PARABLE OF THE MADMAN
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE,
THE GAY SCIENCE (1882, 1887)
para. 125; Walter Kaufmann ed. (New York:
Vintage, 1974), pp. 181-82.]
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Human beings who do not want to belong to
the mass need only to stop, and not be comfortable;
follow their conscience, which cries out:
"Be yourself! All you are now doing,
thinking, desiring, is not you yourself."...your
educators can be only your liberators...—Schopenhauer as Educator, - From Untimely Meditationsm
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Human beings who do not want to belong to
the mass need only to stop, and not be comfortable;
follow their conscience, which cries out:
"Be yourself! All you are now doing,
thinking, desiring, is not you yourself."...
your educators can be only your liberators...
-Schopenhauer as Educator, §1 - From Untimely
Meditations THE MADMAN----Have you not heard
of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright
morning hours, ran to the market place, and
cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek
God!"---As many of those who did not
believe in God were standing around just
then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got
lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like
a child? asked another. Or is he hiding?
Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage?
emigrated?---Thus they yelled and laughed
The madman jumped into their midst and pierced
them with his eyes. "Whither is God?"
he cried; "I will tell you. We have
killed him---you and I. All of us are his
murderers. But how did we do this? How could
we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge
to wipe away the entire horizon? What were
we doing when we unchained this earth from
its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither
are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we
not plunging continually? Backward, sideward,
forward, in all directions? Is there still
any up or down? Are we not straying, as through
an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath
of empty space? Has it not become colder?
Is not night continually closing in on us?
Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning?
Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of
the gravediggers who are burying God? Do
we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition?
Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains
dead. And we have killed him.
"How shall we comfort ourselves, the
murderers of all murderers? What was holiest
and mightiest of all that the world has yet
owned has bled to death under our knives:
who will wipe this blood off us? What water
is there for us to clean ourselves? What
festivals of atonement, what sacred games
shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness
of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves
not become gods simply to appear worthy of
it? There has never been a greater deed;
and whoever is born after us---for the sake
of this deed he will belong to a higher history
than all history hitherto."
Here the madman fell silent and looked again
at his listeners; and they, too, were silent
and stared at him in astonishment. At last
he threw his lantern on the ground, and it
broke into pieces and went out. "I have
come too early," he said then; "my
time is not yet. This tremendous event is
still on its way, still wandering; it has
not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning
and thunder require time; the light of the
stars requires time; deeds, though done,
still require time to be seen and heard.
This deed is still more distant from them
than most distant stars---and yet they have
done it themselves.
It has been related further that on the same
day the madman forced his way into several
churches and there struck up his requiem
aeternam deo. Led out and called to account,
he is said always to have replied nothing
but: "What after all are these churches
now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers
of God?"
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