From Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra
“XI. The New Idol”
“The state? What is that? Well! Open now your ears unto me, for now will I say unto you my word concerning the death of peoples. The state is called the coldest of all cold monsters. It lies coldly; and this lie creeps from its mouth: “I, the state, am the people.” It is a lie!…
Destroyers, are they who lay snares for many, and call it the state… Where there is still a people, there the state is not understood, but hated as the evil eye, and as sin against laws and customs… whatever it says it lies; and whatever it has it has stolen. False is everything in it; with stolen teeth it bites… The state, I call it, where all are poison-drinkers, the good and the bad: the state, where all lose themselves, the good and the bad: the state, where the slow suicide of all–is called “life.”… They steal the works of the inventors and the treasures of the wise…
See them clamber, these nimble apes! They clamber over one another, and thus scuffle into the mud and the abyss. Towards the throne they all strive: it is their madness–as if happiness sat on the throne! Often filth sits on the throne.–and often also the throne on filth… Withdraw from the steam of these human sacrifices!
Open still remains the earth for great souls. Empty are still many sites for lone ones… Open still remains a free life for great souls.
There, where the state ceases–there only commences the man who is not superfluous: there commences the song of the necessary ones, the single and irreplaceable melody.
There, where the state CEASES–pray look thither, my brethren! Do you not see it, the rainbow and the bridges of the Overman?—
Thus spake Zarathustra.”
Happy Birthday Nietzsche…
