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Our possibilities of happiness are already restricted by our constitution. Unhappiness is much less difficult to experience. We are threatened with su...more

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We are so made that we can derive intense enjoyment only from a contrast and very little from a state of things.

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The question of the purpose of human life has been raised countless times; it has never yet received a satisfactory answer and perhaps does not admit ...more

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We will therefore turn to the less ambitious question of what men themselves show by their behavior to be the purpose and intention of their lives. Wh...more

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Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.

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Conscience is the internal perception of the rejection of a particular wish operating in us.

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It is a predisposition of human nature to consider an unpleasant idea untrue, and then it is easy to find arguments against it.

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I may now add that civilization is a process in the service of Eros, whose purpose is to combine single human individuals, and after that families, th...more

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...our philosophy has preserved essential traits of animistic modes of thought such as the over-estimation of the magic of words and the belief that r...more

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With words one man can make another blessed, or drive him to despair; by words the teacher transfers his knowledge to the pupil; by words the speaker ...more

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Words and magic were in the beginning one and the same thing, and even today words retain much of their magical power.

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Thus we arrive at the singular conclusion that of all the information passed by our cultural assets it is precisely the elements which might be of the...more

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The voice of the intellect is soft one, but it does not rest until it has gained a hearing. Ultimately, after endless rebuffs, it succeeds. This is on...more

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Perhaps the hopes I have confessed to are of an illusory nature, too. But I hold fast to one distinction. Apart from the fact that no penalty is impos...more

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It would be an undoubted advantage if we were to leave God out altogether and honestly admit the purely human origin of all the regulations and precep...more