theme The coldest of cold monsters that lies, 'I, the state, am the people'; where the state ceases, there begins the Superman.
Somewhere there are still peoples and herds, but not with us, my brethren: here there are states. A state? What is that? Well! open now your ears unto me, for now will I say unto you my word concerning the death of…
Introduces the state as the coldest of cold monsters whose central lie is 'I, the state, am the people.'
Read in the book →A state, is called the coldest of all cold monsters.
The book's best-known definition of the state.
Read in the book →Many too many are born: for the superfluous ones was the state devised! See just how it enticeth them to it, the many-too-many! How it swalloweth and cheweth and recheweth them! “On earth there is nothing greater than…
The state claims to be God's regulating finger and offers honours to buy the proud and the great.
Read in the book →Just see these superfluous ones! They steal the works of the inventors and the treasures of the wise. Culture, they call their theft—and everything becometh sickness and trouble unto them! Just see these superfluous…
The idolaters of the state call theft 'culture', print bile as newspapers, and chase power and money.
Read in the book →My brethren, will ye suffocate in the fumes of their maws and appetites! Better break the windows and jump into the open air! Do go out of the way of the bad odour! Withdraw from the idolatry of the superfluous! Do go…
The state's worship is a stench and a human sacrifice that great souls should leave.
Read in the book →There, where the state ceaseth—there only commenceth the man who is not superfluous: there commenceth the song of the necessary ones, the single and irreplaceable melody. There, where the state CEASETH—pray look…
Only where the state ends does the non-superfluous man begin.
Read in the book →Thus spake I before the fire-dog: then did he interrupt me sullenly, and asked: “Church? What is that?” “Church?” answered I, “that is a kind of state, and indeed the most mendacious. But remain quiet, thou dissembling…
The state, like the church, is a lying fire-dog that speaks in smoke and roaring and wants to be the most important creature on earth.
Read in the book →He who hath grown wise concerning old origins, lo, he will at last seek after the fountains of the future and new origins.— O my brethren, not long will it be until NEW PEOPLES shall arise and new fountains shall rush…
A people gathers around one who commands, and society is a long seeking for its ruler, not a contract.
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
Brandes sets out Nietzsche's hypothesis that the bad conscience arose when warlike instincts, imprisoned by a state founded through conquest, turned inward; guilt then became debt to ancestors and gods, culminating in the Christian God, original sin and the God who pays the debt with his own blood, so that man's Nay to his nature becomes a Yea to God and the Beyond.
The state originated not by contract but as tyranny by a conquering race, turning freedom inward.
Brandes summarises Zarathustra's disgust with the petty virtues that make men smaller, his being called godless, the apostasy of his former companions, and his loathing of the great city and of the State.
Zarathustra loathes the State more profoundly than Ibsen did.
Brandes restates Zarathustra's teaching that the State is the coldest of monsters whose lie is that it is the people, whereas creators made peoples; the State is for the many-too-many, and only where it ceases does the man who is a bridge to the Superman begin.
Summarises the State's lie and its contrast with peoples created by creators.
Brandes argues that Nietzsche, like Hartmann, denies the possibility of equality and peace because life is inequality and war, praising the good war that hallows every cause, and that both reflect the militarism of the new German Empire, Nietzsche differing only in wanting war so that manliness may not die out.
Notes Nietzsche's loathing of the State alongside his contempt for anarchists.
Mencken argues that under minimal government, free of communistic levelling, such a man would stand forth from the herd, that church and king oppose progress, and that Nietzsche was therefore an anarchist in the true sense, like Spencer and Schopenhauer.
Reads Nietzsche's hostility to the state as philosophical anarchism favouring the strongest individuals.