Reason may not always tell us what to believe, but it can help us on what we shouldn't believe. Walter Kaufmann More Quotes by Walter Kaufmann More Quotes From Walter Kaufmann Let people who do not know what to do with themselves in this life, but fritter away their time reading magazines and watching television, hope for eternal life... The life I want is a life I could not endure in eternity. It is a life of love and intensity, suffering and creation, that makes life worthwhile and death welcome. There is no other life I should prefer. Neither should I like not to die. Walter Kaufmann readingsufferingpeople The refusal to belong to any school of thought, the repudiation of the adequacy of any body of beliefs whatever, and especially of systems, and a marked dissatisfaction with traditional philosophy as superficial, academic, and remote from life-that is the heart of existentialism. Walter Kaufmann heartphilosophyschool Mundus vult decipi: the world wants to be deceived. The truth is too complex and frightening; the taste for the truth is an acquired taste that few acquire…. ….The world winks at dishonesty. the world does not call it dishonesty Walter Kaufmann doewantworld It does not follow that the meaning must be given from above; that life and suffering must come neatly labeled; that nothing is worth while if the world is not governed by a purpose. Walter Kaufmann purposesufferingdoe Man stands alone in the universe, responsible for his condition, likely to remain in a lowly state, but free to reach above the stars. Walter Kaufmann stand-alonestarsmen Job's forthright indictment of the injustice of this world is surely right. The ways of the world are weird and much more unpredictable than either scientists or theologians generally make things look. Walter Kaufmann jobslooksworld The problem of suffering is: why is there the suffering we know? Walter Kaufmann problemsufferingknows The great artist is the man who most obviously succeeds in turning his pains to advantage, in letting suffering deepen his understanding and sensibility, in growing through his pains. Walter Kaufmann painmenart The deepest difference between religions is not that between polytheism and monotheism. Walter Kaufmann polytheismmonotheismdifferences Rabbi Zusya said that on the Day of Judgment, God would ask him, not why he had not been Moses, but why he had not been Zusya. Walter Kaufmann being-singlejudgmentbeing-yourself Philosophy means liberation from the - routine, soaring above the well known, seeing it in new perspectives, arousing wonder and the wish to fly. Walter Kaufmann perspectivephilosophymean Writing is thinking in slow motion. Walter Kaufmann slow-motionwritingthinking The Greeks had considered hope the final evil in Pandora's box. They also gave us an image of perfect nobility: a human being lovingly doing her duty to another human being despite all threats, and going to her death with pride and courage, not deterred by any hope - Antigone. Walter Kaufmann prideevilperfect When Hegel later became a man of influence' he insisted that the Jews should be granted equal rights because civic rights belong to man because he is a man and not on account of his ethnic origins or his religion. Walter Kaufmann influencerightsmen To try to fashion something from suffering, to relish our triumphs, and to endure defeats without resentment: all that is compatible with the faith of a heretic. Walter Kaufmann fashionsufferingtrying It was also Hegel who established the view that the different philosophic systems that we find in history are to be comprehended in terms of development and that they are generally one-sided because they owe their origins to a reaction against what has gone before. Walter Kaufmann differentviewsgone Life ceases to be so oppressive: we are free to give our own lives meaning and purpose, free to redeem our suffering by making something of it. Walter Kaufmann meaning-of-lifesufferinggiving Those who believe in God because their experience of life and the facts of nature prove his existence must have led sheltered lives and closed their hearts to the voice of their brothers' blood. Walter Kaufmann brotherheartbelieve Words signify man's refusal to accept the world as it is. Walter Kaufmann writingmenworld There is thus a certain plausibility to Nietzsche's doctrine, though it is dynamite. He maintains in effect that the gulf separating Plato from the average man is greater than the cleft between the average man and a chimpanzee. Walter Kaufmann platoaveragemen
