Quotes
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The mass, as a social force, has become so powerful in my time that there is no cave, no attitude, no perspective where we can still retreat from it. Of course, it is unwise and foolish whoever is offended by the fact of the crowd and takes refuge in the whining attitude of some squeamish and querulous individualism. The crowd is here, like the rain, the wind, the earth. It must be reckoned with. But Aristotle says: "The great multitude shows quite a slave mentality, and follows the way of life of brutes." Two and a half thousand years ago this statement was made; it is more valid today than ever.
Human vulgarity in our time has reached such hopeless proportions that there is no longer any pedagogical method that can effectively combat it. The reflexes of the masses are no longer human in the sense in which we have come to know the human in the sense of Christian culture and classical education. You can't argue with them; it's like arguing with drunkards or lunatics who only stammer their obsessions in response. Their emotions cannot be influenced; they feel differently from humans. Compassion and sympathy are distorted in their souls; greed and bloodthirst reign in their nerves, the sad lust of unbridled and greedy frothing pleasure: human vulgarity has no limit anymore. All the more reason for every human being to remain stubbornly and courageously in his place, to think and feel as a human being should.
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You have a role that is yours alone, and this is your contract with God. But you are also a part of the great structure of the world, not much more, not more important, than a screw or a wire, an auxiliary instrument in some incidental and subordinate process of this infinitely complicated machinery. Never forget your role, which is yours alone and personal, and never forget that you do not count for much more in the Whole than a part, a screw, or a wire.
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You're about to do a great deed. You have decided to say what you have come to know. You want to shout out the secret, innermost conviction of your life. You're going to stand up in front of people and make a decision - you're going to speak the truth, finally. You take the fight, you throw away your scorn, your house, your home. Yes, you are determined to stand up in front of the world, with all the consequences, and speak the truth. All this is very beautiful. That's man's job on earth, that's his real job. Just remember one thing: the world is also a terrible distorting mirror. It's like those curved mirrors in the panopticon that show the tall man as a dwarf and the fat man as a starving man. You cannot expect that there will be a single person in the world who will understand your words, and your actions, understand and explain them exactly as you have conceived them. Only you always know what you really meant; the world always understands and sees only what your intentions are perceived and reflected by the mysterious distorting mirror of human reason. Therefore, never cry, "They did not understand! How wicked they are!" Always say only this, "I will such and such, but the world has understood so and so." Because this is the truth.
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