Unidentified episode
The Ascent of Man (1973)
“I prefer thought to action, an idea to a transaction, contemplation to activity.”
Je préfère la pensée à l'action, une idée à une affaire, la contemplation au mouvement.
Louis Lambert (1832), as translated by Clara Bell
Source: Man Against Mass Society (1952), p. 123
Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 10
Context: I fear, the inevitable conclusion we must all come to is, that in the world happiness is quite indefinable. We can no more grasp it than we can grasp the sun in the sky or the moon in the water. We can feel it interpenetrating our whole being with warmth and strength; we can see it in a pale reflection shining elsewhere; or in its total absence, we, walking in darkness, learn to appreciate what it is by what it is not.
Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Chapter II Planning a Model World
Der Handelnde ist immer gewissenlos; es hat niemand Gewissen als der Betrachtende.
Maxim 241, trans. Stopp
Variant translation: The man of action is always unprincipled; none but the contemplative has a conscience
Maxims and Reflections (1833)
“The only true method of action in this world is to be in it, but not of it.”
Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 622.
Maciunas (1963), Fluxus Manifesto, copies of which were thrown into the audience at the Festum Fluxorum Fluxus, Düsseldorf, February 1963.
Source: Knowledge and Human Interests, 1971, p. 310 as cited in: Dominick LaCapra (1983) Rethinking Intellectual History: Texts, Contexts, Language. p. 170
As quoted in Asadollah Alam (1991), The Shah and I: The Confidential Diary of Iran's Royal Court, 1968-77, page 254
Attributed
