Of Reading and Writing

'Of all that is written I love only that which the writer wrote with his blood. Write with blood, and thou wilt learn that blood is spirit.
It is not easily possible to understand other people's blood. I hate the reading idlers.
He who knoweth the reader doth nothing more for the reader. Another century of readers - and the spirit itself will stink.
That everybody is allowed to learn to read spoileth in the long run not only writing but thinking.
Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it is becoming mob.
He who writeth in blood and apophthegms seeketh not to be read, but to be learnt by heart.
In the mountains the shortest way is from summit to summit: but for that thou needest long legs. Apophthegms shall be summits, and they who are spoken unto, great ones and tall.
The air rarified and pure, danger near, and the spirit full of a gay wickedness: these agree well enough.
I desire to have goblins round me, for I am brave. Courage that dispelleth ghosts createth goblins for itself, - courage desireth to laugh.
I no longer feel as ye do: this cloud which I see beneath me, that blackness and heaviness at which I laugh, - that is your thunder-cloud.
Ye look upward when longing to be exalted. And I look downward because I am exalted.
Which of you can at the same time laugh and be exalted?
He who strideth across the highest mountains laugheth at all tragedies whether of the stage or of life...
I could believe only in God who would know how to dance.
And when I saw my devil, I found him earnest, thorough, deep, solemn: he was the spirit of gravity, - through him all things fall.
Not through wrath but through laughter one slayeth. Arise! let us slay the spirit of gravity!
I learned to walk: now I let myself run. I learned to fly: now I need no pushing to move me from the spot.
Now I am light, now I fly, now I see myself beneath myself, now a God danceth through me.'
Thus spake Zarathustra.

- Friedrich Nietzsche