Aphorisms Quotes

“The common man wants nothing of life but health, longevity, amusement, comfort -- "happiness." He who does not despise this should turn his eyes from world history, for it contains nothing of the sort. The best that history has created is great suffering.”
― Oswald Spengler, Aphorisms

“The question of whether world peace will ever be possible can only be answered by someone familiar with world history. To be familiar with world history means, however, to know human beings as they have been and always will be. There is a vast difference, which most people will never comprehend, between viewing future history as it will be and viewing it as one might like it to be. Peace is a desire, war is a fact; and history has never paid heed to human desires and ideals ...”
― Oswald Spengler, Aphorisms

“Talk of world peace is heard today only among the white peoples, and not among the much more numerous coloured races. This is a perilous state of affairs. When individual thinkers and idealists talk of peace, as they have done since time immemorial, the effect is negligible. But when whole peoples become pacifistic it is a symptom of senility. Strong and unspent races are not pacifistic. To adopt such a position is to abandon the future, for the pacifist ideal is a terminal condition that is contrary to the basic facts of existence. As long as man continues to evolve, there will be wars...”
― Oswald Spengler, Aphorisms

“Man makes history; woman is history. The reproduction of the species is feminine: it runs steadily and quietly through all species, animal or human, through all short-lived cultures. It is primary, unchanging, everlasting, maternal, plantlike, and cultureless. If we look back we find that it is synonymous with life itself.”
― Oswald Spengler, Aphorisms

“Suddenly all those individuals who yesterday felt that "we" meant only their families, their professions, or perhaps their communities, become men of the nation. Their emotions and thoughts, their egos, that "something" within them, all are transformed: they have become historical.”
― Oswald Spengler, Aphorisms

“You are caught in the current of unceasing change. Your life is a ripple in it. Every moment of your conscious life links the infinite past with the infinite future. Take part in both and you will not find the present empty.”
― Oswald Spengler, Aphorisms

“All great discoveries and undertakings spring from the joy strong men feel in victory. They are products of individuality, not utilitarian thought.”
― Oswald Spengler, Aphorisms

“Everyone has a soul. But the great man—the truly significant soul—is rare.”
― Oswald Spengler, Aphorisms

“Cowardice causes blindness.”
― Oswald Spengler, Aphorisms

“When it comes to essential things, no one is tolerant.”
― Oswald Spengler, Aphorisms