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African Spir citations

Afrikan Aleksandrovich Špir est un philosophe russe néokantien d'origine allemande. Son livre de 1877 Pensée et réalité exerça une profonde influence sur Friedrich Nietzsche et Tolstoï lui vouait une grande admiration. Wikipedia  

✵ 15. novembre 1837 – 26. mars 1890
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African Spir: 99   citations 0   J'aime

African Spir Citations

“Le concept de l'absolu, d'où découlent, dans le domaine moral, les lois ou normes morales, constitue, le principe d'identité, qui est la loi fondamentale de la pensée; il en découle les normes logiques qui régissent la pensée dans le domaine de la science.”

African Spir

Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937)

science , loi , pensée

African Spir: Citations en anglais

“The virtue preached by devout persons is the virtue of the slave who always believe themselves under the eye of the master. However, Jésus said: 'Serve God not as slaves, but as sons in the house”

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African Spir

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 39, with a quote from Galatians, IV, 6-8.

“Deep down, everything boils down ("au fond tout se ramène", Fr.) to the following simple question; Do we really want justice and the realization in this world of higher principles, or else do we want to serve selfish, short-sighted (à courte vue", Fr.) interests, which, when all is said and done, are also prejudicial (or detrimental, or harmful) to those very same that pursue them?”

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African Spir

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 55.

“What determinate events is, beside national, dynastic and particular egoism, the instinct of domination and conquest, in one word, forceBold text. Judging by the history of humanity, harms that men have had to suffer, harms ("les maux", Fr.) that men have to suffer by their nature are minute in comparison ("en regard", Fr.) to these they inflict to each others. The most fantastic imagination might not ("ne saurait", Fr.) fabricate ("forger", Fr) some cruelties, injustices and perfidies (or perfidiousnesses) that men have not exceeded in practice.”

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African Spir

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 55.

“The precept to worship God 'in spirit and in truth' recommand to worship him as an inward and moral force, without physical attributes and with no relation to fears and egoist wishes.”

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African Spir

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 40 The quotation is from the Gospel of John, VII, 24.

“The fact that men have a same origin and live in the same universe means that they are representatives of a same unity. Deep down, they are also related (or connected) among them; that they consider (or not) themselves as strangers, this just depends on the feeling (or sensation) that dictate their relationships. In their country, two fellow coutrymen whose paths berely cross (or see each only only briefly) with inferrence, would effusively rush themselves up (or throw themselves) into each other arms if they would happen to meet in a desert, among Cannibles.”

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African Spir

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 42.

“Nothing is more stimulating and more salutary to (or for) the inner (or inward) development than the exemple of men devoted to the good. It is in the company of men pursuing a same ideal that the still weavering (or unsteady) soul can set oneself ("se fixer", Fr) and stick to (or attach to) everything that is noble and generous.”

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African Spir

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 58.

“The appalling and shameful scene ("spectacle", Fr.) of disarray and illogicality that manifest itself in the thought and deeds of men, will no longer be seen, once these will possess an enlighten consciouness.”

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African Spir

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 61.

“For those who do not need to work to provide for their maintenance, it is a question of conferring to their lives a content worthy of themselves. Now, this purpose can be attained only if we do not act solely with a view to our own benefits, but with a view to the benefit of all. Christ said: 'Where is your treasure, there also will be your heart.”

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African Spir

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 56.

“If we accomplish a good deed, a charity in the hope of (getting…) future rewards, or with a more or less confessed (or admitted) ulterior motive to profit from personal advantages ("d'en retirer quelque avantage personnel", Fr.), we are probably doing a useful thing, but which is devoided of any ("tout", Fr.) truly moral character (or disposition)"”

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African Spir

p .39.
Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937)

“In life we only try to produce, to win, and enjoy the more we can; in science, to discoverand invent the more we can; in religion, to dominate (or rule over) on the greatest number of people we can; whereas the forming of the character, the further development (or in-dept analysis, "appronfondissement", Fr.) of the faculties of the intelligence ("les facultés de l'intelligence", Fr.), the refinement of the consciousness and of the heart, are considered incidental (or subordinate) things.”

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African Spir

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 52 -

“It is not on the ruin of liberty that we may (in the future… - "pourra", Fr.) build justice.”

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African Spir

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 46.

“So many really divine individuals humanity has not already produced! Heros in the moral sense, who never got tired to practice renouncement and charity; bright intelligences who opened to the mind new ways and horizons; poets and wonderful artists, who created for him the image of an ideal world, the reflect of perfection. These are as many proofs of the presence of the absolu in the midst of humanity, for him that does not discover the immediate proof of that in himself.”

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African Spir

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 44.

“We can, following the exemple of Kant, consider the moral development and improvement of men, as the supreme goal of human evolution.”

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African Spir

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 61.

“There is only one thing in the world that is really valuable, it is to do good.”

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African Spir

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 56.

“Arbitrariness and true liberty are as distinct from each other that the empirical nature is distinct from the higher nature of man.”

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African Spir

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 50.

“In this world everything that is won to the ideal, is an eternal (or imperishable, - "impérissable", Fr.) good.”

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African Spir

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 53.

“To succeed in brilliant businesses, to achieve great success, that is what the ambition and efforts of the majority of men aim at (or direct at or have their eyes on, "c'est ce à quoi visent l'ambition et les efforts de la majorité des hommes" Fr.) but after all (or at the end of the day), what do they get for it ("Qu'est-ce qu'ils en retirent", Fr.) Softer cushions, better meat (Here there seems to be a mistake in the book of Hélène Claparède-Spir, for it is written "une meilleure chère", what one may translate by 'a better dear'… whether its homonymous, chair, is 'meat'), more outward thoughtfuls ("prévenance extérieures", Fr.), maybe decorations (or medals)… that is all. And to think that there are found serious men who consume (or waste, "consument", Fr.) their whole existence in the pursuit and the expectation of these trivialities.”

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African Spir

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 49.

“The social organization of work is the most complicated and difficult problem that humanity has ever had to solve. It being possible to realize that organization (a difficult translation or me: "Cette organisation ne pouvant être réalisée par", Fr.) neither by violence, nor by merely external (or outward) or legal measures, it require the free participation of all (or everybody) to the joint (or common, or in commun) work, and, consequently, to a regeneration (or reconditioning) of men that bring them to overcome their selfishness et understand their duty towards themselves et towards the community.”

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African Spir

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 47.

“There are (or is) indeed no contradiction between science and religion, the fields of which are different, and which, far from mutually fighting and persecute, must, on the contrary, complete each other.”

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African Spir

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 39.

“As long as men, in their aberration ("aberration", Fr.), will go out of their way ("s'ingénieront", Fr.) in every manners ("de toutes manières", Fr.) to harm and torment each others, it is an urgent duty, for those who are conscious of the absurdity of such a state of affairs, to strive to put them in the picture about (or throw light on) their wildness”

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African Spir

"égarements", Fr.
Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 38.

“When a man make of his personnal interests the mainspring of his life and he is greedy to make use of everything that can benefit him, he naturally enters into conflict with other persons, acting also in their interests, hence the disagreements that can become a hundred years old, and drive whole generations to a mutual hate.”

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African Spir

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 42.

“If man do not find in himself the required (or wished, or wanted, - "voulue", Fr.) force to accomplish his moral aspirations, he can try to purt himself in the conditions suitable to assist (or promote, or further, -"favoriser", Fr.) his self-control.”

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African Spir

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 50 [Spir rejected ascetism: for it is "opposed to sound reason to unnaturally impose onself extreme hardships"- Esquisse biographique, p. 32.

“In ancient times, any man rising up above the common people tried to shape his life according to his principles; it is no longer like than now; it is (because) for the ancients, moral was a principle of inner life, whereas in our days, most of the time one is content to adhere to an official moral, that we recognize in theory, but that one does not care to put into practice.”

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African Spir

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 39.

“The doctrine expounded by me is the true one, but I am not its author. I have only been, so to speak, the soil in which it has germinated and has developed itself with an extreme slowness in the course of long years. Also there has never been such a disproportion between the man and his work than in my case, and what is the saddest (or the saddest in this, - "et ce qui est le plus triste", Fr.), is that one has to suffer because of ("pâtir de", Fr.) the incapacity and the weakness of the other. A man more capable than me, possessing this doctrine, would already have stirred (or moved, - remuer", Fr.) the world.”

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African Spir

Esquisse biographique, p. 18.
Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937)

“It is from the education of the new generations that we will especially be able to expect a real moral progress. It is important first of all to develop in it (or 'him', the next generations…) self-control, love of truth and solidarity spirit.”

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African Spir

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 58.

“The peculiar (or own) value that such and such activity can have for a man rather really depends ("dépend bien plutôt", Fr.) on the spirit in which it was deployed (or displayed, - "déployée", Fr.) than its importance or its scope. Thus the most humble work (or task, - "besogne", Fr.) can be accomplished by a great genius, whereas the highest functions (or offices), such as to rule over a whole people, can be practised in a petty”

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African Spir

or mean or stingy) spirit of personal glorification, as it is frequently seen.", Fr.
Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 49.

“On the account (or for the reason that, or… from the fact that… "Du fait que", Fr.) that one person advocate and want something, it does not follow that others have to want it too; only the postulates of reason and certitude are identicals, invariables, and can always be of use to everyone as a fulcrum ("point d'appui", Fr.) with a view to a free agreement”

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African Spir

"entente libre", Fr
Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 42.

“Place (or put) a spider on top of a mountain, it will only try to catch flies; alas, they are many those who, in the figurative meaning, have spider's eyes.”

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African Spir

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 52.

“The basic notion of justice, is that the rights of everybody are equals, in principle. In the rights of others, we have to respect our own rights. It is only in that condition that we can reasonnably require that it be respected by others.”

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African Spir

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 44 - (Gandhi said the same thing in All men are brothers; Simone Weil too, at the beginning of L'enracinement (the translator).

“Experience shows that what great role pratice and experience play in education; pratice, the prolonged exercice lead to habit: exemple suggests imitation. Habit can become a second nature, but, wrongly directed (or guided), it may also heighten (or intensify) unfortunate tendencies and be an obstacle to progress.”

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African Spir

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 57.

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