Out of Revolution Quotes

“To a mankind that recognizes the equality of man everywhere, every war becomes a civil war.”
― Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, Out of Revolution: Autobiography of Western Man

“Humanity has always conquered the flux of natural time by means of a rhythm between active and passive time-spans. To reconquer his holidays, to establish a new and better time schedule for life, has been the great endeavour of man ever since the days of Noah.”
― Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, Out of Revolution: Autobiography of Western Man

“For such is the noble nature of man, that his heart will never wholly lose itself in one single passion or idol, or, as people call it apologetically, one idea. On it goes from one devotion to the next, not because it is ashamed of its first love, but because it must be on fire perpetually. To fall for Reason, as our grandfathers did, is but one Fall of Man among his many passionate attempts to find the apples of knowledge and eternal life, both in one.
When a nation, or individual, declines the experiences that present themselves to passionate hearts only, they are automatically turned out from the realm of history. The heart of man either falls in love with somebody or something, or it falls ill. It can never go unoccupied. And the great question for mankind Is what is to be loved or hated next, whenever an old love or fear has lost its hold.”
― Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, Out of Revolution: Autobiography of Western Man

“We are so dull that we rarely realize how much history lies hidden in marriage, and how the one word spoken by the bride makes all the difference between cattle-raising and a nation's good breeding.”
― Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, Out of Revolution: Autobiography of Western Man

“He who suffers wins in politics. The martyr does not obtain the victory personally, but his group, his successors, win in the long run.”
― Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, Out of Revolution: Autobiography of Western Man

“And the great question for mankind is what is to be loved or hated next, whenever and old love or fear has lost its hold.”
― Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, Out of Revolution: Autobiography of Western Man

“On the Russian revolutionaries:

To leave your parents, faithful and loyal subjects of the Emperor, to leave your profession, to desist from having children, to lose your fortune, and to give up your civil honor, all for revolutionary conviction, makes for a league of more practical proof than any religious order.”
― Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, Out of Revolution: Autobiography of Western Man

“To change with honor seems terribly difficult. Most people are like weathercocks, turning with every change of wind. They rush from one creed to the next as if change of faith were nothing, and in the end become nothing themselves.
In a Time of revolution, our own volition contributes very little to our change. Volition and intention can do very little in a world which makes a principle of changing everyday. Perhaps The real danger in such period comes from our own inertia, which makes us accept all these change stoically but without conviction or personal decision. We cannot really change without a period of waiting and relearning. To change with honor seems to be the paradoxical effort that is asked of us today. It means keeping away from both extrêmes, that of rigid honor which kills the force of progress,and that of a mechanical change which leaves the potentialities of the soul untouched.”
― Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, Out of Revolution: Autobiography of a Western Man

“« Reason, l’esprit, the intellect of the writing and reasoning nation, is constantly fighting against the darkness of « illiteracy ». You must know how to read and write to be a real member of a civilized nation.(…) In clearing up the underbrush of the privilege and prejudice, liberalism or rationalism was convinced that it held in its hand the naked truth, undisguised, unstained by dogma or tradition. Reason discovering nature can test everything by experiment. There is no room for traditional habits: Fashion takes the place of habit. But it is precisly Fashion which enslave Reason. The Philosophizing mind had its prison of sensuality and drudgery exactly like a pupil of the Jesuits or a child in a backwoods village. Its fairy-tale and its prejudice are not dependent upon miracles or dogmas or incenses or witchcraft, but the apparatus of Reason is subject to the same laws of sensuous disguise as any other part of the human soul. Superstition sends us to the medicine man, physical pain to the physician. We have a native sense that urges us on toward Reason and Philosophy: this sense is curiosity. Without a sense for novelty, no thinker can succeed or affect the life of the community. The self-indulgence of Reason is its predilection for the new. »”
― Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, Out of Revolution: Autobiography of Western Man