Writers ought to be regarded as wrongdoers who deserve to be acquitted or pardoned only in the rarest cases: that would be a way to keep books from getting out of hand.
What is good? All that enhances the feeling of power, the Will to Power, and power itself in man. What is bad? — All that proceeds from weakness. What is happiness? — The feeling that power is increasing — that resistance has been overcome.
When a scholar of the old culture vows no longer to have anything to do with men who believe in progress, he is right. For the old culture has its greatness and goodness behind it, and an historical education forces one to admit that it can never again be fresh.
These four, however, seek the freedom of their will at the very point where they are most securely chained. It is as if the silkworm sought freedom of will in spinning. What is the reason?
Have you heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly, I seek God! I seek God! As many of those who do not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter...
Whither is God, he cried. I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. All of us are murderers.... God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.
All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment.
Freedom is the will to be responsible for ourselves. It is to preserve the distance which separates us from other men. To grow more indifferent to hardship, to severity, to privation, and even to life itself.