Quotes about deep
page 9

Thomas Love Peacock photo

“MR. PANSCOPE. (suddenly emerging from a deep reverie.) I have heard, with the most profound attention, everything which the gentleman on the other side of the table has thought proper to advance on the subject of human deterioration; and I must take the liberty to remark, that it augurs a very considerable degree of presumption in any individual, to set himself up against the authority of so many great men, as may be marshalled in metaphysical phalanx under the opposite banners of the controversy; such as Aristotle, Plato, the scholiast on Aristophanes, St Chrysostom, St Jerome, St Athanasius, Orpheus, Pindar, Simonides, Gronovius, Hemsterhusius, Longinus, Sir Isaac Newton, Thomas Paine, Doctor Paley, the King of Prussia, the King of Poland, Cicero, Monsieur Gautier, Hippocrates, Machiavelli, Milton, Colley Cibber, Bojardo, Gregory Nazianzenus, Locke, D'Alembert, Boccaccio, Daniel Defoe, Erasmus, Doctor Smollett, Zimmermann, Solomon, Confucius, Zoroaster, and Thomas-a-Kempis.
MR. ESCOT. I presume, sir, you are one of those who value an authority more than a reason.
MR. PANSCOPE. The authority, sir, of all these great men, whose works, as well as the whole of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the entire series of the Monthly Review, the complete set of the Variorum Classics, and the Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions, I have read through from beginning to end, deposes, with irrefragable refutation, against your ratiocinative speculations, wherein you seem desirous, by the futile process of analytical dialectics, to subvert the pyramidal structure of synthetically deduced opinions, which have withstood the secular revolutions of physiological disquisition, and which I maintain to be transcendentally self-evident, categorically certain, and syllogistically demonstrable.
SQUIRE HEADLONG. Bravo! Pass the bottle. The very best speech that ever was made.
MR. ESCOT. It has only the slight disadvantage of being unintelligible.
MR. PANSCOPE. I am not obliged, Sir, as Dr Johnson remarked on a similar occasion, to furnish you with an understanding.
MR. ESCOT. I fear, Sir, you would have some difficulty in furnishing me with such an article from your own stock.
MR. PANSCOPE. 'Sdeath, Sir, do you question my understanding?
MR. ESCOT. I only question, Sir, where I expect a reply, which from what manifestly has no existence, I am not visionary enough to anticipate.
MR. PANSCOPE. I beg leave to observe, sir, that my language was perfectly perspicuous, and etymologically correct; and, I conceive, I have demonstrated what I shall now take the liberty to say in plain terms, that all your opinions are extremely absurd.
MR. ESCOT. I should be sorry, sir, to advance any opinion that you would not think absurd.
MR. PANSCOPE. Death and fury, Sir!
MR. ESCOT. Say no more, Sir - that apology is quite sufficient.
MR. PANSCOPE. Apology, Sir?
MR. ESCOT. Even so, Sir. You have lost your temper, which I consider equivalent to a confession that you have the worst of the argument.
MR. PANSCOPE. Lightnings and devils!”

Headlong Hall, chapter V (1816).

Hans Urs Von Balthasar photo

“In his Gospel, St. John, through long and deep contemplation, acknowledges Jesus to be the Logos of God. In his epistles he points entirely away from himself toward Christ. Finally, in the Apocalypse, in the vision of the Lamb of God, Old and New Testaments are united, and the whole drama of salvation is summed up.”

Hans Urs Von Balthasar (1905–1988) Swedish Catholic theologian

Hans Urs von Balthasar, Our Task https://books.google.it/books?id=yEjT5yVci2gC&pg=PT0, trans. John Saward, Ignatius Press, 1994.
Our Task: A Report and a Plan (1984)

Wassily Kandinsky photo

“First I will make different color tests: I will study the dark – deep blue, deep violet, deep dirty green, etc. Often I see the colors before my eyes. Sometimes I imitate with my lips the deep sounds of the trumpet – then I see various deep mixtures which the word is uncapable od conceiving and which the palette can only feebly reproduce.”

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) Russian painter

Quote in Kandinsky's letter to Gabriele Münter, 1915; as cited in Schönberg and Kandinsky: An Historic Encounter, by Klaus Kropfinger; edited by Konrad Boehmer; published by Routledge (imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informal company), 2003, p. 16 note 54
1910 - 1915

Bob Costas photo

“Into left-center field and deep, THIS IS A TIE BALLGAME!”

Bob Costas (1952) American sportscaster

Calling Ryne Sandberg's first game-tying home run against Bruce Sutter in the ninth inning of a Cardinals–Cubs game at Wrigley Field, June 23, 1984.

George William Russell photo

“Now the quietude of earth
Nestles deep my heart within;
Friendships new and strange have birth
Since I left the city's din.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo
Alex Jones photo

“It took me about a year with Sandy Hook to come to grips with the fact that the whole thing was fake. I mean, I couldn't believe it. I knew they jumped on it, used the crisis, hyped it up. But then I did deep research and my gosh, it just pretty much didn't happen.”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

The Alex Jones Show https://nypost.com/2018/05/23/alex-jones-sued-by-more-families-over-sandy-hook-hoax-claims/, 28 December 2014.
2014

Charlotte Salomon photo

“My life began when my grandmother decided to take hers, when I found out that my mother's whole family did the same thing [told bij het grandfather c. 1941], when I found out that I am the only one surviving, and when I felt the same inclination deep inside of me, craving for despair and death.”

Charlotte Salomon (1917–1943) German painter

Quote in Charlotte's letter, to her father, c. 1941-43; as cited in 'Life in Pictures Charlotte Salomon and her art beyond life tragedies' https://arthive.com/publications/2850~Life_in_Pictures_Charlotte_Salomon_and_her_art_beyond_life_tragedies, on Art-smart
Charlotte wrote her father from South-France, about the events with her grandparents where she stayed. Then she took up her brush with the intention to realize an ambitious plan of creating an autobiographical novel in pictures.

Bode Miller photo
Jason Biggs photo

“Things like kissing and sex scenes don't make me uncomfortable. What makes me uncomfortable is the emotional stuff where I have to really dig deep.”

Jason Biggs (1978) American actor

Interview with Larry Smith, basis for Bigg's character on the show Orange Is the New Black, interview excerpted in: — [December 4, 2014, http://popwatch.ew.com/2014/07/16/larry-smith-jason-biggs-orange-is-the-new-black/, Jason Biggs talks 'Orange is the New Black' with real-life Larry, Ariana Bacle, July 16, 2014, Entertainment Weekly]

Gustavo Gutiérrez photo
John Ogilby photo

“Mean time the Queen wounded with deep desire,
Bleeds inward, and consumes in hidden Fire.”

John Ogilby (1600–1676) Scottish academic

The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro (2nd ed. 1654), Virgil's Æneis

Albert Einstein photo

“Certain it is that a conviction, akin to religious feeling, of the rationality or intelligibility of the world lies behind all scientific work of a higher order. … This firm belief, a belief bound up with deep feeling, in a superior mind that reveals itself in the world of experience, represents my conception of God.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

'Essays in Science (1934) p. 11. Reprinted in Ideas and Opinions On Scientific Truth (1954) p. 261, Crown Publishers, Inc. New York, New York, USA, 1954, ISBN 0679601058.
1940s

Lyndon B. Johnson photo

“I signed this measure with a deep sense of pride that the United States is an open society in which the people's right to know is cherished and guarded.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Statement on the Freedom of Information Act (1966)

Vincent Van Gogh photo
Sukarno photo
Isaac Leib Peretz photo

“I am a rainworm, buried deep
Among the oozing, slimy things,
Yet of an eagle's nest I dream,
And eagle's wings.”

Isaac Leib Peretz (1852–1915) Yiddish language author and playwright

"I Am a Rainworm", 1900, translated by J. Robbins, (J. Leftwich. Golden Peacock. Sci-Art, 1939, p. 83).

Sun Myung Moon photo
Matthew Stover photo
Charlotte Brontë photo
Frederick Goddard Tuckerman photo

“The needle's worn the grooves too deep!”

In a Market Dimly Lit.
Brother, Sister (2006)

Lily Tomlin photo

“It's my belief we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain.”

Lily Tomlin (1939) American actress, comedian, writer, and producer

As "Trudy"
Unsourced variants: I personally think we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain.
Man invented language to satisfy his deep inner need to complain.
Contributions of Jane Wagner, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985)
Variant: Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.

Helen Keller photo
Esaias Tegnér photo

“Autumn has come;
Storming now heaveth the deep sea with foam,
Yet would I gratefully lie there,
Willingly die there.”

Esaias Tegnér (1782–1846) Swedish poet, professor and bishop

"Ingeborg's Lament".
Fridthjof's Saga (1820-1825)

Eric S. Raymond photo

“The iPhone brand is in worse shape than I thought was even possible. And the implications of that are huge. … The iPhone is in deep trouble.”

Eric S. Raymond (1957) American computer programmer, author, and advocate for the open source movement

The Smartphone Wars: AT&T CEO reveals all http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2898 in Armed and Dangerous (27 January 2011)

Winston S. Churchill photo
Adolf Hitler photo
Stephen King photo
Lee Child photo
Dennis Prager photo

“The foolishness of that comment [equating meat-eating to the Holocaust] is so deep, I can only ascribe it to higher education. You have to have gone to college to say something that stupid.”

Dennis Prager (1948) American writer, speaker, radio and TV commentator, theologian

Dennis Prager as quoted in "P.E.T.A." http://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=hrmv6EPKfpg (1 April 2004), Penn & Teller's Bullshit!, Home Box Office: Regarding PETA's equating of the consumption of animals to the genocide of Jews in the Holocaust.
2000s

Robert A. Heinlein photo
Tomas Kalnoky photo
Lal Bahadur Shastri photo
Thomas Jefferson photo
Happy Rhodes photo
W. Mark Felt photo

“I would have done better. I would have been more effective. Deep Throat didn't exactly bring the White House crashing down, did he?”

W. Mark Felt (1913–2008) Whistleblower who exposed the Watergate scandal

Interview in The Hartford Courant (1999)

Barry Schwartz photo
Walter Wink photo
Tom Higgenson photo
Albert Finney photo

“To be a character who feels a deep emotion, one must go into the memory's vault and mix in a sad memory from one's own life.”

Albert Finney (1936–2019) English actor

As quoted in Simpson's Contemporary Quotations (1988).

Louis Pasteur photo
Gregory Scott Paul photo

“The dinosaur world I grew up in was classical. They were universally seen as scaley herps that inhabited the immobile continents. There was no hint that birds were their direct descendents. Being reptiles, dinosaurs were cold-blooded and rather sluggish except perhaps for the smaller more bird-like examples. They all dragged their tails. Forelimbs were often sprawling. Leg muscles were slender in the reptilian manner. Intellectual capacity was minimal, as were social activity and parenting; the Knight painting of a Triceratops pair watching over a baby threatened by the Tyrant King was a notable exception. Hadrosaurs and especially sauropods were dinosaurian hippos, the latter perhaps too titanic to even emerge on land, and if they did so were limited by their bulk to lifting one foot of the ground at a time. Suitable only for the lush, warm and sunny tropical climate that enveloped the world from pole to pole before the Cenozoic, a cooling climate and new mountain chains did the obsolete archosaurs in, leaving only the crocodilians. Dinosaurs and the bat-winged pterosaurs were merely an evolutionary interlude, a period of geo-biological stasis before things got really interesting with the rise of the energetic and quick witted birds and especially mammals, leading with inexorable progress to the apex of natural selection: Man. It was pretty much all wrong. Deep down I sensed something was not quite right. Illustrating dinosaurs I found them to be much more reminiscent of birds and mammals than of the reptiles they were supposed to be. I was primed for a new view.”

Gregory Scott Paul (1954) U.S. researcher, author, paleontologist, and illustrator

Autobiography, part I http://gspauldino.com/part1.html, gspauldino.com

Harold Macmillan photo
Herbert Spencer photo

“The saying that beauty is but skin deep is but a skin-deep saying.”

Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist

Vol. 2, Ch. XIV, Personal Beauty
Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative (1891)

George Steiner photo
Franz Kafka photo
Timbaland photo

“I don't know him from a can of paint. I'm 15 years deep. That's how you attack a king? You attack moi? Come on, man. "You got to come correct. You the laughing stock. People are like, 'You can't be serious.”

Timbaland (1972) American record producer, rapper, record executive and singer from Virginia

Elliot in the Morning, about plagiarism controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Timbaland_plagiarism_controversy, 2007-02-02

Claude McKay photo
Orson Scott Card photo
William Sharp (writer) photo
Hassan Rouhani photo

“The Islamic Republic of Iran aims to strengthen its relations with Syria and will stand by it in facing all challenges. The deep, strategic and historic relations between the people of Syria and Iran… will not be shaken by any force in the world.”

Hassan Rouhani (1948) 7th President of Islamic Republic of Iran

"New Iran president backs Syria's Assad, Hezbollah" http://bigstory.ap.org/article/new-iran-president-backs-syrias-assad-hezbollah, The Big Story, (July 16, 2013)

Gabrielle Roy photo
Ilana Mercer photo

“The manufacturing of Fake News by the Deep State, circa 2017, is of a piece with the anatomy of the ramp-up to war in Iraq, in 2003. Except that back then, Republicans, joined by diabolical Democrats like Hillary Clinton, were the ones dreaming up Homer Simpson's Third Dimension.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"The War On Trump: A Guide For Conservatives, Libertarians & Liberals," http://www.thelibertyconservative.com/war-trump-guide-conservatives-libertarians-liberals/ The Liberty Conservative, June 17, 2017
2010s, 2017

James McCosh photo
Charles Lyell photo
Hermann Hesse photo
Daniel Barenboim photo

“The Declaration of Independence was a source of inspiration to believe in ideals that transformed us from Jews to Israelis. … I am asking today with deep sorrow: Can we, despite all our achievements, ignore the intolerable gap between what the Declaration of Independence promised and what was fulfilled, the gap between the idea and the realities of Israel? Does the condition of occupation and domination over another people fit the Declaration of Independence? Is there any sense in the independence of one at the expense of the fundamental rights of the other? Can the Jewish people whose history is a record of continued suffering and relentless persecution, allow themselves to be indifferent to the rights and suffering of a neighboring people? Can the State of Israel allow itself an unrealistic dream of an ideological end to the conflict instead of pursuing a pragmatic, humanitarian one based on social justice. I believe that despite all the objective and subjective difficulties, the future of Israel and its position in the family of enlightened nations will depend on our ability to realize the promise of the founding fathers as they canonized it in the Declaration of Independence. I have always believed that there is no military solution to the Jewish Arab conflict, neither from a moral nor a strategic one and since a solution is therefore inevitable I ask myself, why wait?”

Daniel Barenboim (1942) Israeli Argentine-born pianist and conductor

Statement at the Knesset upon receiving the Wolf Prize, May 9, 2004, transcript online https://electronicintifada.net/content/daniel-barenboims-statement-knesset-upon-receiving-wolf-prize-may-9-2004/5080 (16 May 2004) at The Electronic Intifada.

Matthew Arnold photo

“The East bowed low before the blast,
In patient deep disdain;
She let the legions thunder past,
And plunged in thought again.”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

Quoted from S.R. Goel, (1994) Heroic Hindu resistance to Muslim invaders, 636 AD to 1206 AD.

George Eliot photo
Anastacia photo

“I'm not that deep, I'm not that mysterious. Don't try to figure me out. I'm a very open book. What you see is what you get.”

Anastacia (1968) American singer-songwriter

p. 18 Dues Paid, Anastacia reapproches to U.S. https://books.google.it/books?id=Ug8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA18, Billboard, June 1, 2002.
General Quotes

Kate Bush photo

“Sweet and gentle and sensitive man
With an obsessive nature and deep fascination
For numbers
And a complete infatuation with the calculation
Of π.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, Aerial (2005), A Sea of Honey (Disc 1)

Theodor Mommsen photo
John Horgan photo

“Whenever we go into a pulp town I breathe deep and it reminds me of a positive time in my youth.”

John Horgan (1959) 36th Premier of British Columbia

https://www.bcndp.ca/about-john

Chinmayananda Saraswati photo
Oliver Goldsmith photo
Thomas Hardy photo

“In a solitude of the sea
Deep from human vanity,
And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

"The Convergence of the Twain" (Lines on the loss of the Titanic) http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/916.html (1912), lines 1-3, from Satires of Circumstance (1914)

Richard Dawkins photo

“There is more than just grandeur in this view of life, bleak and cold though it can seem from under the security blanket of ignorance. There is deep refreshment to be had from standing up and facing straight into the strong keen wind of understanding: Yeats's 'Winds that blow through the starry ways.”

Compare: "Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cosy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigour, and the great spaces have a splendour of their own." Bertrand Russell, What I Believe (1925)
A Devil's Chaplain (2003)

Anthony Burgess photo
John Mayer photo

“Zen is a form of liberation - being liberated from Yin and Yang elements, and enabling you to remain calm and cool when you are troubled. Zen is not something definite and tangible, it is a refuge for mental solace. Zen is about concentration of mind. It is a profound culture, enabling people to gain spiritual tranqulity and be awakened. Even though not a word is spoken, it enables one to gain a thorough understanding of the truth of life. This is what we call the harmony between Yin and Yang. It is like a substance deep in your soul, generating a kind of wisdom and energy in your mind. It is also a kind of energy of self-confidence, helping you to achieve self-emancipation, self-regulation and self-perfection, leading you to the path of success. As such, Buddhism talks about ‘Faith, Commitment, and Action’. The theory, when applied in the human realm, is all about Zen. Concentration gives rise to wisdom. With concentration, the mind will be focused and it will not be drifting apart. Hence, the problem of schizophrenia will not arise. Zen culture is about the state of mind. It is a kind of positive energy! Positive energy is a kind of compassion, which enables people to understand each other when they encounter problems, to understand the country and society at large, and to understand their family and children, colleagues and friends. In this way, people will be able to live in peaceful co-existence and remain calm when they are faced with problems. When you see things in perspective using rationality and positive energy, you are able to change your viewpoint pertaining to a certain issue. This is the moment Zen arises in your mind! In fact, Zen is within you. This theory is very profound.”

Jun Hong Lu (1959) Australian Buddhist leader

10 October 2013
Special Interview by People' Daily, Europe Edition

Irene Dunne photo
Pete Seeger photo
William O. Douglas photo

“The right to revolt has sources deep in our history.”

William O. Douglas (1898–1980) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

An Almanac of Liberty (1954), p. 107
Other speeches and writings

Gerardus 't Hooft photo

“Quantum mechanics as it stands would be perfect if we didn't have the quantum-gravity issue and a few other very deep fundamental problems.”

Gerardus 't Hooft (1946) Dutch theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize winner

Does Some Deeper Level of Physics Underlie Quantum Mechanics? An Interview with Nobelist Gerard 't Hooft http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/critical-opalescence/2013/10/07/does-some-deeper-level-of-physics-underlie-quantum-mechanics-an-interview-with-nobelist-gerard-t-hooft/

Jan Smuts photo
Paul Klee photo

“Kandinsky wants to organize a new society of artists. I came to feel a deep trust in him [ Kandinsky ]. He is somebody, and has an exceptionally beautiful and lucid mind.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Quote from Diaries III, 1911; as quoted by Enric Jardi, Paul Klee, Rizzoli Intl Pubns, 1991 - ISBN 0-8478-1343-6, p 12
In Autumn 1911 Klee made an acquaintance with August Macke and Kandinsky, and in winter he joined the editorial team of the almanac Der Blaue Reiter. After meeting Kandinsky in Munch, Klee recorded this.
1911 - 1914

John Archibald Wheeler photo
Kent Hovind photo

“If the Lord has you saved, you're saved, ok? You can't get out of God's hand. Then this 300 degree below zero ice meteor came flying through the solar system. Some of it broke apart. It made craters on Mercury and craters on the Moon. Four of the planets today still have rings around them. And the rings around these planets are made of rock and ice. Very interesting. Now Walt Brown thinks some of the craters on the Moon were formed when the fountains of the deep broke open and rocks went flying up out of Earth's gravitational pull, drifted around for a while, and clobbered into the Moon. He may be right on that. I don't know but it's interesting. He thinks the comets came from Earth, and water on Mars came from Earth, when the fountains of the deep broke upon. You could read about it for yourself if you would like. The super cold snow would land mostly around the north and south poles because super cold ice is not only affected by the magnetic field, it is easily statically charged. […] As this ice meteor came flying towards the earth it broke apart, pieces would settle in around the poles mostly, causing the earth to wobble for a few hundred years. Or maybe even a few thousand years. The canopy of water overhead collapsed, then it rained 40 days, the water underneath the bottom, under the crust came shooting to the surface, and the water kept going up for 150 days. And everybody drowned. It probably took six or eight months to kill everybody during that flood. We all get the idea, "Well it rained and everybody died first day."”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

No, it took a long time for people to die. People would be running and fighting for higher ground. As that got more and more rare as the water keeps coming up, and up, and up, for 150 days, the water increased. By the way, they are still discovering chunks of ice flying around in space.
Creation seminars (2003-2005), The Hovind theory

Jean Baudrillard photo
John Von Neumann photo
Nigel Farage photo

“The EU is mired in deep structural crisis. Greece, Portugal and Ireland cannot survive inside the Euro.”

Nigel Farage (1964) British politician and former commodity broker

Segment from an article in the New York Times newspaper, 18 May 2012. Can Europe be saved? Should it? http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/18/can-europe-be-saved-should-it/
2012

Elizabeth Bisland Whetmore photo
D.H. Lawrence photo
Aldo Capitini photo

“I wanted to go away, in the midst of something entirely different,
I had been there, in the house of torture,
I have seen people being kicked, men’s bodies scorched,
nails pulled out with pliers.
Armed with flame and cudgels, grinning men in shirt sleeves.
Where I could hear my friends being thrown headlong
down the stairs.
Night was as day, and long shrieks wounded me.
In vain I tried to think of wooded lanes and flowers,
a serene life and human words.
The thought seized up, it was as if a wound were opened up
again and again and endlessly searched.
From the mouth struck, teeth and blood came out,
and lamenting moans from the deep throat.
Away, away from that house, from that street and town,
from anything similar to it.
I must save myself, keep up my mind,
that I should not be led to madness by these memories.
Oh, if we could go back to a void, from which a new order,
a maternal opening could come forth,
if I hear a certain tone of voice even in jest, I shudder.
My unhappiness is that I avoid the sight of suffering,
hospitals and prisons.
I have yearned for high solitudes, lands of still sunshine
and sweet shadows,
but I would always be pursued by the ghosts of human beings.
All of a sudden I feel the need of distraction and play,
to lose myself in the noise of the fairground.
I remain with you, but forgive me
if you see me sometimes act like a madman.
I try to heal myself by myself, as an animal,
trusting that the wounds will close.
I stop to listen to the simple conversations of the women
in the marketplace, with their dialectical lilt.
I rejoice at the footsteps of running children,
their overpowering calls.
Because you do not know the absurdity of my dreams,
the fixed expressions, the incomprehensible gestures.
There is turmoil inside me, which seems to ridicule me.
And I cannot cry out, not to be like them.
Tomorrow I will go towards some music, now I am getting ready.”

Aldo Capitini (1899–1968) Italian philosopher and political activist
Edward Young photo

“The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave,
The deep damp vault, the darkness and the worm.”

Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night IV, Line 10.

Max Scheler photo

“These two characteristics make revenge the most suitable source for the formation of ressentiment. The nuances of language are precise. There is a progression of feeling which starts with revenge and runs via rancor, envy, and impulse to detract all the way to spite, coming close to ressentiment. Usually, revenge and envy still have specific objects. They do not arise without special reasons and are directed against definite objects, so that they do not outlast their motives. The desire for revenge disappears when vengeance has been taken, when the person against whom it was directed has been punished or has punished himself, or when one truly forgives him. In the same way, envy vanishes when the envied possession becomes ours. The impulse to detract, however, is not in the same sense tied to definite objects—it does not arise through specific causes with which it disappears. On the contrary, this affect seeks those objects, those aspects of men and things, from which it can draw gratification. It likes to disparage and to smash pedestals, to dwell on the negative aspects of excellent men and things, exulting in the fact that such faults are more perceptible through their contrast with the strongly positive qualities. Thus there is set a fixed pattern of experience which can accommodate the most diverse contents. This form or structure fashions each concrete experience of life and selects it from possible experiences. The impulse to detract, therefore, is no mere result of such an experience, and the experience will arise regardless of considerations whether its object could in any way, directly or indirectly, further or hamper the individual concerned. In “spite,” this impulse has become even more profound and deep-seated—it is, as it were, always ready to burst forth and to betray itself in an unbridled gesture, a way of smiling, etc. An analogous road leads from simple *Schadenfreude* to “malice.””

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

The latter, more detached than the former from definite objects, tries to bring about ever new opportunities for *Schadenfreude*.
Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912)

Smita Nair Jain photo