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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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04c. 1486 AD
The figures of men have gestures which correspond to what they are doing, so that in seeing them you understand what they are thinking of and saying; and these will be learned well by him who will copy the gestures of the dumb, for they speak by the gestures of their hands, their eyes, their brows and their whole person, when they wish to express the purpose of their mind. And do not mock me because I suggest a dumb teacher for the teaching of an art of which he is himself ignorant, because he will teach you better by his gestures than all the others with their words. And despise not such advice because they are the masters of gesture, and understand at a distance what a man is talking of if he suits the actions of the hands to the words.
Leonardo da Vinci / quote
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05c. 1486 AD
This is a difficult question to answer, but I will nevertheless state my opinion. Water, which is clothed with air, desires naturally to cleave to its sphere because in this position it is without gravity. This gravity is twofold,—the gravity of the whole which tends to the centre of the elements, and the gravity which tends to the centre of the waters of the spherical orb; if this were not so the water would form a half sphere only, which is the sphere described from the centre upwards. But I see no means in the human mind of acquiring knowledge with regard to this. We must say, as we say of the magnet which attracts iron, that such a virtue is an occult property of which there is an infinite quantity in nature.
Leonardo da Vinci / quote
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08c. 1872 AD
In what Respect we are most Subtle.—By the fact that, for thousands of years, things (nature, tools, property of all kinds) were thought to be alive and to possess souls, and able to hinder and interfere with the designs of man, the feeling of impotence among men has become greater and more frequent than it need have been: for one had to secure one's things like men and beasts, by means of force, compulsion, flattery, treaties, sacrifices—and it is here that we may find the origin of the greater number of superstitious customs, i.e. of an important, perhaps paramount, and nevertheless wasted and useless division of mankind's activity!—But since the feeling of impotence and fear was so strong, and for such a length of time in a state of constant stimulation, the feeling of power in man has been developed in so subtle a manner that, in this respect, he can compare favourably with the most delicately-adjusted balance. This feeling has become his strongest propensity: and the means he discovered for creating it form almost the entire history of culture.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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09c. 1872 AD
Pride in Spirit.—The pride of man, which strives to oppose the theory of our own descent from animals and establishes a wide gulf between nature and man himself—this pride is founded upon a prejudice as to what the mind is; and this prejudice is relatively recent. In the long prehistorical period of humanity it was supposed that the mind was everywhere, and men did not look upon it as a particular characteristic of their own. Since, on the contrary, everything spiritual (including all impulses, maliciousness, and inclinations) was regarded as common property, and consequently accessible to everybody, primitive mankind was not ashamed of being descended from animals or trees (the noble races thought themselves honoured by such legends), and saw in the spiritual that which unites us with nature, and not that which severs us from her. Thus man was brought up in modesty—and this likewise was the result of a prejudice.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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10c. 1872 AD
A Foolish Piety, with Arrière-pensées.—What! the inventors of ancient civilisations, the first makers of tools and tape lines, the first builders of vehicles, ships, and houses, the first observers of the laws of the heavens and the multiplication tables—is it contended that they were entirely different from the inventors and observers of our own time, and superior to them? And that the first slow steps forward were of a value which has not been equalled by the discoveries we have made with all our travels and circumnavigations of the earth? It is the voice of prejudice that speaks thus, and argues in this way to depreciate the importance of the modern mind. And yet it is plain to be seen that, in former times, hazard was the greatest of all discoverers and observers and the benevolent prompter of these ingenious ancients, and that, in the case of the most insignificant invention now made, a greater intellect, discipline, and scientific imagination are required than formerly existed throughout long ages.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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11c. 1872 AD
The Prejudice concerning “Pure Spirit.”—Wherever the doctrine of pure spirituality has prevailed, its excesses have resulted in the destruction of the tone of the nerves: it taught that the body should be despised, neglected, or tormented, and that, on account of his impulses, man himself should be tortured and regarded with contempt. It gave rise to gloomy, strained, and downcast souls—who, besides, thought they knew the reason of their misery and how it might possibly be relieved! “It must be in the body! For it still thrives too well!”—such was their conclusion, whilst the fact was that the body, through its agonies, protested time after time against this never-ending mockery. Finally, a universal and chronic hyper-nervousness seized upon those virtuous representatives of the pure spirit: they learned to recognise joy only in the shape of ecstasies and other preliminary symptoms of insanity—and their system reached its climax when it came to look upon ecstasy as the highest aim of life, and as the standard by which all earthly things must be condemned.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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14c. 1872 AD
Error as a Cordial.—Let people say what they will, it is nevertheless certain that it was the aim of Christianity to deliver mankind from the yoke of moral engagements by indicating what it believed to be the shortest way to perfection: exactly in the same manner as a few philosophers thought they could dispense with tedious and laborious dialectics, and the collection of strictly-proved facts, and point out a royal road to truth. It was an error in both cases, but nevertheless a great cordial for those who were worn out and despairing in the wilderness.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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15c. 1872 AD
Hatred of One's Neighbour.—Supposing that we felt towards our neighbour as he does himself—Schopenhauer calls this compassion, though it would be more correct to call it auto-passion, fellow-feeling—we should be compelled to hate him, if, like Pascal, he thought himself hateful. And this was probably the general feeling of Pascal regarding mankind, and also that of ancient Christianity, which, under Nero, was “convicted” of odium generis humani, as Tacitus has recorded.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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16c. 1872 AD
The Use of a Coarse Intellect.—The Christian Church is an encyclopædia of primitive cults and views of the most varied origin; and is, in consequence, well adapted to missionary work: in former times she could—and still does—go wherever she would, and in doing so always found something resembling herself, to which she could assimilate herself and gradually substitute her own spirit for it. It is not to what is Christian in her usages, but to what is universally pagan in them, that we have to attribute the development of this universal religion. Her thoughts, which have their origin at once in the Judaic and in the Hellenic spirit, were able from the very beginning to raise themselves above the exclusiveness and subtleties of races and nations, as above prejudices. Although we may admire the power which makes even the most difficult things coalesce, we must nevertheless not overlook the contemptible qualities of this power—the astonishing coarseness and narrowness of the Church's intellect when it was in process of formation, a coarseness which permitted it to accommodate itself to any diet, and to digest contradictions like pebbles.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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17c. 1872 AD
A Christian Arrière-pensée.—Would not this have been a general reservation among Christians of the first century: “It is better to persuade ourselves into the belief that we are guilty rather than that we are innocent; for it is impossible to ascertain the disposition of so powerful a judge—but it is to be feared that he is looking out only for those who are conscious of guilt. Bearing in mind his great power, it is more likely that he will pardon a guilty person than admit that any one is innocent, in his presence.” This was the feeling of poor provincial folk in the presence of the Roman prætor: “He is too proud for us to dare to be innocent.” And may not this very sentiment have made its influence felt when the Christians endeavoured to picture to themselves the aspect of the Supreme Judge?
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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18c. 1872 AD
Doubt As Sin.—Christianity has done all it possibly could to draw a circle round itself, and has even gone so far as to declare doubt itself to be a sin. We are to be precipitated into faith by a miracle, without the help of reason, after which we are to float in it as the clearest and least equivocal of elements—a mere glance at some solid ground, the thought that we exist for some purpose other than floating, the least movement of our amphibious nature: all this is a sin! Let it be noted that, following this decision, the proofs and demonstration of the faith, and all meditations upon its origin, are prohibited as sinful. Christianity wants blindness and frenzy and an eternal swan-song above the waves under which reason has been drowned!
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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19c. 1872 AD
Dreaming and Responsibility.—You would wish to be responsible for everything except your dreams! What miserable weakness, what lack of logical courage! Nothing contains more of your own work than your dreams! Nothing belongs to you so much! Substance, form, duration, actor, spectator—in these comedies you act as your complete selves! And yet it is just here that you are afraid and ashamed of yourselves, and even Oedipus, the wise Oedipus, derived consolation from the thought that we cannot be blamed for what we dream. From this I must conclude that the great majority of men must have some dreadful dreams to reproach themselves with. If it were otherwise, to how great an extent would these nocturnal fictions have been exploited in the interests of man's pride! Need I add that the wise Oedipus was right, that we are really not responsible for our dreams any more than for our waking hours, and that the doctrine of free will has as its parents man's pride and sense of power! Perhaps I say this too often; but that does not prove that it is not true.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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21c. 1872 AD
Vanity of the Teachers of Morals.—The relatively small success which teachers of morals have met with may be explained by the fact that they wanted too much at once, i.e. they were too ambitious and too fond of laying down precepts for everybody. In other words, they were beating the air and making speeches to animals in order to turn them into men; what wonder, then, that the animals thought this tedious! We should rather choose limited circles and endeavour to find and promote morals for them: for instance, we should make speeches to wolves with the object of turning them into dogs; but, above all, the greatest success will remain for the man who does not seek to educate either everybody or certain limited circles, but only one single individual, and who cannot be turned to the right or left from his straight purpose. The last century was superior to ours precisely because it possessed so many individually educated men, as well as educators in the same proportion, who had made this their life's task, and who with this task were dignified not only in their own eyes but in those of all the remaining “good society.”
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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22c. 1872 AD
To deal like an Artist with One's Weaknesses.—If we must positively have weaknesses and come in the end to look upon them as laws beyond ourselves, I wish that everybody may be possessed of as much artistic capacity as will enable him to set off his virtues by means of his weaknesses, and to make us, through his weaknesses, desirous of acquiring his virtues: a power which great musicians have possessed in quite an exceptional degree. How frequently do we notice in Beethoven's music a coarse, dogmatic, and impatient tone; in Mozart, the joviality of an honest man, whose heart and mind have not overmuch to give us; in Richard Wagner, an abrupt and aggressive restlessness, in the midst of which, just as the most patient listener is on the point of losing his temper, the composer regains his powers, and likewise the others. Through their very weaknesses, these musicians have created in us an ardent desire for their virtues, and have given us a palate which is ten times more sensitive to every note of this tuneful intellect, tuneful beauty, and tuneful goodness.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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23c. 1872 AD
The Dreaded Eye.—Nothing is dreaded more by artists, poets, and writers than the eye which sees through their little deceptions and subsequently notices how often they have stopped at the boundary where the paths branch off either to innocent delight in themselves or to the straining after effect; the eye which checks them when they try to sell little things dear, or when they try to exalt and adorn without being exalted themselves; the eye which, despite all the artifices of their art, sees the thought as it first presented itself to them, perhaps as a charming vision of light, perhaps also, however, as a theft from the whole world, or as an everyday conception which they had to expand, contract, colour, wrap up, and spice, in order to make something out of it, instead of the thought making something out of them.—Oh, this eye, which sees in your work all your restlessness, inquisitiveness, and covetousness, your imitation and exaggeration (which is only envious imitation) which knows both your blush of shame and your skill in concealing it from others and interpreting it to yourselves!
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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