Everything straight lieth

“Then happened that which made me lighter: for the dwarf sprang from my shoulder, the prying sprite! And it squatted on a stone in front of me. There was however a gateway just where we halted.

“Look at this gateway! Dwarf!” I continued, “it hath two faces. Two roads come together here: these hath no one yet gone to the end of.

This long lane backwards: it continueth for an eternity. And that long lane forward—that is another eternity.

They are antithetical to one another, these roads; they directly abut on one another:—and it is here, at this gateway, that they come together. The name of the gateway is inscribed above: ‘This Moment.’

But should one follow them further—and ever further and further on, thinkest thou, dwarf, that these roads would be eternally antithetical?”—

“Everything straight lieth,” murmured the dwarf, contemptuously. “All truth is crooked; time itself is a circle.”

– Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900
“Thus Spake Zarathustra”