1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)
“Think of love as a state of grace not as a means to anything… but an end in itself.”
Variant: It had to teach her to think of love as a state of grace: not the means to anything but the alpha and omega, an end it itself.
Source: Love in the Time of Cholera
“Reading is not an end to itself, but a means to an end.”
Source: Mein Kampf
“A real failure does not need an excuse. It is an end in itself.”
Four in America (1933)
“Democracy and socialism are means to an end, not the end itself.”
As quoted in World Marxist Review : Problems of Peace and Socialism (1958), p. 40
Context: Democracy and socialism are means to an end, not the end itself. We talk of the good of society. Is this something apart from, and transcending, the good of the individuals composing it? If the individual is ignored and sacrificed for what is considered the good of the society, is that the right objective to have?
It was agreed that the individual should not be sacrificed and indeed that real social progress will come only when opportunity is given to the individual to develop, provided "the individual" is not a selected group but comprises the whole community. The touchstone, therefore, should be how far any political or social theory enables the individual to rise above his petty self and thus think in terms of the good of all. The law of life should not be competition or acquisitiveness but cooperation, the good of each contributing to the good of all.
“Learning isn’t a means to an end; it is an end in itself.”
Source: Time for the Stars (1956), Chapter 7, “19,900 Ways” (p. 70)
Quote in 'Artist's Voice', Kuh; as cited in Outside the Lines, David W. Galenson, Harvard University Press, 2001, p. 109
posthumous
Source: Marxism, Fascism & Totalitarianism: Chapters in the Intellectual History of Radicalism, (2008), p. 313
“Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.”
The History of Freedom in Antiquity (1877)
Context: Liberty and good government do not exclude each other; and there are excellent reasons why they should go together. Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. It is not for the sake of a good public administration that it is required, but for security in the pursuit of the highest objects of civil society, and of private life.
