Nietzsche on the State

Somewhere there are still people and herds, yet not with us, my brothers: here, there are States. State? What is that? Well! Now open your ears to me, for now I will speak to you my views of the death of the people.

State is the name of the coldest of all cold atrocities. Coldly it also deceives; and this deception crawls from its mouth: "I, the State, am the people." A deception it is! Creators were they that created the people and hung a creed and a love on them: thus they worked for life. Annihilators are they that put traps for many and called it State: they hang a sword and a hundred yearnings onto them.

Where there is still a people, there the State is not understood and there they hate it like an evil eye and a sin against morality and justice. I give you this sign: every people speaks its tongue of good and evil: their neighbour doesn't understand it. Their language was actually invented in their morals and justice.

But the State deceives in all tongues of good and evil; and whatever it says, it lies — and whatever it has, it has stolen. All about it is false; it bites with stolen teeth. Even its entrails are false. A disordering of language of good and evil: I give you this sign as the sign of the State. Truly, this sign means a will to death! Truly, it gives a wink to the preachers of death!

Far too many are born: for the superfluous, the State was invented.

Behold how it clucks at them to come running, those far-too-many! How it engulfs and chews and chews over again!

"On the earth is nothing greater than I: I am the ordering finger of God" — thus thunders the beast. And not only the long-eared and short-sighted sink onto their knees! Ah, and also to you, oh you great souls, it whispers its death-dust deceptions!

Ah, it guesses the rich hearts that like to squander themselves! Yes, it also guesses you, you victors over the old God! You became tired in campaign, and now your tiredness serves the new Gods yet! Heroes and praiseworthy men, would the new God like to adorn itself with! It likes to sun itself in the sunshine of good minds, — the cold beast!

Everything will it give you, if you adore the new God: thus it buys the brilliance of your virtue and the look of your proud eyes. It wants to lure the far-too-many using you! Yes, a hellish artiface was there invented, a horse of death, clattering in the finery of divine honor. Indeed a death for many was invented there, that prizes itself as life: truly a heartfilled service to all the preachers of death!

State I call it where all drink poison, the good and the wicked: State, where all lose themselves, good and bad: State, where the slow suicide of all — is called "life".

See for me this superfluous lot! They steal the works of inventors for themselves and the treasure of the wise: they call their thievery Art — and it all becomes sickness and privation with them!

Behold, the superfluous! They are always sick, their bile breaks out of their guts and they call it news. They engulf each other and cannot even once digest themselves.

Behold, these superfluous people! They gather riches and become impoverished thereby. They want to be mighty, and first of all the ice-breakers of power, coins — these powerless paupers!

See them clamber, these swift monkeys! They climb over each other and thus drag themselves into the slime and the deep.

All of them want the throne: this is their delusion, — as if happiness sat upon the throne! Often slime sits on the throne — and often also the throne on slime. Mad they appear to me, deluded and overardent. Foul smells their idol; foul these idolaters smell altogether.

My brothers, do you wish then to be stifled in the death-dust of their snouts and appetites? Better to smash out the window and leap to freedom! Get away from the miserable odour! Get straight away from the God-slavery of the superfluous!

Get away from the miserable odour! Get straight away from the cadaver-steam of these human offerings!

Free the earth even now remains for great souls. Many places are still empty for the onesome and two-some, fanned by the fragrance of silent seas. Free still remains a free life for the great souls. Truly, who owns little is thus little owned: applaud a bit of poverty!

There, where the State stops, first begins the man who is not superfluous: there begins the song of necessity, the unique and inimitable tune.

There, where the State stops, — so just look there for me, my brothers! Do you not see it, the rainbow and the the bridges of the Overman?