THE HAMMER SPEAKETH
“Why so hard!”—said the diamond once unto the charcoal; “are we then not next of kin?”
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, Levy, Oscar, and Ludovici, Anthony M. (Anthony Mario)
“Why so soft? O my brethren; this is my question to you. For are ye not—my brothers?
“Why so soft, so servile and yielding? Why are your hearts so fond of denial and self-denial? How is it that so little fate looketh out from your eyes?
“And if ye will not be men of fate and inexorable, how can ye hope one day to conquer with me?
“And if your hardness will not sparkle, cut and divide, how can ye hope one day to create with me?
“For all creators are hard. And it must seem to you blessed to stamp your hand upon millenniums as upon wax,—
—Blessed to write upon the will of millenniums as upon brass,—harder than brass, nobler than brass.—Hard through and through is only the noblest.
This new table of values, O my brethren, I set over your heads: Become hard.”
—“Thus Spake Zarathustra,”
III., 29.