“Socrates woke to the ideal of dispassionate intelligence, Jesus to the ideal of passionate yet self-oblivious worship. Socrates urged intellectual integrity, Jesus integrity of will. Each, of course, though starting with a different emphasis, involved the other.
Unfortunately both these ideals demanded of the human brain a degree of vitality and coherence of which the nervous system of the First Men was never really capable.”

— Olaf Stapledon, book Last and First Men

Source: Last and First Men (1930), Chapter I: Balkan Europe; Section 1, “The European War and After” (p. 17)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Olaf Stapledon113

British novelist and philosopher 1886–1950

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