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apophthegm
The clearest indication of character is what people find laughable.
It is the way of the world to accept a person as he presents himself; but he does have to present himself. We would rather tolerate a difficult person than suffer one who is insignificant.
Behaviour is a mirror in which everyone shows his image.
There is no greater consolation for mediocrity than the fact that genius is not immortal.
A school of thought is to be viewed as a single individual who talks to himself for a hundred years and is quite extraordinarily pleased with himself, however silly he may be.
In the sciences it is very worthwhile to seek out and then develop a partial truth already possessed by the Ancients.
I’m sorry for people who make a great to-do about the transitory nature of things and get lost in meditations on earthly nothingness. Surely we are here precisely so as to turn what passes into something that endures; but this is only possible if you can appreciate both.
Anyone who tells on my faults is my master, even if it happens to be my servant.
Ingratitude is always a kind of weakness. I have never known competent people to be ungrateful.
apposite
When people really deteriorate, their only contribution is malicious joy in the misfortune of others.
Man never understands how anthropomorphic he is.
I was intent on pursuing what is general until such time as I came to comprehend the achievement of outstanding people in what is particular.
Timon consulted someone about his children’s education. ‘Let them,’ this man said, ‘be taught matters they will never understand.’
Hatred is active displeasure, envy is passive; hence one need not be surprised that envy soon turns into hatred.
It’s really a person’s mistakes that make him endearing.
Bonus vir semper tiro. [A good man is always a beginner.]
‘Nothing in the human situation is as unstable or fleeting as power not born of its own strength.’
Error is related to truth as sleeping is to waking. I have observed that when one has been in error, one turns to truth as though revitalized.
There is nothing more dreadful than active ignorance.
A time will come when pathological experimental physics will be taught, and this will reveal in clear daylight all the sham argumentation which bypasses reason, surreptitiously wins conviction and, worst of all, completely prevents all practical progress. Phenomena must once and for all be removed from their gloomy empirical-mechanical-dogmatic torture chamber and submitted to the jury of plain common sense.
Tell me with whom you consort and I will tell you who you are; if I know how you spend your time, then I know what might become of you.
Idiosyncrasy calls forth idiosyncrasy.
One is really only alive when one enjoys the good will of others.
We mustn’t scorn thinking that proceeds by way of analogies: analogy has the advantage of not closing doors or in fact aiming at any ultimate solution; the kind of inductive thinking, on the other hand, which has a preconceived purpose in view and is working towards it is damaging in that it sweeps both falsehood and truth along with it.
The general and the particular coincide; the particular is the general made manifest under different conditions.
‘Nothing in the world except health and virtue is more to be treasured than knowledge and learning; nor is anything so easily attainable and so cheap to acquire: all you have to do is to be still, all you have to spend is time, something we cannot save in any other way than by spending it.’
Researching into nature we are pantheists, writing poetry we are polytheists, morally we are monotheists.
Tolerance should really only be a passing attitude: it should lead to appreciation. To tolerate is to offend.
Appreciation is the true form of liberality.
The whole of life consists of wanting and not-succeeding, succeeding and not-wanting.
A man who wants to take up some branch of learning will necessarily be deceived or he will deceive himself unless he is irresistibly determined by external demands. Who would be a medical doctor if he had a complete picture of all the trials that are in store for him?
As soon as tyranny comes to an end, it is immediately replaced by conflict between aristocracy and democracy.
1129. Technique in league with bad taste is the most fearsome enemy of art.
The temples of Antiquity concentrate God in man; medieval churches strive upward to God on high.
Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but not more interesting than contemplating.
inimical
The Ancients compare the hand with reason. Reason is the art of arts; the hand is the technical means of all craftsmanship.
Wrong notion: that a phenomenon can be dismissed and put aside by means of calculus or by words.
Young people are nature’s new aperçus.
