A superstition which pretends to be scientific creates a much greater confusion of thought than one which contents itself with simple popular practices.
Every age yearns for a more beautiful world. The deeper the desperation and the depression about the confusing present, the more intense that yearning.
From whichever angle one looks at it, the application of racial theories remains a striking proof of the lowered demands of public opinion upon the purity of critical judgment.
History creates comprehensibility primarily by arranging facts meaningfully and only in a very limited sense by establishing strict causal connections.
It is impossible to strive for the heroic life. The title of hero is bestowed by the survivors upon the fallen, who themselves know nothing of heroism.
Physical nature lies at our feet shackled with a hundred chains. What of the control of human nature? Do not point to the triumphs of psychiatry, social services or the war against crime. Domination of human nature can only mean the domination of every man by himself.
Systematic philosophical and practical anti-intellectualism such as we are witnessing appears to be something truly novel in the history of human culture.
The repudiation of the primacy of understanding means the repudiation of the norms of judgment as well, and hence the abandonment of all ethical standards.