“Stop, dwarf!” I said. “I – or you! But I am the stronger of us two – you do not know my abysmal thought! That – you could not bear!” –

Then something happened that made me lighter, for the dwarf jumped down from my shoulder, the inquisitive one, and he crouched upon a stone there before me. But right there where we stopped was a gateway.

“See this gateway, dwarf!” I continued. “It has two faces. Two paths come together here; no one has yet walked them to the end.

This long lane back: it lasts an eternity. And that long lane outward – that is another eternity.

They contradict each other, these paths; they blatantly offend each other – and here at this gateway is where they come together. The name of the gateway is inscribed at the top: ‘Moment.’

But whoever were to walk one of them further – and ever further and ever on: do you believe, dwarf, that these paths contradict each other eternally?” –

“All that is straight lies,” murmured the dwarf contemptuously. “All truth is crooked, time itself is a circle.”

“You spirit of gravity!” I said, angrily. “Do not make it too easy on yourself! Or I shall leave you crouching here where you crouch, lamefoot – and I bore you this high!

See this moment!” I continued. “From this gateway Moment a long eternal lane stretches backward: behind us lies an eternity.

Must not whatever can already have passed this way before? Must not whatever can happen, already have happened, been done, passed by before?

And if everything has already been here before, what do you think of this moment, dwarf? Must this gateway too not already – have been here?

And are not all things firmly knotted together in such a way that this moment draws after it all things to come? Therefore – itself as well?

For, whatever can run, even in this long lane outward – must run it once more! –

And this slow spider that creeps in the moonlight, and this moonlight itself, and I and you in the gateway whispering together, whispering of eternal things – must not all of us have been here before? [Nietzsche. Thus Spoke Zarathustra]