“That is why man can also never understand himself: For he is himself a timeless act; an act which he performs continuously, and there is no moment in which he might not perform it, as there would have to be to understand himself.”

— Otto Weininger

Collected Aphorisms

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Otto Weininger 41

austrian philosopher and writer 1880–1903

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“No one can understand himself, for to do that he would have to get outside himself; the subject of the knowing and willing activity would have to become its own object.”

Otto Weininger book Sex and Character

Kein Mensch kann sich selbst je verstehen, denn dazu müßte er aus sich selbst herausgehen, dazu müßte das Subjekt des Erkennens und Wollens Objekt werden können: ganz wie, um das Universum zu verstehen, ein Standpunkt noch außerhalb des Universums erforderlich wäre.
Source: Sex and Character (1903), pp. 105-106.