Thus Spoke Zarathustra

the same—precisely for those to whom Zarathustra’s teaching is addressed and whose extraordinary powers must be held together in the highest tension, rather than being uselessly scattered. For the great human being, pity, losing oneself in others, would necessarily be a vice, a disregard for his rare human qualities, just as it is a virtue for the small. The great and self-assured individual is more necessary to humanity than the small, pity-seeking one. A thousand streams of spiritual life flow from him; his captivating soul enchants an entire age; great things arise again around him, and even the weak, the gloomy, and the unalterably failed straighten themselves at the sight of him and heal their hearts. "Nothing grows more joyfully on earth than a high, strong will; it is its most beautiful growth. An entire landscape refreshes itself at such a tree!"

For those who cannot sort these things out, and indeed receive no impression of Zarathustra’s gentleness and nobility, and are therefore always in danger of affronting Nietzsche (one of the highest manifestations of the human race) by imputing their own personal vulgarity to him, let it be said that it is precisely the highly developed, the Zarathustra-human, who is most accessible to pity: but he must not yield to it, he must forbid it to himself. He has the most difficult task among men—so he may not do what millions of others may do: namely, to give himself away, to squander himself, to allow himself to be distracted from his goal. To flee from the task that he alone must solve would be tempting and easy for him: but to endure, to remain faithful to it, to live in the most tremendous concentration and to complete his work, requires the hardest self-mastery. Genius is genius because it treats itself according to stricter rules than those by which the masses treat themselves and others. Its power benefits humanity along other paths and for the sake of higher purposes than the power of small people. If one likes to hear it, one could also call the driving force of his action "pity"—only it originates from a deeper source than the insignificant, ever-ready pity: genius works on the healing and enrichment of all humanity. It does not sacrifice itself to the individual, to the "neighbor": it sacrifices itself to the great whole and its future development. "You did not all suffer what I suffered! — says Zarathustra — You only suffered from yourselves; you did not yet suffer from humanity!"