All beings 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?

What is the ape to man? A laughing-stock, a thing of shame. And just the
same shall man be to the Superman: a laughing-stock, a thing of shame.

Ye have made your way from the worm to man, and much within you is still
worm. Once were ye apes, and even yet man is more of an ape than any of
the apes.

Even the wisest among you is only a disharmony and hybrid of plant and
phantom. But do I bid you become phantoms or plants?

Lo, I teach you the Superman!

The Superman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: The Superman
SHALL BE the meaning of the earth!

I conjure you, my brethren, REMAIN TRUE TO THE EARTH, and believe not those
who speak unto you of superearthly hopes! Poisoners are they, whether they
know it or not.

Despisers of life are they, decaying ones and poisoned ones themselves, of
whom the earth is weary: so away with them!

Once blasphemy against God was the greatest blasphemy; but God died, and
therewith also those blasphemers. To blaspheme the earth is now the
dreadfulest sin, and to rate the heart of the unknowable higher than the
meaning of the earth!