A man is himself important precisely in proportion that all things seem important to him. Otto Weininger More Quotes by Otto Weininger More Quotes From Otto Weininger Sending children away to get control of their anger perpetuates the feeling of 'badness" inside them...Chances are they were already feeling not very good about themselves before the outburst and the isolation just serves to confirm in their own minds that they were right. Otto Weininger mindfeelingschildren No men who really think deeply about women retain a high opinion of them; men either despise women or they have never thought seriously about them. Otto Weininger womenopinionthinking Mankind occurs as male or female, as something or nothing. Woman has no share in ontological reality, no relation to the thing-in-itself, which, in the deepest interpretation, is the absolute, is God. Man in his highest form, the genius, has such a relation, and for him the absolute is either the conception of the highest worth of existence, in which case he is a philosopher; or it is the wonderful fairyland of dreams, the kingdom of absolute beauty, and then he is an artist. Otto Weininger artistdreamreality In those rare individual cases where women approach genius they also approach masculinity. Otto Weininger individualcasesgenius The man of genius possesses, like everything else, the complete female in himself; but woman herself is only a part of the Universe, and the part can never be the whole; femaleness can never include genius. This lack of genius on the part of woman is inevitable because woman is not a monad, and cannot reflect the Universe. Otto Weininger femalegeniusmen The Jew is an inborn Communist. Otto Weininger communistjew Every true, eternal problem is an equally true, eternal fault; every answer an atonement, every realisation an improvement. Otto Weininger faultsimprovementanswers A genius has perhaps scarcely ever appeared amongst the negroes, and the standard of their morality is almost universally so low that it is beginning to be acknowledged in America that their emancipation was an act of imprudence. Otto Weininger moralitygeniusamerica The decision must be made between Judaism and Christianity, between business and culture, between male and female, between the race and the individual, between unworhtiness and worth, between the earthly and the higher life, between negation and God-like. Mankind has the choice to make. There are only two poles, and there is no middle way. Otto Weininger choicesracetwo It is not the fear of death which creates the desire for immortality, but the desire for immortality which causes the fear of death. Otto Weininger immortalitycausesdesire Woman, in short, has an unconscious life, man a conscious life, and the genius the most conscious life. Otto Weininger geniusconsciousmen Man is alone in the world, in tremendous eternal isolation. He has no object outside himself; lives for nothing else; he is far removed from being the slave of his wishes, of his abilities, of his necessities; he stands far above social ethics; he is alone. Thus he becomes one and all. Otto Weininger wishmenworld But the higher a man mounts, the greater may be his fall; all genius is a conquering of chaos, mystery. Otto Weininger chaosmysterygenius In the case of complex personalities the matter stands thus: one of these can understand other men better than they can understand themselves, because within himself he has not only the character he is grasping, but also its opposite. Duality is necessary for observation and comprehension. Otto Weininger oppositescharactermen The man of genius is he whose ego has acquired consciousness. He is enabled by it to distinguish the fact that others are different, to perceive the "ego" of other men, even when it is not pronounced enough for them to be conscious of it themselves. But it is only he who feels that every other man is also an ego, a monad, an individual centre of the universe, with specific manner of feeling and thinking and a distinct past, he alone is in a position to avoid making use of his neighbours as means to an end. Otto Weininger menmeanpast Universality is the distinguishing mark of genius. There is no such thing as a special genius, a genius for mathematics, or for music, or even for chess, but only a universal genius. The genius is a man who knows everything without having learned it. Otto Weininger geniusspecialmen No one suffers so much as he [the genius] with the people, and, therefore, for the people, with whom he lives. For, in a certain sense, it is certainly only "by suffering" that a man knows. If compassion is not itself clear, abstractly conceivable or visibly symbolic knowledge, it is, at any rate, the strongest impulse for the acquisition of knowledge. It is only by suffering that the genius understands men. And the genius suffers most because he suffers with and in each and all; but he suffers most through his understanding. . . . Otto Weininger compassionmenpeople I regret that I must so continually use the word genius, as if that should apply only to a caste as well defined from those below as income-tax payers are from the untaxed. The word genius was very probably invented by a man who had small claims on it himself; greater men would have understood better what to be a genius really was, and probably they would have come to see that the word could be applied to most people. Goethe said that perhaps only a genius is able to understand a genius. Otto Weininger regretmenpeople A creature that cannot grasp the mutual exclusiveness of A and not A has no difficulty in lying; more than that, such a creature has not even any consciousness of lying, being without a standard of truth. Otto Weininger standardsconsciousnesslying An individual's arrogance is always in proportion to his lack of self-assurance. Otto Weininger individualarroganceself
