By our best enemies we do not want to be spared, nor by those either whom we love from the very heart. So let me tell you the truth!
My brethren in war! I love you from the very heart. I am, and was ever, your counterpart. And I am also your best enemy. So let me tell you the truth!
I know the hatred and envy of your hearts. Ye are not great enough not to know of hatred and envy. Then be great enough not to be ashamed of them!
And if ye cannot be saints of knowledge, then, I pray you, be at least its warriors. They are the companions and forerunners of such saintship.
I see many soldiers; could I but see many warriors! “Uniform” one calleth what they wear; may it not be uniform what they therewith hide!
Ye shall be those whose eyes ever seek for an enemy—for YOUR enemy. And with some of you there is hatred at first sight.
Your enemy shall ye seek; your war shall ye wage, and for the sake of your thoughts! And if your thoughts succumb, your uprightness shall still shout triumph thereby!
What the critics said
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.
Mencken argues that for Nietzsche instinct and experiment reveal one's power, that happiness lies in unrestrained yielding to the will to power through constant contest, citing Zarathustra's 'not to peace, but to victory' and casting dice with death, and that this means a crusade against ethics of self-sacrifice for inferiors and a transvaluation that frees the will to power from infamy.