Also what ye omit weaveth at the web of all the human future; even your naught is a cobweb, and a spider that liveth on the blood of the future.

And when ye take, then is it like stealing, ye small virtuous ones; but even among knaves honour saith that ‘one shall only steal when one cannot rob’.

‘It giveth itself’—that is also a doctrine of submission. But I say unto you, ye comfortable ones, that it taketh to itself, and will ever take more and more from you!

Ah, that ye would renounce all half-willing, and would decide for idleness as ye decide for action!

Ah, that ye understood my word: ‘Do ever what ye will—but first be such as can will.

Love ever your neighbour as yourselves—but first be such as love themselves—

Such as love with great love, such as love with great contempt!’ Thus speaketh Zarathustra the godless.

But why talk I, when no one hath mine ears! It is still an hour too early for me here.

Mine own forerunner am I among this people, mine own cockcrow in dark lanes.

But their hour cometh! And there cometh also mine! Hourly do they become smaller, poorer, unfruitfuller—poor herbs, poor earth!

And soon shall they stand before me like dry grass and prairie, and verily, weary of themselves—and panting for fire, more than for water!

O blessed hour of the lightning! O mystery before noontide! Running fires will I one day make of them, and heralds with flaming tongues—

Herald shall they one day with flaming tongues: ‘It cometh, it is nigh, the great noontide!’

Thus spake Zarathustra.