In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche conceives of a race called the Superman that has evolved mentally and spiritually beyond humanity as it currently exists. In the novel, a spiritual teacher named Zarathustra has spent the last 10 years meditating in solitude in a mountain cave but now reenters society to spread his teachings. Indeed, Zarathustra himself is a kind of ancient forerunner of the Superman to come. The Superman creates new values, throwing out made-up concepts of good and evil; thus, humanity is evolving toward the Superman as they evolve beyond traditional ideas of morality. Related to the concept of the Superman, the concept of “the will to power,” humanity’s basic instinct, is the desire to exert one’s strength upon the outside world—an exertion that replaces traditional ideas of good and evil. Nietzsche argues that, though not all people are capable of fully exercising their will to power (Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a book aimed at “higher” individuals), those heroic people who are capable have a responsibility to progress toward the Superman for the sake of humanity as a whole.
According to Zarathustra, humanity’s evolution toward the Superman demands assertion of the will to power. In other words, one shouldn’t passively submit to others’ teachings, even Zarathustra’s. Zarathustra urges his followers not to slavishly follow him, but to go on to create their own values: “One repays a teacher badly if one remains only a pupil. And why, then, should you not pluck at my laurels? You respect me; but how if one day your respect should tumble? Take care that a falling statue does not strike you dead! […] Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when you have all denied me will I return to you.” The point of heeding Zarathustra is not to do exactly as he does; rather, it’s to exert one’s will to power in order to overcome good and evil oneself. Elevating Zarathustra is a way of avoiding this effort. Giving another example of the will to power, Zarathustra tells a story of a shepherd who is choking on a snake. The shepherd must bite off the snake’s head in order to survive: “He spat far away the snake's head—and sprang up. No longer a shepherd, no longer a man—a transformed being, surrounded with light, laughing! Never yet on earth had any man laughed as he laughed!” The snake represents conventional values, which are choking and killing the man. His biting off the snake’s head represents the grim work of freeing oneself—upon which man evolves to become the Superman. The Superman can only emerge when people exert their will to power in order to live freely.
Indeed, Zarathustra believes that, in order to progress toward the Superman, those who are capable of exercising their will to power must determine their own value systems. He sums up the will to power this way: “Unchanging good and evil does not exist! […] You exert power with your values and doctrines of good and evil […] And he who has to be a creator in good and evil, truly, has first to be a destroyer and break values.” Asserting objective good and evil is a way of keeping higher people on top and lower people in subjection. In Zarathustra’s view, “good” should mean the progression of human to Superman, not adherence to traditional values.
Not everyone is equipped to become the Superman. Zarathustra seeks to draw a higher class of human beings to himself through his proclamations: “My happiness itself shall I cast far and wide, between sunrise, noontide, and sunset, to see if many human fishes will not learn to kick and tug at my happiness […] For I am he […] a drawer, trainer, and taskmaster who once bade himself, and not in vain: 'Become what you are!’” This call is to those higher individuals who are capable of hearing Zarathustra and won’t shrink from exerting the will to power—something all people possess but few exercise.
Related Themes from Other Texts
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The Superman and the Will to Power Quotes in Thus Spoke Zarathustra
“With singing, weeping, laughing, and muttering I praise the God who is my God. But what do you bring us as a gift?”
When Zarathustra heard these words, he saluted the saint and said: “What should I have to give you! But let me go quickly, that I may take nothing from you!” And thus they parted from one another, the old man and Zarathustra, laughing as two boys laugh.
But when Zarathustra was alone, he spoke thus to his heart: “Could it be possible! This old saint has not yet heard in his forest that God is dead!”
I teach you the Superman. Man is something that should be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?
All creatures hitherto have created something beyond themselves: and do you want to be the ebb of this great tide, and return to the animals rather than overcome man? […]
The Superman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: The Superman shall be the meaning of the earth!
I entreat you, my brothers, remain true to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of superterrestrial hopes! They are poisoners, whether they know it or not.
A light has dawned for me: Zarathustra shall not speak to the people but to companions! Zarathustra shall not be herdsman and dog to the herd! […]
Behold the good and the just! Whom do they hate most? Him who smashes their tables of values, the breaker, the lawbreaker—but he is the creator. […]
The creator seeks companions, not corpses or herds or believers. The creator seeks fellow-creators, those who inscribe new values on new tables.
It was the sick and dying who despised the body and the earth and invented the things of heaven and the redeeming drops of blood: but even these sweet and dismal poisons they took from the body and the earth!
They wanted to escape from their misery and the stars were too far for them. Then they sighed: 'Oh if only there were heavenly paths by which to creep into another existence and into happiness!'—then they contrived for themselves their secret ways and their draughts of blood!
Zarathustra has seen many lands and many peoples: thus he has discovered the good and evil of many peoples. Zarathustra has found no greater power on earth than good and evil. […]
Much that seemed good to one people seemed shame and disgrace to another: thus I found. I found much that was called evil in one place was in another decked with purple honours. […]
Truly, men have given themselves all their good and evil. Truly, they did not take it, they did not find it, it did not descend to them as a voice from heaven.
Do I exhort you to love of your neighbour? I exhort you rather to flight from your neighbour and to love of the most distant!
Higher than love of one's neighbour stands love of the most distant man and of the man of the future […]
You cannot endure to be alone with yourselves and do not love yourselves enough: now you want to mislead your neighbour into love and gild yourselves with his mistake.
You solitaries of today, you who have seceded from society, you shall one day be a people: from you, who have chosen out yourselves, shall a chosen people spring—and from this chosen people, the Superman.
Truly, the earth shall yet become a house of healing! And already a new odour floats about it, an odour that brings health—and a new hope!
One repays a teacher badly if one remains only a pupil. And why, then, should you not pluck at my laurels? […]
Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when you have all denied me will I return to you. […]
And once more you shall have become my friends and children of one hope: and then I will be with you a third time, that I may celebrate the great noontide with you.
This will lured me away from God and gods; for what would there be to create if gods – existed!
But again and again it drives me to mankind, my ardent, creative will; thus it drives the hammer to the stone.
Ah, you men, I see an image sleeping in the stone, the image of my visions! […]
The beauty of the Superman came to me as a shadow. Ah, my brothers! What are the gods to me now!
Free from the happiness of serfs, redeemed from gods and worship, fearless and fearful, great and solitary: that is how the will of the genuine man is.
The genuine men, the free spirits, have always dwelt in the desert, as the lords of the desert; but in the towns dwell the well-fed famous philosophers – the draught animals. For they always, as asses, pull—the people’s cart!
That is your entire will, you wisest men; it is a will to power; and that is so even when you talk of good and evil and of the assessment of values.
You want to create the world before which you can kneel: this is your ultimate hope and intoxication. […]
[W]hat the people believe to be good and evil betrays to me an ancient will to power.
It was you, wisest men, who put such passengers in this boat and gave them splendour and proud names – you and your ruling will!
Today I saw a sublime man, a solemn man, a penitent of the spirit: oh, how my soul laughed at his ugliness! […]
Hung with ugly truths, the booty of his hunt, and rich in torn clothes; many thorns, too, hung on him – but I saw no rose.
As yet he has not learned of laughter and beauty. This huntsman returned gloomily from the forest of knowledge.
My will clings to mankind, I bind myself to mankind with fetters, because I am drawn up to the Superman: for my other will wants to draw me up to the Superman. […]
And he who does not want to die of thirst among men must learn to drink out of all glasses; and he who wants to stay clean among men must know how to wash himself even with dirty water.
'Spirit of Gravity!’ I said angrily, 'do not treat this too lightly! Or I shall leave you squatting where you are, Lamefoot—and I have carried you high!
‘Behold this moment!' I went on. 'From this gateway Moment a long, eternal lane runs back: an eternity lies behind us.
'Must not all things that can run have already run along this lane? Must not all things that can happen have already happened, been done, run past?’
The shepherd […] bit as my cry had advised him; he bit with a good bite! He spat far away the snake's head—and sprang up.
No longer a shepherd, no longer a man—a transformed being, surrounded with light, laughing! Never yet on earth had any man laughed as he laughed!
Whether one be servile before gods and divine kicks, or before men and the silly opinions of men: it spits at slaves of all kinds, this glorious selfishness!
Bad: that is what it calls all that is broken-down and niggardly-servile, unclear, blinking eyes, oppressed hearts, and that false, yielding type of man who kisses with broad, cowardly lips. […]
And he who declares the Ego healthy and holy and selfishness glorious – truly he, a prophet, declares too what he knows: 'Behold, it comes, it is near, the great noontide!'
Man is the cruellest animal towards himself; and […] all who call themselves "sinners" and “bearers of the Cross" and "penitents" […]
Ah, my animals, this alone have I learned, that the wickedest in man is necessary for the best in him,
that all that is most wicked in him is his best strength and the hardest stone for the highest creator; and that man must grow better and wickeder: […]
[I cried] ‘Alas, that his wickedest is so very small! Alas, that his best is so very small!’
'For your animals well know, O Zarathustra, who you are and must become: behold, you are the teacher of the eternal recurrence, that is now your destiny!
That you have to be the first to teach this doctrine—how should this great destiny not also be your greatest danger and sickness!
Behold, we know what you teach: that all things recur eternally and we ourselves with them, and that we have already existed an infinite number of times before and all things with us.
When he was young, this god from the orient, he was hard and revengeful and built himself a Hell for the delight of his favourites.
But at length he grew old and soft and mellow and compassionate, more like a grandfather than a father, most like a tottery old grandmother.
Then he sat, shrivelled, in his chimney corner, fretting over his weak legs, world-weary, weary of willing, and one day suffocated through his excessive pity.'
You are only bridges: may higher men than you step across upon you! […]
From your seed there may one day grow for me a genuine son and perfect heir: but that is far ahead. You yourselves are not those to whom my heritage and name belong. […]
It is for others that I wait here in these mountains and I will not lift my foot from here without them, for higher, stronger, more victorious, more joyful men, such as are square-built in body and soul: laughing lions must come!
And Zarathustra began to speak once more. 'O my new friends,' he said, 'you strange men, you Higher Men, how well you please me now […]
Truly, you have all blossomed forth: for such flowers as you, I think, new festivals are needed.
a little brave nonsense, some divine service and ass festival, some joyful old Zarathustra-fool, a blustering wind to blow your souls bright.
Do not forget this night and this ass festival, you Higher Men! You devised that at my home, I take that as a good omen—only convalescents devise such things!
‘Pity! Pity for the Higher Man!’ he cried out, and his countenance was transformed into brass. 'Very well! That—has had its time! […]
‘The lion has come, my children are near, Zarathustra has become ripe, my hour has come!
This is my morning, my day begins: rise up now, rise up, great noontide!’
Thus spoke Zarathustra and left his cave, glowing and strong, like a morning sun emerging from behind dark mountains.
