There can be no sexual love without lust; but, on the other hand, until the currents of lust in the organism have been irradiated ...as to affect other parts of the psychic organism--at the least the affections and the social feelings--it is not yet sexual love. Lust, the specific sexual impulse, is indeed the primary and essential element in this synthesis, for it alone is adequate to the end of reproduction, not only in animals but in men. But it is not until lust is expanded and irradiated that it develops into the exquisite and enthralling flower of love.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Smitten as we are with the vision of social righteousness, a God indifferent to everything but adulation, and full of partiality f...or his individual favorites, lacks an essential element of largeness.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... But all the feelings that evoke in us the joy or the misfortune of a real person are only produced in us through the intermedi...ary of an image of that joy or that misfortune; the ingeniousness of the first novelist was in understanding that, in the apparatus of our emotions, since the image is the only essential element, the simplification which consists of purely and simply suppressing the factual characters is a definitive improvement.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What is termed Sin is an essential element of progress. Without it the world would stagnate, or grow old, or become colourless. By... its curiosity Sin increases the experience of the race. Through its intensified assertion of individualism it saves us from monotony of type. In its rejection of the current notions about morality, it is one with the higher ethics.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Out of the element of participation follows the certainty of faith; out of the element of separation follows the doubt in faith. A...nd each is essential for the nature of faith. Sometimes certainty conquers doubt, but it cannot eliminate doubt. The conquered of today may become the conqueror of tomorrow. Sometimes doubt conquers faith, but it still contains faith. Otherwise it would be indifference.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I call demonic the restlessness which is innate and essential in every human being ... (that which) drives one beyond one's limits... into the infinite, into the elemental, as though nature had left behind in every individual soul an inexpressible, restless part of its original chaos, a part that wants to return with tension and passion to the super-human super-sensual element. The demon embodies the ferment, that bubbling, torturesome, upsetting ferment, which urges an otherwise calm life to move in the direction of all that is dangerous, towards excesses, ecstasy, selfdenial, selfdestruction; in most human beings, in the mediocre, this precious but dangerous part of the soul is soon absorbed and consumed ... restrained human beings stifle the Faustian drive within them, chloroform it with morality, dull it with work, restrain it with orderliness; the middle class person is always the mortal enemy of the chaotic.... But in superior human beings, especially in those who are productive, creative restlessness prevails in the form of dissatisfaction with everyday accomplishments.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The preacher then went on to criticise the attitude of religion towards science. "If there is still a feeling of hostility between... them ... it is no longer the fault of religion. There have been times when the church seemed afraid, but she is so no longer. Analyze, dissect, use your microscope or your spectrum till the last atom of matter is reached; reflect and refine till the last element of thought is made clear; the church now knows with the certainty of science what she once knew only by the certainty of faith, that you will find enthroned behind all thought and matter only one central idea,--that idea which the church has never ceased to embody,--I AM!"LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If it were worth while to argue a paradox, one might maintain that nature regards the female as the essential, the male as the sup...erfluity of her world. Perhaps the best starting-point for study of the Virgin would be a practical acquaintance with bees, and especially with queen bees.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Culture is only true when implicitly critical, and the mind which forgets this revenges itself in the critics it breeds. Criticism... is an indispensable element of culture.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »