A requirement of femininity is that a woman devote her life to love--to mother love, to romantic love, to religious love, to amorp...hous, undifferentiated caring. The territory of the heart is admittedly a province that is open to all, but women alone are expected to make an obsessional career of its exploration, to find whatever adventure, power, fulfillment or tragedy life has to offer within its bounds. There is no question that a woman is apt to feel more feminine, more confident of her interior gender makeup, when she is reliably within some stage of love--even the girlish crush or the stage of unrequited love or a broken heart. Men have suffered for love, and men have accomplished great feats in the name of love, but what man has ever felt at the top of his masculine form when he is lovesick or suffering from heartache?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Admittedly, a homosexual can be conditioned to react sexually to a woman, or to an old boot for that matter. In fact, both homo- a...nd heterosexual experimental subjects have been conditioned to react sexually to an old boot, and you can save a lot of money that way.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Evil is the radiation of the human consciousness in certain transitional positions. It is not actually the sensual world that is a... mere appearance; what is so is the evil of it, which, admittedly, is what constitutes the sensual world in our eyes.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Nobody can desire what is ultimately damaging to him. If in individual cases it does appear to be so after all--and perhaps it alw...ays does so appear--this is explained by the fact that someone in the person demands something that is, admittedly, of use to someone, but which to a second someone, who is brought in half in order to judge the case, is gravely damaging. If the person had from the very beginning, and not only when it came to judging the case, taken his stand at the side of the second someone, the first someone would have faded out, and with him the desire.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The wish to acquire more is admittedly a very natural and common thing; and when men succeed in this they are always praised rathe...r than condemned. But when they lack the ability to do so and yet want to acquire more at all costs, they deserve condemnation for their mistakes.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
But while being a mother is admittedly a lifelong preoccupation, it cannot, should not, must not be a lifelong occupation. . . .LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
One can be absolutely truthful and sincere even though admittedly the most outrageous liar. Fiction and invention are of the very ...fabric of life.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We must always distinguish two faculties in the life of man: intellect and sensibility. Intellect begins with the observation of n...ature, proceeds to memorize and classify the facts thus observed, and by logical deduction builds up that edifice of knowledge properly called science. Sensibility, on the other hand, is a direct and particular reaction to the separate and individual nature of things. It begins and ends with the sensuous apprehension of colour, texture and formal relations; and if we strive to organize these elements, it is not with the idea of increasing the knowledge of the mind, but rather in order to intensify the pleasure of the senses. But admittedly we also know by feeling, and we can combine the two faculties, and present knowledge in the guise of art.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In the Second World War approximately the same European allies fought approximately the same adversaries as in the first. Though t...he tide of the battle swung more violently to and fro, the battle ended in much the same way--with the defeat of Germany. The link between the two wars went deeper. Germany fought specifically in the second war to reverse the verdict of the first and to destroy the settlement which followed it. Her opponents fought, though less consciously, to defend that settlement; and this they achieved--to their own surprise. There was much utopian projecting while the second war was on; but at the end virtually every frontier of Europe and the Near East was restored unchanged, with the exception--admittedly a large exception--of Poland and the Baltic. Leaving out this area of north-eastern Europe, the only serious change on the map between the English Channel and the Indian Ocean was the transference of Istria from Italy to Yugoslavia. The first war destroyed old Empires and brought new states into existence. The second war created no new states and destroyed only Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »