“Over all civilizations there hovers the shadow of Ecclesiastes, with his admonition, "How dieth the wise man?”
as the fool" (ii 16)
The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), Conclusion : Don Quixote in the Contemporary European Tragi-Comedy
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Miguel de Unamuno 199
19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher 1864–1936Related quotes
Address to the National Education Association (30 June 1938)
1930s
Shadow and Act (New York: Random House, 1964), Introduction, p. xix; in The Collected Essays, ed. John F. Callahan (New York: Modern Library, 1995), p. 56.
“No Man is wise at all Times, or is without his blind Side.”
The Alchymyst, in Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14031/14031.txt
Section IX, "Man Alone with Himself" / aphorism 570
Human, All Too Human (1878), Helen Zimmern translation
“Man is a torch borne in the wind; a dream
But of a shadow, summ'd with all his substance.”
Act I, scene i.
Bussy D'Ambois (1607)
Source: What America Means to Me (1943), p. 8
Context: Race prejudice is not only a shadow over the colored — it is a shadow over all of us, and the shadow is darkest over those who feel it least and allow its evil effects to go on. It is not healthy when a nation lives inside a nation, as colored Americans are living inside America. A nation cannot live confident of its tomorrow if its refugees are among its own citizens. For it is never the one who suffers injustice who is the injured one, but the one who is unjust. Slavery bred a race of idle and shiftless white men, and race prejudice continues the evil work. White people who insist on their superority because of the color of the skin they were born with- can there be so empty and false a superiority as this? Who is injured the most by that foolish assumption, the colored or the white? In his soul it s the white man. It is the wise white people who ought now to be angry because of race prejudice, for as surely as night follows day our country will fail in its democracy because of race prejudice unless we root it out. We cannot grow in strength and leadership for democracy so long as we carry deep in our being this fatal fault.
Source: Shadows Linger (1984), Chapter 1, “Juniper” (p. 223; opening words)