Essay on the Fates of Clergymen (1728)
“When does a state of culture prevail? When the men of a community are steadily working for the production of single great men. From this highest aim all the others follow. And what state is farthest removed from a state of culture? That in which men energetically and with united forces resist the appearance of great men, partly by preventing the cultivation of the soil required for the growth of genius, partly by obstinately opposing everything in the shape of genius that appears amongst them. Such a state is more remote from culture than that of sheer barbarism.”
Source: An Essay on Aristocratic Radicalism (1889), p. 12
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Georg Brandes 40
Danish literature critic and scholar 1842–1927Related quotes
“States are doomed when they are unable to distinguish good men from bad.”
§ 5
From Lives and Opinions of the Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius
An Old Man's Thoughts on Many Things, Of Education I
Source: 1910s, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays http://archive.org/stream/mysticism00russuoft/mysticism00russuoft_djvu.txt (1918), Ch. 2: The Place of Science in a Liberal Education
Mornings in Florence, part III, section 49 (1875).
“Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active.”
Denn gerade die starke Periodizität des Genies bringt es mit sich, daß bei ihm immer erst auf sterile Jahre die fruchtbaren und auf sehr produktive Zeiten immer wieder sehr unfruchtbare folgen—Zeiten, in denen er von sich nichts hält, ja von sich psychologisch (nicht logisch) weniger hält als von jedem anderen Menschen: quält ihn doch die Erinnerung an die Schaffensperiode, und vor allem—wie frei sieht er sie, die von solchen Erinnerungen nicht Belästigten, herumgehen! Wie seine Ekstasen gewaltiger sind als die der anderen, so sind auch seine Depressionen fürchterlicher.
Source: Sex and Character (1903), p. 107.
Source: Introduction, p. viii note: 1950s, Fleet Admiral King: A Naval Record (1952)