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The collection / 592 fragments

Mind.

Explore passages mentioning mind, thought, thoughts. Topic suggestions use transparent word matching, not scholarly classification. Editorial meanings and lexical matches are discovery aids, not independent authentication of a quotation.

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06c. 1790 AD
Every man looks at the world lying ready before him, ordered and fashioned into a complete whole, as after all but an element out of which his endeavour is to create a special world suited to himself. Capable men lay hold of the world without hesitation and try to shape their course as best they can; others dally over it, and some doubt even of their own existence. The man who felt the full force of this fundamental truth would dispute with no one, but look upon another's mode of thought equally with his own, as merely a phenomenon. For we find almost daily that one man can think with ease what another cannot possibly think at all; and that, too, not in matters which might have some sort of effect upon their common weal or woe, but in things which cannot touch them at all.
Goethe / quote
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10c. 1872 AD
Co-echoing.—All stronger moods bring with them a co-echoing of kindred sensations and moods, they grub up the memory, so to speak. Along with them something within us remembers and becomes conscious of similar conditions and their origin. Thus there are formed quick habitual connections of feelings and thoughts, which eventually, when they follow each other with lightning speed, are no longer felt as complexes but as unities. In this sense one speaks of the moral feeling, of the religious feeling, as if they were absolute unities: in reality they are streams with a hundred sources and tributaries. Here also, as so often happens, the unity of the word is no security for the unity of the thing.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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11c. 1872 AD
No Internal and External in the World.—As Democritus transferred the concepts "above" and "below" to endless space where they have no sense, so philosophers in general have transferred the concepts "Internal" and "External" to the essence and appearance of the world; they think that with deep feelings one can penetrate deeply into the internal and approach the heart of Nature. But these feelings are only deep in so far as along with them, barely noticeable, certain complicated groups of thoughts, which we call deep, are regularly excited; a feeling is deep because we think that the accompanying thought is deep. But the "deep" thought can nevertheless be very far from the truth, as, for instance, every metaphysical one; if one take away from the deep feeling the commingled elements of thought, then the strong feeling remains, and this guarantees nothing for knowledge but itself, just as strong faith proves only its strength and not the truth of what is believed in.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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12c. 1872 AD
Conjectural Victory of Scepticism.—For once let the sceptical starting-point be accepted,—granted that there were no other metaphysical world, and all explanations drawn from metaphysics about the only world we know were useless to us, in what light should we then look upon men and things? We can think this out for ourselves, it is useful, even though the question whether anything metaphysical has been scientifically proved by Kant and Schopenhauer were altogether set aside. For it is quite possible, according to historical probability, that some time or other man, as a general rule, may grow sceptical; the question will then be this: What form will human society take under the influence of such a mode of thought? Perhaps the scientific proof of some metaphysical world or other is already so difficult that mankind will never get rid of a certain distrust of it. And when there is distrust of metaphysics, there are on the whole the same results as if it had been directly refuted and could no longer be believed in. The historical question with regard to an unmetaphysical frame of mind in mankind remains the same in both cases.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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13c. 1872 AD
Cruel People As Those Who Have Remained Behind.—People who are cruel nowadays must be accounted for by us as the grades of earlier civilisations which have survived; here are exposed those deeper formations in the mountain of humanity which usually remain concealed. They are backward people whose brains, through all manner of accidents in the course of inheritance, have not been developed in so delicate and manifold a way. They show us what we all were and horrify us, but they themselves are as little responsible as is a block of granite for being granite. There must, too, be grooves and twists in our brains which answer to that condition of mind, as in the form of certain human organs there are supposed to be traces of a fish-state. But these grooves and twists are no longer the bed through which the stream of our sensation flows.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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14c. 1872 AD
TO WISH FOR REVENGE AND TO TAKE REVENGE.—To have a revengeful thought and to carry it into effect is to have a violent attack of fever, which passes off, however,—but to have a revengeful thought without the strength and courage to carry it out is a chronic disease, a poisoning of body and soul which we have to bear about with us. Morality, which only takes intentions into account, considers the two cases as equal; usually the former case is regarded as the worse (because of the evil consequences which may perhaps result from the deed of revenge). Both estimates are short-sighted.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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17c. 1872 AD
The Art and Power of False Interpretations.—All the visions, terrors, torpors, and ecstasies of saints are well-known forms of disease, which are only, by reason of deep-rooted religious and psychological errors, differently explained by him, namely not as diseases. Thus, perhaps, the Daimonion of Socrates was only an affection of the ear, which he, in accordance with his ruling moral mode of thought, expounded differently from what would be the case now. It is the same thing with the madness and ravings of the prophets and soothsayers; it is always the degree of knowledge, fantasy, effort, morality in the head and heart of the interpreters which has made so much of it. For the greatest achievements of the people who are called geniuses and saints it is necessary that they should secure interpreters by force, who misunderstand them for the good of mankind.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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20c. 1872 AD
The Belief in Inspiration.—It is to the interest of the artist that there should be a belief in sudden suggestions, so-called inspirations; as if the idea of a work of art, of poetry, the fundamental thought of a philosophy shone down from heaven like a ray of grace. In reality the imagination of the good artist or thinker constantly produces good, mediocre, and bad, but his judgment, most clear and practised, rejects and chooses and joins together, just as we now learn from Beethoven's notebooks that he gradually composed the most beautiful melodies, and in a manner selected them, from many different attempts. He who makes less severe distinctions, and willingly abandons himself to imitative memories, may under certain circumstances become a great improvisatore; but artistic improvisation ranks low in comparison with serious and laboriously chosen artistic thoughts. All great men were great workers, unwearied not only in invention but also in rejection, reviewing, transforming, and arranging.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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21c. 1872 AD
The Source of the Comic Element.—If we consider that for many thousands of years man was an animal that was susceptible in the highest degree to fear, and that everything sudden and unexpected had to find him ready for battle, perhaps even ready for death; that even later, in social relations, all security was based on the expected, on custom in thought and action, we need not be surprised that at everything sudden and unexpected in word and deed, if it occurs without danger or injury, man becomes exuberant and passes over into the very opposite of fear—the terrified, trembling, crouching being shoots upward, stretches itself: man laughs. This transition from momentary fear into short-lived exhilaration is called the Comic. On the other hand, in the tragic phenomenon, man passes quickly from great enduring exuberance into great fear; but as amongst mortals great and lasting exuberance is much rarer than the cause for fear, there is far more comedy than tragedy in the world; we laugh much offener than we are agitated.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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22c. 1872 AD
What Is Needful to a Work of Art.—Those who talk so much about the needful factors of a work of art exaggerate; if they are artists they do so in majorem artis gloriam, if they are laymen, from ignorance. The form of a work of art, which gives speech to their thoughts and is, therefore, their mode of talking, is always somewhat uncertain, like all kinds of speech. The sculptor can add or omit many little traits, as can also the exponent, be he an actor or, in music, a performer or conductor. These many little traits and finishing touches afford him pleasure one day and none the next, they exist more for the sake of the artist than the art; for he also has occasionally need of sweetmeats and playthings to prevent him from becoming morose with the severity and self-restraint which the representation of the dominant idea demands from him.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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23c. 1872 AD
Corriger La Fortune.—There are unfortunate accidents in the lives of great artists, which compel the painter, for instance, to sketch out his most important picture only as a passing thought, or such as obliged Beethoven to leave behind him only the insufficient pianoforte score of many great sonatas (as in the great B flat). In these cases the artist of a later day must endeavour to fill out the life of the great man,—of all orchestral effects, would call into life that symphony which has fallen into the piano-trance.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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24c. 1872 AD
Shakespeare As a Moralist.—Shakespeare meditated much on the passions, and on account of his temperament had probably a close acquaintance with many of them (dramatists are in general rather wicked men). He could, however not talk on the subject, like Montaigne, but put his observations thereon into the mouths of impassioned figures, which is contrary to nature, certainly, but makes his dramas so rich in thought that they cause all others to seem poor in comparison and readily arouse a general aversion to them. Schiller's reflections (which are almost always based on erroneous or trivial fancies) are just theatrical Reflections, and as such are very effective; whereas Shakespeare's reflections do honour to his model, Montaigne, and contain quite serious thoughts in polished form, but on that account are too remote and refined for the eyes of the theatrical public, and are consequently ineffective.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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