“A man must be a little mad if he does not want to be even more stupid.”
Book III, Ch. 9
Essais (1595), Book III
“The Little Man does not want to hear the truth about himself. He does not want the great responsibility which is his. He wants to remain a Little Man.”
—
Wilhelm Reich
,
book
Listen, Little Man!
Listen, Little Man! (1948)
Context: My intellect tells me: "Tell the truth at any cost." The Little Man in me says: "It is stupid to expose oneself to the little man, to put oneself at his mercy. The Little Man does not want to hear the truth about himself. He does not want the great responsibility which is his. He wants to remain a Little Man. He wants to remain a Little Man, or wants to become a little great man. He wants to become rich, or a party leader, or commander of a legion, or secretary of the society for the abolition of vice. But he does not want to assume responsibility for his work..."
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Wilhelm Reich 89
Austrian-American psychoanalyst 1897–1957Related quotes
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Martin Luther
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Thesis 17
Disputation against Scholastic Theology (1517)
Listen, Little Man! (1948)
Context: The Little Man does not know that he is little, and he is afraid of knowing it. He covers up his smallness and narrowness with illusions of strength and greatness, of others' strength and greatness. He is proud of his great generals but not proud of himself. He admires thought which he did not have and not the thought he did have. He believes in things all the more thoroughly the less he comprehends them, and does not believe in the correctness of those ideas which he comprehends most easily.
“the average man does not want to be free. he simply wants to be safe.”
H.L. Mencken
(1880–1956) American journalist and writer
Conclusion
The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947)
Context: A conquest of this kind is never finished; the contingency remains, and, so that he may assert his will, man is even obliged to stir up in the world the outrage he does not want. But this element of failure is a very condition of his life; one can never dream of eliminating it without immediately dreaming of death. This does not mean that one should consent to failure, but rather one must consent to struggle against it without respite.
Max Ernst
(1891–1976) German painter, sculptor and graphic artist
Quote from 'Max Ernst', exhibition catalogue, Galerie Stangl, Munich, 1967, U.S., pp.6-7, as cited in Edward Quinn, Max Ernst. 1984, Poligrafa, Barcelona. p. 12
1951 - 1976
Source: Farnham's Freehold (1964), Chapter 7 (p. 115)
