Page:Thus Spake Zarathustra - Thomas Common - 1917.djvu/251



7.
To be true- that can few be! And he who can, will not! Least of all, however, can the good be true.

Oh, those good ones! Good men never speak the truth. For the spirit, thus to be good, is a malady.

They yield, those good ones, they submit themselves; their heart repeats, their soul obeys: yet he who obeys, does not listen to himself!

All that is called evil by the good, must come together in order that one truth may be born. O my brothers, are you also evil enough for this truth?

The daring venture, the prolonged distrust, the cruel No, the tedium, the cutting-into-the-quick- how seldom do these come together! Out of such seed, however- is truth produced!

Beside the bad conscience has hitherto grown all knowledge! Break up, break up, you discerning ones, the old law-tablets!

8.
When the water has planks, when gangways and railings o'erspan the stream, verily, he is not believed who then says: "All is in flux."

But even the simpletons contradict him. "What?" say the simpletons, "all in flux? Planks and railings are still over the stream!

"Over the stream all is stable, all the values of things, the bridges and bearings, all 'good' and 'evil': these are all stable!"-