He who one day teacheth men to fly will have shifted all landmarks; to him will all landmarks themselves fly into the air; the earth will he christen anew—as “the light body.”
The ostrich runneth faster than the fastest horse, but it also thrusteth its head heavily into the heavy earth: thus is it with the man who cannot yet fly.
Heavy unto him are earth and life, and so WILLETH the spirit of gravity! But he who would become light, and be a bird, must love himself:—thus do _I_ teach.
Whoever teaches men to fly will shift all landmarks and rename the earth. The man who cannot yet fly, like the ostrich, thrusts his head into the heavy earth; to become light one must love oneself.
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
Mencken argues that Nietzsche offers a gospel of intelligent selfishness and absolute individualism, citing Zarathustra on loving oneself rather than one's neighbour, and an aristocracy that sacrifices the masses as scaffolding for a higher race under the law of natural selection.
Ludovici says the sublime ones are a type Nietzsche did not wholly dislike but who take life too seriously and never surmount the camel stage; real greatness is to speak of lofty things without being oppressed by them, and Nietzsche breaks old things not with the anarchist's irreverence but with the fingers of an artist at ease with beauty, guided by his own taste.
Ludovici explains the doctrine of self-love in 'The Spirit of Gravity' as a response to modern man's terror of being alone with himself, which betrays self-contempt, so that learning to love oneself requires a slow inner transformation; and he notes that Nietzsche does not coerce but says 'This is my way, where is yours?'
Ludovici explains the doctrine of self-love in 'The Spirit of Gravity' as a response to modern man's terror of being alone with himself, which betrays self-contempt, so that learning to love oneself requires a slow inner transformation; and he notes that Nietzsche does not coerce but says 'This is my way, where is yours?'