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KNOW ONLY THE SPARKS OF THE SPIRIT: BUT YOU DO NOT SEE THE ANVIL WHICH THE SPIRIT IS, NOR THE FEROCITY OF ITS HAMMER!
IN TRUTH, YOU DO NOT KNOW THE SPIRIT'S PRIDE! BUT EVEN LESS COULD YOU ENDURE THE SPIRIT'S MODESTY, IF IT SHOULD EVER DEIGN TO SPEAK!
YOU ARE NO EAGLES.
To Zarathustra the eagle is a great symbol. He loves two symbols: the eagle and the serpent. To him the serpent represents wisdom and the eagle represents freedom. The eagle goes highest into the sky; it flies across the sun.
YOU ARE NO EAGLES -- he is saying to the philosophers -- SO NEITHER DO YOU KNOW THE SPIRIT'S JOY IN TERROR. Only the eagle knows the aloneness of the heights, the silence of the heights, the dangers of the heights. But without knowing dangers, one never grows. Zarathustra's basic teaching is: live dangerously. Follow the eagle to faraway skies; don't be afraid, because your inner self is immortal. Those who are afraid of danger are the people who don't know their immortal self. Their fear shows their ignorance and nothing else.
AND HE WHO IS NOT A BIRD SHALL NOT MAKE HIS HOME ABOVE ABYSSES. But the joy of making a home above great abysses... that joy belongs only to the very few courageous souls. And according to Zarathustra, religion is not for all. It is only for the eagles; it is only for those who are ready to live dangerously -- because only they can find the truth, only they can find the meaning of life, only they can become one day the superman.
YOU ARE TEPID: BUT ALL DEEP KNOWLEDGE FLOWS COLD. THE INNERMOST WELLS OF THE SPIRIT ARE ICE-COLD: A REFRESHMENT TO HOT HANDS AND HANDLERS. The crowd lives a life which is tepid, lukewarm -- neither hot nor cold. It knows no extremes; it moves always safely in the middle. But those who are too much concerned about safety and security cannot be the explorers, cannot be the discoverers. Knowledge flows deep; hence it is cold. And one has to be capable of coming out of the tepid waters, of coming out of the lukewarm life, which is neither life nor death, which is just a kind of vegetation, just a survival.
From the cradle to the grave, all that you are concerned with is: how to survive,
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