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Thus Spake ZarathustraIdeasLibrary

6 passages

Not the height, it is the declivity that is terrible! The declivity, where the gaze shooteth DOWNWARDS, and the hand graspeth UPWARDS. There doth the heart become giddy through its double will. Ah, friends, do ye divine…

Zarathustra says the declivity, not the height, is terrible, because his gaze goes up while his hand clutches the depth. He chains himself to man and lets himself be deceived, so that his hand keeps its belief in firmness.

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My declivity and my dangerXLIII. Manly Prudence
This, this is MY declivity and my danger, that my gaze shooteth towards the summit, and my hand would fain clutch and lean—on the depth!

Zarathustra names his own danger: the summit draws his gaze, while his hand holds to the depth.

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Forbearance toward the vainXLIII. Manly Prudence
This, however, is mine other manly prudence: I am more forbearing to the VAIN than to the proud. Is not wounded vanity the mother of all tragedies? Where, however, pride is wounded, there groweth up something better…

He is more forbearing to the vain than to the proud, because they are good actors who cure his melancholy. Beneath their vanity he sees a modesty that asks 'What am I?'

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The wicked and the superdragonXLIII. Manly Prudence
This is, however, my third manly prudence: I am not put out of conceit with the WICKED by your timorousness. I am happy to see the marvels the warm sun hatcheth: tigers and palms and rattle-snakes. Also amongst men…

He is not put out of conceit with the wicked by others' timorousness, and delights in the warm sun's brood of tigers and rattle-snakes. He foresees greater dragons so that the Superman may have a good hunt.

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The good and the highest men fearXLIII. Manly Prudence
And verily, ye good and just! In you there is much to be laughed at, and especially your fear of what hath hitherto been called “the devil!” So alien are ye in your souls to what is great, that to you the Superman would…

Zarathustra laughs at the good and just and suspects that even the highest men would call his Superman a devil. Tired of the 'best', he grows wings toward more distant futures.

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But disguised do I want to see YOU, ye neighbours and fellowmen, and well-attired and vain and estimable, as “the good and just;”— And disguised will I myself sit amongst you—that I may MISTAKE you and myself: for that…

He wants to see his neighbours disguised as the good and just, and to sit disguised among them. In this way he may mistake them and himself.

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Nietzsche elsewhere

The good would call the Superman a devilFriedrich Nietzsche · Ecce Homo, 1888Nietzsche

Nietzsche says that Zarathustra, as the first psychologist of the good, is the friend of the evil man, since where the herd animal is virtuous the exceptional man is branded evil; the good and just would call his Superman the devil, and the Superman is the man strong enough to see reality as it is and to be that reality himself.

What the critics said

The superior man's maskAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici says 'Manly Prudence' explains the injunction that the superior man must wear a mask: the truly profound individual feels his difference so keenly that he conforms outwardly and avoids display, unlike those who show individuality through eccentricity.