Philologist Quotes

I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew.

I can tell by my own reaction to it that this book is harmful." But let him only wait and perhaps one day he will admit to himself that this same book has done him a great service by bringing out the hidden sickness of his heart and making it visible.— Altered opinions do not alter a man’s character (or do so very little); but they do illuminate individual aspects of the constellation of his personality which with a different constellation of opinions had hitherto remained dark and unrecognizable.

You I advise not to work, but to fight. You I advise not to peace, but to victory. Let your work be a fight, let your peace be a victory!

Life without music is only error, exhaustion, exile... Indeed, there is nothing that concerns me more than the fate of music.

When somebody dies we usually need reasons for consolation, not so much to alleviate our pain as to excuse ourselves for so readily feeling consoled.

The great poet draws his creations only from out of his own reality.

The way to transmute your iron duty into gold in everyone's eyes is this: always deliver more than you promise.

Shall we mourn here deedless forever a shadow-folk mist-haunting dropping vain tears in the thankless sea

We have art in order not to die of the truth.

We can speak very much to the purpose and yet in such a way that the whole world cries out in contradiction: namely, when we are not speaking to the whole world.

The living is a species of the dead; and not a very attractive one.

One hears - one does not seek; one takes - one does not ask who gives.

Far, far below the deepest delvings of the dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things.

One man runs to his neighbor because he is looking for himself, and another because he wants to loose himself. Your bad love of yourselves makes solitude a prison for you.

In constructing concepts, we overlook the fact that no two things are the same. There is no such thing as the concept of a leaf, only billions and billions of leaves.

Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway.

Prejudice of the learned. - The learned judge correctly that people of all ages have believed they know what is good and evil, praise- and blameworthy. But it is a prejudice of the learned that we now know better than any other age.

Clever people are never credited with their follies: what a deprivation of human rights!

Great things demand that we either remain silent about them or speak in a great manner: in a great manner, that is-cynically and with innocence.

And she looked at him and saw the grave tenderness in his eyes, and yet knew, for she was bred among men of war, that here was one whom no Rider of the Mark could outmatch in battle.

I am opposed to socialism because it dreams ingenuously of good, truth, beauty, and equal rights.

Whoever regards human beings as a herd and flees them as swiftly as he can will no doubt be overtaken by them and impaled on theirhorns.

The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth, never a question of adequate expression; otherwise, there would not be so many languages. The 'thing in itself' (which is precisely what the pure truth, apart from any of its consequences, would be) is likewise something quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for.

Become who you are. Make what only you can make.

The greatest events-they are not our loudest but our stillest hours.

A vocation is the backbone of life.

One never dives into the water to save a drowning man more eagerly than when there are others present who dare not take the risk.

Humility has the toughest hide.

Contentment preserves one from catching cold. Has a woman who knew that she was well dressed ever caught a cold? No, not even when she had scarcely a rag on her back.

Few there were who could change his courses by counsel. None by force.

It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass.

Whoever has really sacrificed anything, knows that he wanted and got something in return.

Morality is neither rational nor absolute nor natural. World has known many moral systems, each of which advances claims universality; all moral systems are therefore particular, serving a specific purpose for their propagators or creators, and enforcing a certain regime that disciplines human beings for social life by narrowing our perspectives and limiting our horizons.

They muddy the water, to make it seem deep.

But like infection is the petty thought: it creeps and hides, and wants to be nowhere--until the whole body is decayed and withered by the petty infection... Thus spoke Zarathustra.

Phlegmatic natures can be inspired to enthusiasm only by being made into fanatics.

Wars are not favourable to delicate pleasures.

This is the ending. Now not day only shall be beloved, but night too shall be beautiful and blessed and all its fear pass away.

The greatest adventure is what lies ahead.Today and tomorrow are yet to be said.The chances, the changes are all yours to make.The mold of your life is in your hands to break.

One who has a why can endure anyhow.

One should adpot only those situations in which one is in no need of sham virtues, but rather, like the tight-rope dancer on his tight rope, in which one must either fall or stand--or escape.

Do not talk about giftedness, inborn talents! One can assume great men of all kinds who were very little gifted. They acquired greatness, became “geniuses” (as we put it), through qualities the lack of which no one who knew what they were would boast of: they all possessed that seriousness of the efficient workman which first learns to construct the parts properly before it ventures to fashion a great whole; they allowed themselves time for it, because they took more pleasure in making the little, secondary things well than in the effect of a dazzling whole.

Shared joys make a friend, not shared sufferings.

Man is more sensitive to the contempt of others than to self-contempt.

You may have enemies whom you hate, but not enemies whom you despise. You must be proud of your enemy: then the success of your enemy shall be your success too.

They say it is the first step that costs the effort. I do not find it so. I am sure I could write unlimited 'first chapters'. I have indeed written many.

A book should long for pen, ink, and writing-table: but usually it is pen, ink, and writing-table that long for a book. That is why books are so negligible nowadays.

Error has made man so deep, sensitive, and inventive that he has put forth such blossoms as religions and arts. Pure knowledge could not have been capable of it.

We are so fond of being out among nature, because it has no opinions about us.

Far more often [than asking the question 'Is it true?'] they [children] have asked me: 'Was he good? Was he wicked?' That is, they were far more concerned to get the Right side and the Wrong side clear. For that is a question equally important in History and in Faerie.

So far there has been no philosopher in whose hands philosophy has not grown into an apology for knowledge; on this point, at least, every one is an optimist, that the greatest usefulness must be ascribed to knowledge. They are all tyrannized over by logic, and this is optimism in its essence.

We do not place especial value on the possession of a virtue until we notice its total absence in our opponent.

I love him who scattereth golden words in advance of his deeds, and always doeth more than he promiseth: for he seeketh his own down-going.

Pardon me, my friends, I have ventured to paint my happiness on the wall.

What does your conscience say? — 'You should become the person you are'.

Every day I count wasted in which there has been no dancing.

The man who does not wish to be one of the mass only needs to cease to be easy on himself.

Even the bravest only rarely have courage for what they really know.

He told them tales of bees and flowers, the ways of trees, and the strange creatures of the Forest, about the evil things and the good things, things friendly and things unfriendly, cruel things and kind things, and secrets hidden under brambles.

I am interested only in the relations of a people to the rearing of the individual man, and among the Greeks the conditions were unusually favourable for the development of the individual; not by any means owing to the goodness of the people, but because of the struggles of their evil instincts.With the help of favourable measures great individuals might be reared who would be both different from and higher than those who heretofore have owed their existence to mere chance. Here we may still be hopeful: in the rearing of exceptional men.