“ Not all deceptions are palatable. Untruths are too easy to come by, too quickly exploded, too cheap and ephemeral to give lasting comfort. Mundus vult decipi, but there is a hierarchy of deceptions. Near the bottom of the ladder is journalism: a steady stream of irresponsible distortions that most people find refreshing although on the morning after, or at least within a week, it will be stale and flat. On a higher level we find fictions that men eagerly believe, regardless of the evidence, because they gratify some wish. Near the top of the ladder we encounter curious mixtures of untruth and truth that exert a lasting fascination on the intellectual community. ”
- Walter Kaufmann- Copy
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“ he would be permitted to say to the moment “Abide, you are so fair!” And to share Goethe’s faith for it was no mere confidence in fame but a cosmic faith: “The traces of my earthly days/No aeons can impair. ”
- Walter Kaufmann- Copy
- 841
“ One need not believe in Pallas Athena, the virgin goddess, to be overwhelmed by the Parthenon. Similarly, a man who rejects all dogmas, all theologies and all religious formulations of beliefs may still find Genesis the sublime book par excellence. Experiences and aspirations of which intimations may be found in Plato, Nietzsche, and Spinoza have found their most evocative expression in some sacred books. Since the Renaissance, Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Mozart, and a host of others have shown that this religious dimension can be experienced and communicated apart from any religious context. But that is no reason for closing my heart to Job's cry, or to Jeremiah's, or to the Second Isaiah. I do not read them as mere literature; rather, I read Sophocles and Shakespeare with all my being, too. ”
- Walter Kaufmann- Copy
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“ One need not believe in Pallas Athena, the virgin goddess, to be overwhelmed by the Parthenon. Similarly, a man who rejects all dogmas, all theologies and all religious formulations of beliefs may still find Genesis the sublime book par excellence. Experiences and aspirations of which intimations may be found in Plato, Nietzsche, and Spinoza have found their most evocative expression in some sacred books. Since the Renaissance, Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Mozart, and a host of others have shown that this religious dimension can be experienced and communicated apart from any religious context. But that is no reason for closing my heart to Job's cry, or to Jeremiah's, or to the Second Isaiah. I do not read them as mere literature; rather, I read Sophocles and Shakespeare with all my being, too. ”
- Walter Kaufmann- Copy
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“ To an even moderately sophisticated and wellread person it should come as no surprise that any religion at all has its hidden as well as its obvious beauties and is capable of profound and impressive interpretations. What is deeply objectionable about most of these interpretations is that they allow the believer to say Yes while evading any No. ”
- Walter Kaufmann- Copy
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“ Renouncing false beliefs will not usher in the millennium. Few things about the strategy of contemporary apologists are more repellent than their frequent recourse to spurious alternatives. The lesser lights inform us that the alternative to Christianity is materialism, thus showing how little they have read, while the greater lights talk as if the alternative were bound to be a shallow and inane optimism. I don't believe that man will turn this earth into a bed of roses either with the aid of God or without it. Nor does life among the roses strike me as a dream from which one would not care to wake up after a very short time. ”
- Walter Kaufmann- Copy
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“ Success is no proof of virtue. In the case of a book, quick acclaim is presumptive evidence of a lack of substance and originality. ”
- Walter Kaufmann- Copy
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“ Success is no proof of virtue. In the case of a book, quick acclaim is presumptive evidence of a lack of substance and originality. ”
- Walter Kaufmann- Copy
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“ Here an attempt is made to explain suffering: the outcaste of traditional Hinduism is held to deserve his fetched fate; it is a punishment for the wrongs he did in a previous life. ”
- Walter Kaufmann- Copy
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“ 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- Copy
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“ 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- Copy
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“ 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- Copy
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“ Here an attempt is made to explain suffering: the outcaste of traditional Hinduism is held to deserve his fetched fate; it is a punishment for the wrongs he did in a previous life. ”
- Walter Kaufmann- Copy
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“ 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- Copy
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“ The only theism worthy of our respect believes in God not because of the way the world is made but in spite of that. The only theism that is no less profound than the Buddha's atheism is that represented in the Bible by Job and Jeremiah. ”
- Walter Kaufmann- Copy
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“ 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- Copy
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“ Faith means intense, usually confident, belief that is not based on evidence sufficient to command assent from every reasonable person. ”
- Walter Kaufmann- Copy
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“ 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- Copy
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“ 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- Copy
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“ The great artist is the man who most obviously succeeds in turning his pains to advantage, in letting suffering deepens his understanding and sensibility, in growing through his pains. ”
- Walter Kaufmann- Copy
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“ The great artist is the man who most obviously succeeds in turning his pains to advantage, in letting suffering deepens his understanding and sensibility, in growing through his pains. ”
- Walter Kaufmann- Copy
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“ The deepest difference between religions is not that between polytheism and monotheism. ”
- Walter Kaufmann- Copy
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