by Friedrich Nietzsche
Prologue
- <li>Zarathustra has worked with the eagle and the serpent. Now he will become a man again – go down the mountain.
- A saint tells him to avoid man and the world of sleep. Like every other prophet or avatar, man will ignore or revile him.
Zarathustra tells the saint that God is dead. He means the saint’s god, man’s God is false, it is an idol. - Ye have made your way from worm to man is man’s progression through the mineral, plant and animal worlds to his current station. But man’s tendency is to go back, instead of forwards or upwards – All things hitherto have created something beyond themselves: and ye want to be the ebb of that great tide, and would rather go back to the beast than surpass man?