in the book →Verily, not the rope-makers will I resemble: they lengthen out their cord, and thereby go ever backward. Many a one, also, waxeth too old for his truths and triumphs; a toothless mouth hath no longer the right to every…
Warns against outliving one's truths and clinging to life out of cowardice, using images of rope-makers, apples and rotting fruit.
Read in the book →Would that there came preachers of SPEEDY death! Those would be the appropriate storms and agitators of the trees of life! But I hear only slow death preached, and patience with all that is “earthly.” Ah! ye preach…
Jesus is held up as one who died too early, before he had learned to live, love the earth and laugh.
Read in the book →There standeth the boat—thither goeth it over, perhaps into vast nothingness—but who willeth to enter into this “Perhaps”? None of you want to enter into the death-boat! How should ye then be WORLD-WEARY ones!…
More courage is needed to make an end than to make a new verse.
Read in the book →This is an experiment in interactive reading, and in using AI to help you grow. Thus Spake Zarathustra is notoriously difficult for a modern reader; yet taken as a set of mental exercises, it is guaranteed to transform your thinking by the time you reach the end. Along the way you will have help from the companion, who is always beside the book.
Do you accept the challenge?
What the critics said
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.
Explains the choice of the term and its classical model.