“… the ‘pathos of distance’ which separates two types of life that have always already been in existence: the one flourishing and superabundant, projecting its own excess into things and embellishing them; the other degenerate, able only to impoverish the world by reducing it to the narrow and ugly measure of the concept, in order to spite itself and out of ressentiment toward life.”

— Sarah Kofman

Source: Nietzsche et la métaphore (1972), p. 20

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Sarah Kofman 6

philosopher from France 1934–1994

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“Things are never beautiful by themselves but appear so to anyone who projects on to them his superabundance of life. But just as unconscious activity is unaware of itself as such, so man ‘forgets himself’ as the cause of these ‘beauties’ and imagines that the world itself is laden with them.”

Sarah Kofman (1934–1994) philosopher from France

Source: Nietzsche et la métaphore (1972), p. 29

“Type 1 Error: When we settle into wilderness, we are in conflict with so many life forms that we have to destroy them to exist. Keep out of the bush. It is already in good order.”

Bill Mollison (1928–2016) Australian permaculturist

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“The Divine Existence (Daseyn),—his Existence, I say, which, according to the distinction already laid down, is his (Manifestation and Revelation of himself—is absolute- only through itself, and of necessity, LIGHT:—namely, y the inward and spiritual Light. This Light, left to itself, separates and divides itself into an infinite multiplicity of individual rays; and in this way, in these individual rays, becomes estranged from itself and its | original source. But this same Light may also again concentrate itself from out this separation, and conceive and comprehend itself as One, as that which it is in itself,-the Existence and Revelation of God; remaining indeed, even in this conception, that which it is in its form,-Light; but yet in this condition, and even by means of this very condition, announcing it-to self as having no real Being in itself, but as only the, Existence and Self-Manifestation of God.”

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“There is usually no ressentiment just where a superficial view would look for it first: in the criminal. The criminal is essentially an active type. Instead of repressing hatred, revenge, envy, and greed, he releases them in crime. Ressentiment is a basic impulse only in the crimes of spite. These are crimes which require only a minimum of action and risk and from which the criminal draws no advantage, since they are inspired by nothing but the desire to do harm. The arsonist is the purest type in point, provided that he is not motivated by the pathological urge of watching fire (a rare case) or by the wish to collect insurance. Criminals of this type strangely resemble each other. Usually they are quiet, taciturn, shy, quite settled and hostile to all alcoholic or other excesses. Their criminal act is nearly always a sudden outburst of impulses of revenge or envy which have been repressed for years. A typical cause would be the continual deflation of one's ego by the constant sight of the neighbor's rich and beautiful farm. Certain expressions of class ressentiment, which have lately been on the increase, also fall under this heading. I mention a crime committed near Berlin in 1912: in the darkness, the criminal stretched a wire between two trees across the road, so that the heads of passing automobilists would be shorn off. This is a typical case of ressentiment, for any car driver or passenger at all could be the victim, and there is no interested motive. Also in cases of slander and defamation of character, ressentiment often plays a major role...”

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Michel Henry, Incarnation. Une philosophie de la chair, éd. du Seuil, 2000, p. 373
Books on Religion and Christianity, Incarnation: A philosophy of Flesh (2000)
Original: (fr) Notre chair porte en elle le principe de sa manifestation, et cette manifestation n’est pas l’apparaître du monde. En son auto-impressionnalité pathétique, en sa chair même, donnée à soi en l’Archi-passibilité de la Vie absolue, elle révèle celle-ci qui la révèle à soi, elle est en son pathos l’Archi-révélation de la Vie, la Parousie de l’absolu. Au fond de sa Nuit, notre chair est Dieu.

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