Philologist Quotes

“That roguish and cheerful vice, politeness.”

“A beautiful woman seductively dressed will never catch cold no matter how low-cut her gown.”

“The growth of wisdom may be gauged exactly by the diminution of ill-temper.”

“Wherever Germany extends her sway, she ruins culture.”

“A real fox calls sour not only those grapes that he cannot reach but also those that he has reached and taken away from others.”

“The Greeks, with their truly healthy culture, have once and for all justified philosophy simply by having engaged in it, and having engaged in it more fully than any other people.”

“Democracy represents the disbelief in all great men and in all elite societies: everybody is everybody's equal.”

“The best way to give assistance to those who are deeply embarrassed and to calm them down is to praise them decisively.”

“The lie is a condition of life.”

“I am almost equal to a shadow.”

“My solitude doesn’t depend on the presence or absence of people; on the contrary, I hate who steals my solitude without, in exchange, offering me true company.”

“Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth... Through words and concepts we shall never reach beyond the wall off relations, to some sort of fabulous primal ground of things.”

“You want to make him interested in you? Then pretend to be embarrassed in his presence-”

“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.”

“Under peaceful conditions a warlike man sets upon himself.”

“The charm of the Platonic mode of thought ... consisted precisely in the resistance to the obvious evidence of the senses.”

“All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.”

“Chastity is a virtue with some, but with many it is almost a vice.”

“He who laughs best today, will also laughs last.”

“Socialism is the phantastic younger brother of despotism, which it wants to inherit. Socialism wants to have the fullness of state force which before only existed in despotism. ... However, it goes further than anything in the past because it aims at the formal destruction of the individual ... who ... can be used to improve communities by an expedient organ of government.”

“Laughter means: taking a mischievous delight in someone else's uneasiness, but with a good conscience.”

“You tell me: 'Life is hard to bear.' But if it were otherwise why should ou have your pride in the morning nad your resignation in the evening?”

“In art the end does not sanctify the means: but sacred means employed here can sanctify the end.”

“One may sometimes tell a lie, but the grimace that accompanies it tells the truth.”

“As far as Germany extends it ruins culture.”