
Book 2.40
History of the Peloponnesian War
Source: Sky Coyote (1999), Chapter 19 (p. 126)
Book 2.40
History of the Peloponnesian War
Source: Aspects of the Novel (1927), Chapter Seven: Prophecy
Context: Most of us will be eclectics to this side or that according to our temperament. The human mind is not a dignified organ, and I do not see how we can exercise it sincerely except through eclecticism. And the only advice I would offer my fellow eclectics is: "Do not be proud of your inconsistency. It is a pity, it is a pity that we should be equipped like this. It is a pity that Man cannot be at the same time impressive and truthful."
Source: The Real Frank Zappa Book (1989), p. 144.
Source: The Magnificent Defeat
"The Reaction in Germany" (1842)
Often paraphrased as, "The urge to destroy is also a creative urge"
Context: We exhort the compromisers to open their hearts to truth, to free themselves of their wretched and blind circumspection, of their intellectual arrogance, and of the servile fear which dries up their souls and paralyzes their movements.
Let us therefore trust the eternal Spirit which destroys and annihilates only because it is the unfathomable and eternal source of all life. The passion for destruction is a creative passion, too!
“He would rather burst a city gate than find it open to admit him.”
Non tam portas intrare patentis
quam fregisse juvat.
Book II, line 443 (tr. J. D. Duff).
Pharsalia
“The US hates having to admit it was ever wrong.”
"A mighty fall from a moral high ground", 2014