On the Virtue That Makes Small

1

When Zarathustra was on dry land again, he did not go straight to his mountains and his cave, but took many paths and asked many questions and inquired into this and that, so that he said of himself in jest: “Look at a river that flows back to its source in many windings!” For he wanted to find out what had happened in the meantime with the human being: whether he had become greater or smaller. And once he saw a row of new houses; then he wondered and said:

“What do these houses mean? Truly, no great soul set them up as a likeness of itself!

“Did some silly child take them out of its toy box, perhaps? If only another child would put them back in its box!

“And these rooms and chambers: can men go in and out of them? They seem to me made for silk dolls; or for sweet-tooths, who perhaps also let others nibble at them.”

And Zarathustra stood still and reflected. At last he said sadly: “Everything has become smaller!

“Everywhere I see lower gates: whoever is of my kind can still get through them, but—he has to stoop!

“Oh, when shall I come back to my homeland, where I no longer have to stoop—no longer have to stoop before the small!”—And Zarathustra sighed and gazed into the distance.—

On that same day, however, he gave his speech on the virtue that makes small.

2

I go among this people and keep my eyes open: they do not forgive me for not envying their virtues.

They snap at me because I say to them: small people need small virtues—and because it is hard for me to accept that small people are needed!

I am still like the rooster here in a strange farmyard, at whom the hens peck too; but I do not hold it against these hens.

I am polite to them as to every small annoyance; to be prickly toward what is small seems to me a wisdom for hedgehogs.

They all talk about me when they sit around the fire in the evening—they talk about me, but no one thinks—of me!

This is the new stillness I have learned: their noise around me spreads a cloak over my thoughts.

They make noise among themselves: “What does this gloomy cloud want with us? Let us see to it that it does not bring us a plague!”

And not long ago a woman snatched back her child, which wanted to come to me: “Take the children away!” she cried. “Eyes like those scorch children’s souls.”

They cough when I speak: they think coughing is an objection to strong winds—they guess nothing of the roaring of my happiness!

“We have no time for Zarathustra yet”—so they object; but what does a time matter that “has no time” for Zarathustra?

And when they even praise me: how could I possibly fall asleep on their praise? Their praise is a belt of thorns to me: it still scratches me when I take it off.

And this too I learned among them: the one who praises pretends to be giving something back, but in truth he wants to be given more!

Ask my foot whether it likes their way of praising and luring! Truly, to such a beat and ticktock it wants neither to dance nor to stand still.

To small virtue they would like to lure and praise me; they would like to talk my foot into the ticktock of small happiness.

I go among this people and keep my eyes open: they have become smaller and are becoming ever smaller:—but that is the work of their teaching about happiness and virtue.

For they are modest in virtue too—because they want comfort. But only modest virtue gets along with comfort.

To be sure, they too learn in their own way to stride and to stride forward: I call that their hobbling—. With it they become a stumbling block to everyone who is in a hurry.

And many a one of them walks forward and looks backward as he does so, with a stiffened neck: I like to run into him headlong.

Foot and eyes should not lie, nor give each other the lie. But there is much lying among small people.

Some of them will, but most of them are only willed. Some of them are genuine, but most of them are bad actors.

There are actors without knowing it among them, and actors without wanting it—; the genuine are always rare, especially the genuine actors.

There is little of the man here: that is why their women make themselves mannish. For only someone who is man enough will—redeem the woman in woman.

And this hypocrisy I found the worst among them: that even those who command feign the virtues of those who serve.

“I serve, you serve, we serve”—so prays even the hypocrisy of the rulers here—and woe if the first lord is only the first servant!

Ah, my eye’s curiosity no doubt strayed into their hypocrisies too; and I guessed well all their fly-happiness and their buzzing around sunlit windowpanes.

So much kindness, so much weakness I see. So much justice and pity, so much weakness.

They are round, fair, and kind with one another, as grains of sand are round, fair, and kind with grains of sand.

Modestly to embrace a small happiness—that they call “resignation”! and as they do it they are already modestly squinting after a new small happiness.

At bottom what they most want, simply, is one thing: that no one should hurt them. So they anticipate everyone and do them good.

But this is cowardice: even if it is called “virtue.”—

And when for once they speak roughly, these small people: I hear in it only their hoarseness—for every draft makes them hoarse.

They are clever; their virtues have clever fingers. But they lack fists; their fingers do not know how to crawl behind fists.

Virtue to them is what makes modest and tame: with it they have made the wolf into a dog and the human being himself into the human being’s best domestic animal.

“We have set our chair in the middle”—so their smirking tells me—“and just as far from dying gladiators as from contented sows.”

But this is—mediocrity: even if it is called moderation.—

3

I go among this people and let fall many a word: but they know neither how to take nor how to keep.

They are surprised that I did not come to rail against lusts and vices; and truly, I did not come to warn against pickpockets either!

They are surprised that I am not ready to make their cleverness still wittier and sharper: as if they did not already have enough of the clever little know-alls whose voices scratch at me like slate pencils!

And when I cry: “Curse all the cowardly devils in you who like to whimper and fold their hands and worship,” then they cry: “Zarathustra is godless.”

And their teachers of resignation cry it especially—; but it is precisely into their ears that I love to shout: Yes! I am Zarathustra the godless!

These teachers of resignation! Wherever there is something small and sick and scabby, they crawl to it, like lice; and only my disgust keeps me from cracking them.

Well then! This is my sermon for their ears: I am Zarathustra the godless, who says: “Who is more godless than I, that I may rejoice in his instruction?”

I am Zarathustra the godless: where shall I find my equals? And all those are my equals who give themselves their own will and put all resignation away from them.

I am Zarathustra the godless: I cook every chance in my pot. And only when it is cooked through there do I welcome it, as my food.

And truly, many a chance came to me like a master: but my will spoke to it more masterfully still—then it was already lying on its knees, pleading—

—pleading that it might find lodging and heart with me, and coaxing me with flattery: “Just look, O Zarathustra, how only a friend comes to a friend!”—

But why do I speak where no one has my ears! And so I will shout it out to all the winds:

You are becoming ever smaller, you small people! You are crumbling away, you comfortable ones! You will yet perish—

—of your many small virtues, of your many small omissions, of your many small resignations!

Too much sparing, too much yielding: such is your soil! But for a tree to become great, it wants to strike hard roots around hard rocks!

Even what you omit weaves at the web of all human future; even your nothing is a spider’s web and a spider that lives on the future’s blood.

And when you take, it is like stealing, you small virtuous ones; but even among rogues honor says: “One should steal only where one cannot rob.”

“It gives itself”—that too is a teaching of resignation. But I tell you, you comfortable ones: it takes itself, and it will take more and more from you!

Ah, that you would put away from you all half willing and become resolute for idleness as for action!

Ah, that you understood my word: “Do whatever you will, by all means—but first be such as can will!”

“Love your neighbor as yourselves, by all means—but first be such as love themselves—

“—love with the great love, love with the great contempt!” Thus speaks Zarathustra the godless.—

But why do I speak where no one has my ears! It is still an hour too early for me here.

I am my own forerunner among this people, my own cockcrow through dark lanes.

But their hour is coming! And mine is coming too! Hourly they become smaller, poorer, more barren—poor weeds! poor soil!

And soon they shall stand before me like dry grass and steppe, and truly! weary of themselves—and thirsting more for fire than for water!

O blessed hour of lightning! O mystery before noon!—Running fires I will yet make of them one day, and heralds with tongues of flame:—

—one day they shall yet proclaim with tongues of flame: It is coming, it is near, the great noon!

Thus spoke Zarathustra.