"On the Use and Abuse of History for Life" Quotes

The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.

Whoever cannot see the truth of this, let him look around and see for himself what a vast amount of what we call 'history' is just history repeating itself.

The most superficial people are the ones who are most sure of their opinions.

To those human beings who are of any concern to me, I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities—I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished: I have no pity for them, because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not—that one endures.

One should not wish to enjoy where one does not give joy.

To keep silent about something that is wrong is the same as lying.

A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions—as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.

The more abstract the truth you wish to teach, the more thoroughly you must seduce the senses to accept it.

The greatest events and thoughts—the greatest thoughts, perhaps—are comprehensible only to a tall thinker.

The best author will be the one who is ashamed to become a writer.