More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
‘Formulate it, dare to express the whole of your thought, clearly, precisely, without hesitation! Oh, how dishonourable I am!’
how could such noble, fine emotion be combined with such open and malicious mockery?
‘But is the instinct for self-preservation such a small thing? After all, the instinct for self-preservation is the normal law of mankind…’
“Mankind is becoming too noisy and industrious, there’s not enough spiritual calm,” complains
What matters is life, nothing but life – its revelation, constant and eternal, while the discovery matters not at all!
But, on the other hand, I would add that in every human idea that possesses genius or is new, or even simply in every serious human idea that is conceived in someone’s head, there always remains something that cannot be conveyed to other people, even though whole volumes were written and your idea explained for thirty-five years; there will always remain something that is on no account willing to come out of your skull and will remain with you for ever; so that you will die without perhaps ever having conveyed to anyone the most important part of your idea. But if I have also been unable to
...more
Individual kindness will always remain, because it is a need of the personality, a living need for the direct influence of one personality on another.
Why also, waking from your dream and completely entering reality, do you feel almost every time, and sometimes with an impression that is extraordinarily strong, that together with the dream you are leaving something that, for you, is unresolved?
In our opinion, a writer ought to try to find interesting and instructive nuances even among the ordinary.
Let us not forget that the causes of human actions are usually infinitely more complex and more various than we are in the habit of explaining them afterwards, and are seldom clearly outlined.
In order to achieve perfection, we must first of all fail to understand a great many things! And if we understand too quickly, we may not understand very well.
how can one relate things in respect of which one has neither a clear conception nor a personal opinion?
