The Twilight of the Idols · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
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Loneliness for a certain time is necessary in order that a creature may become completely permeated with his own soul—cured and hard. A new form of community would be one in which we should assert ourselves martially. Otherwise the spirit becomes tame. No Epicurean “gardens” and mere “retirement from the masses.” War (but without powder) between different thoughts and the hosts who support them I A new nobility, the result of breeding. Feasts celebrating the foundation of families. The day divided up afresh; bodily exercise for all ages. Ἀγών as a principle. The love of the sexes as a contest around the principle in becoming and coming.—Ruling will be taught and practised, its hardness as well as its mildness. As soon as one faculty is acquired in a masterly manner another one must be striven after. We must let ourselves be taught by the evil, and allow them an opportunity of a contest. We must make use of the degenerate—The right of punishment will consist in this, that the offender may be used as an experimental subject (in dietetics): this is the consecration of punishment, that one man be used for the highest needs of a future being. We protect our new community because it is the bridge to our ideal of the future And for it we work and let others work.
The measure and mean must be found in striving to attain to something beyond mankind: the highest and strongest kind of man must be discovered! The highest tendency must be represented continually in small things:—perfection, maturity, rosy-cheeked health, mild discharges of power. Just as an artist works, must we apply ourselves to our daily task and bring ourselves to perfection in everything we do. We must be honest in acknowledging our real motives to ourselves, as is becoming in the mighty man. No impatience! Superman is our next stage and to this end, to this limit, moderation and manliness are necessary. Mankind must surpass itself, as the Greeks did—and no fleshless fantasies must be indulged. The higher mind which is associated with a sickly and nervous character must be suppressed. The goal: the higher culture of the whole body and not only of the brain. “Man is something that must be surpassed”:—it is a matter of tempo: the Greeks were wonderful, there was no haste about them.—My predecessors: Heraclitus, Empedocles, Spinoza, Goethe.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.