Sublime

“What will happen to the cause of justice and the masses of Negro people who have never experienced the warmth of economic security, if I do not participate actively and courageously in the movement?” The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy

We point at the decline of civilization into illiteracy, and ourselves forget the art of letter-writing, or of reading a text from Jean Paul as it must have been read in his time. We shudder at the brutalization of life, but lacking any objectively binding morality we are forced at every step into actions and words, into calculations that are by hu

Journal,

Die Höflichkeit gehorcht dem Gebot des Anscheins einer Überzeugung.

Nietzsche’s point is this. If you say you don’t believe in God but you do believe in the rights of every person and the requirement to care for all the weak and the poor, then you are still holding on to Christian beliefs, whether you will admit it or not.59 Why, for example, should you look at love and aggression—both parts of life, both rooted in

A prominent nasal bone was, he felt, the sign of individuality. He did not think any man who had a small nose or a flat back to his head could be especially worthwhile.

To connect Taylor with Ehrenberg, what modernity considers to be a mental ailment is always connected to its ethic, to its assertion of what is good.

He who stands aloof runs the risk of believing himself better than others and misusing his critique of society as an ideology for his private interest.