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Quotation from Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
“The streak of chalk bewitcheth the hen; the stroke he struck bewitched his weak reason. Madness AFTER the deed, I call this”
Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part I, Discourse VI: The Pale Criminal, trans. Thomas Common (1892)
Addressing judges, Zarathustra describes a murderer who could commit the act but not bear the idea of it afterwards, and who now sees himself only as the doer of one deed.
Citation: "The streak of chalk bewitcheth the hen; the stroke he struck bewitched his weak reason. Madness AFTER the deed, I call this" — Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part I, Discourse VI: The Pale Criminal, trans. Thomas Common (1892). (id thus-spoke-zarathustra-q8)
Portrait: Nietzsche187a, Friedrich Hermann Hartmann, Public domain.
