ot only doth he lie, who speaketh contrary to his knowledge, but more
so, he who speaketh contrary to his ignorance. And thus speak ye
of yourselves in your intercourse, and belie your neighbour with
yourselves.

Thus saith the fool: "Association with men spoileth the character,
especially when one hath none."

The one goeth to his neighbour because he seeketh himself, and the other
because he would fain lose himself. Your bad love to yourselves maketh
solitude a prison to you.

The furthest ones are they who pay for your love to the near ones; and
when there are but five of you together, a sixth must always die.

I love not your festivals either: too many actors found I there, and
even the spectators often behaved like actors.

Not the neighbour do I teach you, but the friend. Let the friend be the
festival of the earth to you, and a foretaste of the Superman.

I teach you the friend and his overflowing heart. But one must know how
to be a sponge, if one would be loved by overflowing hearts.

I teach you the friend in whom the world standeth complete, a capsule
of the good,--the creating friend, who hath always a complete world to
bestow.

And as the world unrolled itself for him, so rolleth it together again
for him in rings, as the growth of good through evil, as the growth of
purpose out of chance.

Let the future and the furthest be the motive of thy to-day; in thy
friend shalt thou love the Superman as thy motive.

My brethren, I advise you not to neighbour-love--I advise you to
furthest love!--

Thus spake Zarathustra.

XVII. THE WAY OF THE CREATING ONE.

Wouldst thou go into isolation, my brother? Wouldst thou seek the way
unto thyself? Tarry yet a little and hearken unto me.

"He who seeketh may easily get lost himself. All isolation is wrong": so
say the herd. And long didst thou belong to the herd.

The voice of the herd will still echo in thee. And when thou sayest,
"I have no longer a conscience in common with you," then will it be a
plaint and a pain.

Lo, that pain itself did the same conscience produce; and the last gleam
of that conscience still gloweth on thine affliction.

But thou wouldst go the way of thine affliction, which is the way unto
thyself? Then show me thine authority and thy strength to do so!

Art thou a new strength and a new authority? A first motion? A
self-rolling wheel? Canst thou also compel stars to revolve around thee?

Alas! there is so much lusting