Wherever there is degeneration and apathy, there also is sexual perversion, cold depravity, miscarriage, premature old age, grumbl...ing youth, there is a decline in the arts, indifference to science, and injustice in all its forms.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
America is the only nation in history which, miraculously, has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual inte...rval of civilization.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and furnishes a complete answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the h...uman species, that every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Human beings are compelled to live within a lie, but they can be compelled to do so only because they are in fact capable of livin...g in this way. Therefore not only does the system alienate humanity, but at the same time alienated humanity supports this system as its own involuntary masterplan, as a degenerate image of its own degeneration, as a record of people's own failure as individuals.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Nearly a million species of animals are already known. Of these, only a few thousand are endowed with anything which can be called... intelligence, only a few tens with high intelligence, and only one with conceptual thought. In the same way, there are hundreds of known religions; it had better be left to more orthodox writers than myself to enumerate those which can be called high religions. Animal evolution witnesses to a central upward trend of biological progress; it also shows us the retention of low types along with high, the throwing out of blind-alley side branches of specialisation at every level, and sometimes even degeneration. Religious evolution also shows a central progress--but equally the production of bizarre side-branches, the permanent confining of the religious spirit in low-level embodiments, its projection into every conceivable cul-de-sac, its too frequent bending over from upward to downward growth.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I think middle-age is the best time, if we can escape the fatty degeneration of the conscience which often sets in at about fifty.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
How much disgruntled heaviness, lameness, dampness, dressing gown--how much beer there is in the German intelligence! How is it at... all possible that young men who dedicate their lives to the most spiritual goals do not feel the first instinct of spirituality, the spirit's instinct of self-preservation--and drink beer?... The alcoholism of the young scholars is perhaps no question mark concerning their scholarliness--without spirit one can still be a great scholar--but in every other respect it remains a problem.--Where would one not find the gentle degeneration which beer produces in the spirit?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »