That all that is baddest is the best _power,_ and the hardest stone for the highest creator; and that man must become better _and_ badder:--267 The plexus of causes returneth in which I am intertwined,--it will again create me! I myself pertain to the causes of the eternal return. I come again with this sun, with this earth, with this eagle, with this serpent--_not_ to a new life, or a better life, or a similar life: I come again eternally to this identical and selfsame life, in its greatest and its smallest, to teach again the eternal return of all things,-- To speak again the word of the great noontide of earth and man, to announce again to man the Superman. 270-271 "Ye higher men,"--so blinketh the populace--"there are no higher men, we are all equal; man is man, before God--we are all equal!" Before God!--Now, however, this God hath died. Before the populace, however, we will not be equal. Ye higher men, away from the market-place! 351 Have a good distrust to-day, ye higher men, ye enheartened ones! Ye open-hearted ones! And keep your reasons secret! For this to-day is that of the populace. What the populace once learned to believe without reasons, who could--refute it to them by means of reasons? And on the market-place one convinceth with gestures. But reasons make the populace distrustful. And when truth hath once triumphed there, then ask yourselves with good distrust: "What strong error hath fought for it?" 355 Unlearn, I pray you, this "for," ye creating ones: your very virtue wisheth you to have naught to do with "for" and "on account of" and "because." Against these false little words shall ye stop your ears. "For one's neighbour," is the virtue only of the petty people: there it is said "like and like" and "hand washeth hand":--they have neither the right nor the power for _your_ self-seeking! 356-357 What hath hitherto been the greatest sin here on earth? Was it not the word of him who said: "Woe unto them that laugh now!" Did he himself find no cause for laughter on the earth? Then he sought badly. A child even findeth cause for it. 359-360 VI "The Eternal Recurrence"