Georg Morris Cohen Brandes Quotes
For long ages, too, no notice whatever was taken of the criminals sin; he was regarded as harmful, not guilty, and looked upon as a piece of destiny; and the criminal on his side took his punishment as a piece of destiny which had overtaken him, and bore it with the same fatalism ... In general we may say that punishment tames the man, but does not make him better.
Georg Morris Cohen Brandes
We need only think of the number of talented men who sooner or later make their apologies and concessions to philistinism, so as to be permitted to exist.
Georg Morris Cohen Brandes
The loathing of mankind is a force that surprises and overwhelms one, fed by hundreds of springs concealed his subconsciousness. One only detects its presence after having long entertained it unawares.
Georg Morris Cohen Brandes
[Nietzsche] attributes to himself an extremely vivid and sensitive instinct of cleanliness. At the first contact the filth lying at the base of anothers nature is revealed to him. The unclean are therefore ill at ease hi his presence.
Georg Morris Cohen Brandes
Under the dominion of the priests our earth became the ascetic planet; a squalid den careering through space, peopled by discontented and arrogant creatures, who were disgusted with life, abhorred their globe as a vale of tears, and who in their envy and hatred of beauty and joy did themselves as much harm as possible.
Georg Morris Cohen Brandes
What has here happened is that the instinct of cruelty, which has turned inwards, has become self-torture, and all mans animal instincts have been reinterpreted as guilt towards God. Every Nay man utters to his nature, to his real being, he flings out as a Yea, an affirmation of reality applied to Gods sanctity
Georg Morris Cohen Brandes
Those [Christians] had left to love on earth were then: brothers and sisters in hatred, whom they called then: brothers and sisters in love.
Georg Morris Cohen Brandes
What [Nietzsche] calls slave morality is to him purely spite-morality; and this spite-morality gave new names to all ideals. Thus impotence, which offers no reprisal, became goodness; craven baseness became humility; submission to him who was feared became obedience; inability to assert ones self became reluctance to assert ones self, became forgiveness, love of ones enemies. Misery became a distinction
Georg Morris Cohen Brandes
Since fresh examples and proofs could always be found of the alleged relation between guilt and punishment: if you behave in such and such a way, it will go badly with you. Now, as it generally does go badly, the allegation was constantly confirmed; and thus popular morality, a pseudo- science on a level with popular medicine, continually gained ground.
Georg Morris Cohen Brandes
Instead of trying to educate the human race, they should imitate the pedagogues of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, who concentrated their efforts on the education of a single person.
Georg Morris Cohen Brandes
But what of the voice and judgment of conscience? The difficulty is that we have a conscience behind our conscience, an intellectual one behind the moral. We can see quite well that our opinions of what is noble and good, our moral valuations, are powerful levers where action is concerned; but we must begin by refining these opinions and independently creating for ourselves new tables of values.
Georg Morris Cohen Brandes
The masses are only to be regarded as one of three things: either as copies of great personalities, bad copies, clumsily produced in a poor material, or as foils to the great, or finally as their tools.
Georg Morris Cohen Brandes
Why you exist, says Nietzsche with Sren Kierkegaard, nobody in the world can tell you in advance; but since you do exist, try to give your existence a meaning by setting up for yourself as lofty and noble a goal as you can.
Georg Morris Cohen Brandes
History, in [Nietzsches] view, belongs to him who is fighting a great fight, and who needs examples, teachers and comforters, but cannot find them among his contemporaries. Without history the mountain chain of great mens great moments, which runs through millennia, could not stand clearly and vividly before me.
Georg Morris Cohen Brandes
