“Socialism is the fantastic younger brother of almost decrepit despotism, which it wants to succeed; its efforts are, therefore, in the deepest sense reactionary. For it desires such an amount of state power as only despotism has possessed— indeed, it outdoes all the past, in that it aims at the complete annihilation of the individual, whom it deems an unauthorised luxury of nature, which is to be improved by it into an appropriate organ of the general community.”
― Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits
― Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits
“Unconsciously we seek the principles and opinions which are suited to our temperament, so that at last it seems as if these principles and opinions had formed our character and given it support and stability, whereas exactly the contrary has taken place.”
― Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits
― Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits
“If a blind man can gradually be helped to see it is not to be expected that he will at once discern new truths with an eagle eye. One must be glad if he sees anything at all, and if he begins to understand what he sees.”
― Psychology and Alchemy
― Psychology and Alchemy
“The projection of one's feeling toward oneself upon a cosmic scale may seem to hinge on a metaphysical premise, but it can be defended empirically. That I am here, now, doing this - that depends on an awe-inspiring series of antecedent events, on millions of seemingly accidental moves and decisions, both by myself and many others whose moves and decisions in turn depended on yet other people. And our very existence, our being as we are, required that our parents had to choose each other, not anyone else, and beget us at the precise moment when we were actually begotten; and the same consideration applies to their parents, and to all our ancestors, going back indefinitely. Thus any affirmation of the present moment points far beyond the present - and it is a significant psychological corollary, on which Nietzsche frequently insists, that those who are dissatisfied with themselves usually project their dissatisfaction upon the world.”
― Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist
― Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist
“If your moral matrix rests entirely on the Care and Fairness foundations, then it's hard to hear the sacred overtones in America's unofficial motto: E pluribus unum (from many, one). By "sacred", I mean... the ability to endow ideas, objects, and events, with infinite value, particularly those ideas, objects, and events that bind a group together into a single entity. The process of converting pluribus (diverse people) into unum (a nation) is a miracle that occurs in every successful nation on Earth. Nations decline or divide when they stop performing this miracle.”
― The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
― The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
Reginald’s 2025 Year in Books
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