The Greeks have given to the world the science of history; the Israelites gave to the world historical religion. In contrast to al...l their neighbors, both peoples knew what history is; this is no consequence of their mental giftedness, however, for there is another reason. Through mighty events both peoples experienced what history is, and by the investment of their lives they made history. The peculiar mental capacity of each of the two peoples comes to the fore in the way in which they experience history and express it. For both peoples history was a source of present and future knowledge. Thucydides wrote his history because what happened would, according to human ways, surely happen again in the future in the same or a similar way. This was conceived in a genuinely Greek way, for history is an eternal repetition; nothing new happens under the sun. Even in the stream of eternally changing events the Greeks sought the unalterable, the regular occurrence. Thus they employed the same method with regard to history as with regard to nature because history was a piece of nature. For this reason their mental life can justifiably be called non-historical. If God is to be found, he must be sought in the unalterable, in mental being, in the Ideas. God revealed himself to the Israelites in history and not in Ideas; he revealed himself when he acted and created. His being was not learned through propositions but known in actions.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Morality becomes hypocrisy if it means accepting mothers' suffering or dying in connection with unwanted pregnancies and illegal a...bortions and unwanted children.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Ibsen is like this room where we are sitting, with all the tables and chairs. Do I care whether you have twenty or twenty-five lin...ks on your chain? Hedda Gabler, Nora and the rest: it is not that I want! I want Rome and the Coliseum, the Acropolis, Athens; I want beauty, and the flame of life.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Many a play is like a painted backdrop, something to be looked at from the front. An Ibsen play is like a black forest, something ...you can enter, something you can walk about in. There you can lose yourself: you can lose yourself. And once inside, you find such wonderful glades, such beautiful, sunlit places.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The actor who lets the dust accumulate on his Ibsen, his Shakspere [sic], and his Bible, but pores greedily over every little colu...mn of theatrical news, is a lost soul.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I'm afraid for all those who'll have the bread snatched from their mouths by these machines.... What business has science and capi...talism got, bringing all these new inventions into the works, before society has produced a generation educated up to using them!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What in fact have I achieved, however much it may seem? Bits and pieces ... trivialities. But here they won't tolerate anything el...se, or anything more. If I wanted to take one step in advance of the current views and opinions of the day, that would put paid to any power I have. Do you know what we are ... those of us who count as pillars of society? We are society's tools, neither more nor less.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The majority is never right. Never, I tell you! That's one of these lies in society that no free and intelligent man can help rebe...lling against. Who are the people that make up the biggest proportion of the population--the intelligent ones or the fools? I think we can agree it's the fools, no matter where you go in this world, it's the fools that form the overwhelming majority.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »