Afrikan Spir cytaty (98 cytatów, strona 3)

“Moral improvement (or perfecting) require an evolution leading to a higher consciousness, which is the true torch of life; it is what we have failed too much to appreciate, and that which would be fatal to fail to appreciate any longer ("pluslongtemps", Fr.); For if we do not take it upon ourselves to remedy in time to the moral colapse (or bankruptcy) that already threaten, the whole civilisation will risks to disappear.”

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African Spir

Źródło: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 60.

“A savage (or primitive) man, questioned (or asked) on what is good and what is wrong, answered: 'Right is when I defeat (or beat or hit) and deprive (or strip) others; wrong is when I am beated and deprived by them.' This is ("c'est là," Fr.) the voice of the natural man, who does not understand that good is always good, and wrong is always wrong, whether it happens to ourselves or it happens to others.*”

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African Spir

Źródło: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 43.

“It depends on ourselves to be to each others, either a blessing or a torment.”

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African Spir

Źródło: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 37.

“It is erroneous to consider the multiplication (or increase) of needs as a sign of progress, to think that it is necessary to arouse in the people still unpolished (or rough), new needs to bring them to a more civilised life. Similarly ("de même", Fr.) it is erroneous to expect (or want, or wish, - "vouloir," Fr.) to measure (or assess) the degree of culture of a man to the degree of refinement he make (or deploy, or unfold) in his methods ("modes", Fr.) of pleasure”

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African Spir

"jouissance", Fr.
Źródło: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 48 - Gandhi wrote something that is almost word for word the same, in All men are brothers.

“To spend for destruction ten times more than for instruction, such is the fashion in our time; and men seriously regard themsleves as rational beings!”

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African Spir

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

“If the present civilisation does not acquire some stable moral fondations ("bases morales stables", Fr.), its existence will hardly be more assured than that of the civilisations that have preceeded it, and which have fallen”

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African Spir

or collapse, or failed
Źródło: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 41.

“The well understood equity as well as interest of society demand that we work on much more to prevent crime and offenses than to punish them.”

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African Spir

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

“Men who have sacrifice their well-being, and even their lives, for the cause of truth or the public good, are, from an empirical point of view - which scorn ("fait fi", Fr.) virtue and altruism - regarded as insane or fools; but, from a moral standpoint, they are heros who do honour ("qui honorent", Fr.) humanity.”

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African Spir

Źródło: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 38.

“As long as men will not be freed from their errors and delusions, humanity will not be able to go towards ("marcher vers", Fr.) the accomplishment of its true destinies.”

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African Spir

Źródło: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 60.

“The first principle from which stems the moral of about all people at all time; it is summarized in this precept: Love thy neighbour as thyself, and: do as you would be done by.”

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African Spir

Źródło: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 38 ["… moral consciousness is an innate and intimate revelation of the absolute, which exceed every empirical data..." - see above].

“Injustice having always hold sway (- be predominant, - régné", Fr.) on earth, there are some who ("d'aucuns", Fr.) imagine (or pretend) that the existing social order may ("pourra", Fr.) subsist (or remain) for ever. Whether this order could last until now, this was mainly due to the conviction of people, that it was of divine institution. But this belief is vanishing (or disapearing, or fainting), and with it the only moral support of the actual order will collapse, leaving (or letting) only brutal forces opposed to each others clashing, with no peaceful way out (or solution) ("et avec elle s'effondrera le seul soutient moral de l'ordre présent, ne laissant aux prises que des forces brutales opposés les unes aux autres, sans issue pacifique.", Fr.)”

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African Spir

Źródło: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 45.

“Possessions of this world have not been for the exclusive use by such or such category of individuals.”

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African Spir

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

“At this point, here is a parenthesis about the life of the author, which joined the deed to the word: Hélène included to the book on her father, a very short Appendix, "Le devoir d'abolir la guerre", which was taken from the second volume of the Germen works or Spir, and had previously been reproduced, I quote, "in the Jounal de Genève, 15 November 1920, at the time of the maiden Assembly of the United Nations, which Spir has, lately (not long ago, "naguère", Fr.) so much called for (or invite to think about) of all his wishes." ("tant appelée de ses voeux", Fr). The following is a footnote added to this text, that Spir published in the first edition of Recht und Unrecht, in 1879, as an Appendix, under the title of "Considération sur la guerre" - and which was published again in 1931, in Propos sur la guerre. : "To declare (or say) that the establishment of international institutions intended (or used) to settle (or solve) conflicts among people without having recourse to war, this is purely gratuitious affirmation. What sense (or meaning) can it be to declare impossible, something that has been neither wished (or wanted, "voulue", Fr.) seriously, nor tried to put into practice? In truth, there are not any impossibility here, no more of a material order than of a metaphysical order. ("En vérité, il n'y a ici aucun impossibilité, pas plus d'ordre matériel que d'ordre métaphysique", Fr). Supposing that all responsible potentates, ministers and leaders were to be warned (or were given formal notice? - "soient mis en demeure de", Fr.) to agree concerning the establishment (or creation) of international organizations with peaceful workings ("à rouages pacifiques", Fr.), they would not be very long to come to an agreement on the ways and means ("voies et moyens", Fr.) to come to settle the problem. And, indeed, how insoluble could be a problem, that requires nothing else than some good will here and there? It is not a question here of fighting against a terrestrial power, hostile to human beings and independent of their will; it is only for men a matter of overcoming their own passions, et their harmful prejudices. ("En cela", Fr.) In this, would it be more difficult than to kill one's fellow men by the hundred of thousands, de destroy entire (or whole) countries et inflict (or impose) crushing expanses to one own people?"”

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African Spir

Źródło: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), pp. 64-65 - end of parenthesis.

“The realization of justice is, in the actual state of things, a matter of life or death for society and for civilisation itself.”

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African Spir

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

“Whether we had a (good) moral intuition more developed, we would be as much morally disgusted by the rapacity of those who try to benefit from, and monopolize (or secure or corner), having no consideration (regardless or irrespective of) for others ("autrui", Fr.), than we physically are by a sickening (or nauseating) smell.”

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African Spir

Źródło: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 43.

“It is to our lack of proper content ("notre manque de contenu propre », Fr.), of our inner emptiness that we need occupations and distractions, otherwise ("faute de quoi", Fr.) we experience boredom, which is nothing elses than the feeling of unease that take hold of us when our spirit is not absorbed by the mirages of life.”

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African Spir

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

“It must be all the same to the citizens ("ressortissants", Fr.) of a country that their governing (those in power) speak such language or such other ("telle langue ou telle autre", Fr.); likewise that it must be all the same to them that these adhere to such or such religion, so long as a full (or complete) liberty is equally garantee for everyone.”

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African Spir

Źródło: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 54.

“The more a man is successful in getting out (or coming out) from his own individuality, of his egoist self, and to control (or dominate) the instincts of his physical nature, the more his character, by rising above material contingencies, widen, become free and independent.”

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African Spir

Źródło: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 60.

“It goes without saying that only inner greatness possess a true value ("une valeur véritable,", Fr.). Any attempt to rise up (or at rising up, - "s'élever", Fr.) outwardly above others, or to want (or wish) to impose one's superiority, denote a lack of moral greatness, since we do not try to replace ("suppléer", Fr.) in that way (…. in French "par là", Fr.) to what, if we did really possess it, would have no need whatsoever to flaunt itself.”

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African Spir

Źródło: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 51.

“The concept of absolute, hence (or whence) springs, in the moral field, the moral laws or norms, represent, in the field of knowledge, the principle of identity, which is the fundamental law of the thought; norms of logic springs from it, that govern the thought (or mind) in the field of science.”

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African Spir

"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."
Źródło: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 59 [Hélène Claparède-Spir had underlined - the translator]