A state? What is that? Well! open now your ears to me, for now I will speak to you about the death of peoples.
State is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it lies; and this lie slips from its mouth: "I, the state, am the people."
It is a lie! It was creators who created peoples, and hung a faith and a love over them: thus they served life.
The state lies in all the tongues of good and evil; and whatever it says it lies; and whatever it has it has stolen.
Everything in it is false; it bites with stolen teeth, and bites often. It is false down to its bowels.
See how it entices them to it, the all-too-many! How it swallows and chews and rechews them!
"On earth there is nothing greater than I: I am the governing hand of God."- thus roars the monster.
Ah! even in your ears, you great souls, it whispers its gloomy lies! Ah! it finds out the rich hearts which willingly squander themselves!
Yes, it finds you too, you conquerors of the old God! You became weary of conflict, and now your weariness serves the new idol!
It would set up heroes and honorable ones around it, the new idol! Gladly it basks in the sunshine of good consciences,- the cold monster!
It will give everything to you, if you worship it, the new idol: thus it buys the lustre of your virtue, and the glance of your proud eyes.
The state, I call it, where all drink poison, the good and the bad: the state, where all lose themselves, the good and the bad: the state, where the slow suicide of all- is called "life."
Behold the superfluous! They are always sick; they vomit their bile and call it a newspaper. They devour each other and cannot even digest themselves.
Behold the superfluous! They acquire wealth and become the poorer for it. They seek power, and the lever of power, much money- these impotent ones!
See them clamber, these nimble apes! They clamber over one another, and thus pull each other into the mud and the abyss.
They all strive for the throne: this is their madness- as if happiness sat on the throne! Often filth sits on the throne.- and often also the throne on filth.
Madmen they all seem to me, and clambering apes, and too eager. Foul smells their idol to me, the cold monster: foul they all smell to me, these idolaters.
My brothers, will you suffocate in the fumes of their maws and appetites! Better to break the windows and jump into the open air!
Escape from their foul stench! Escape from the idolatry of the superfluous!
A free life is yet possible for great souls. He who possesses little is that much less possessed: blessed be a little poverty!
There, where the state ends- there only begins the man who is not superfluous: there begins the song of the necessary, the single and irreplaceable melody.
There, where the state ends- look there, my brothers! Do you not see it?
In Jesus name, Amen.
