“If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.”
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Arthur Schopenhauer 261
German philosopher 1788–1860Related quotes
Source: Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom, p. 8
Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Friendship
“Should they answer that, if impunity were assured, they would do what was most to their selfish interest, that would be a confession that they were criminally minded; should they say that they would not do so, they would be granting that all things in and of themselves immoral should be avoided.”
Si responderint se impunitate proposita facturos, quod expediat, facinorosos se esse fateantur, si negent, omnia turpia per se ipsa fugienda esse concedant.
Book III, section 39; translated by Walter Miller
De Officiis – On Duties (44 BC)
Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)
“Life marks us all down, so it's just as well that we start out by overpricing ourselves.”
The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified
Source: The Historian (2005), Ch. 32
Context: It is a fact that we historians are interested in what is partly a reflection of ourselves, perhaps a part of ourselves we would rather not examine except through the medium of scholarship; it is also true that as we steep ourselves in our interests, they become more and more a part of us. Visiting an American university — not mine — several years after this, I was introduced to one of the first of the great American historians of Nazi Germany. He lived in a comfortable house at the edge of the campus, where he collected not only books on his topic but also the official china of the Third Reich. His dogs, two enormous German shepherds, patrolled the front yard day and night. Over drinks with other faculty members in his living room, he told me in no uncertain terms how he despised Hitler’s crimes and wanted to expose them in the greatest possible detail to the civilized world. I left the party early, walking carefully past those big dogs, unable to shake my revulsion.
First Elegy (as translated by Stephen Mitchell)
Source: Duino Elegies (1922)
Context: Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them
pressed me against his heart: I would be consumed
in that overwhelming existence. For beauty is nothing
but the beginning of terror, which we still are just able to endure,
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains
to annihilate us. Every angel is terrifying.
“That more would he serve, if life
Were not so short for love so long.”
Mais servira, se não fora
Para tão longo amor tão curta a vida.
tr. Norwood Andrews
Lyric poetry, Não pode tirar-me as esperanças, Sete anos de pastor Jacob servia