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 die at the right time? Would that he might never be born!—Thus do I advise the superfluous ones.
But even the superfluous ones make much ado about their death, and even the hollowest nut wanteth to be cracked.
Every one regardeth dying as a great matter: but as yet death is not a festival. Not yet have people learned to inaugurate the finest festivals.
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.