There are two ways of extending life: firstly by moving…

There are two ways of extending life: firstly by moving the two points “born” and “died” farther away from one another… The other method is to go more slowly and leave the two points wherever God wills they should be, and this method is for the philosophers.

Sourced, Aphorisms (1765-1799)

B 22

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We do not think good metaphors are anything very important, but I think that a good metaphor is something even the police should keep an eye on… - View Quote Details on We do not think good metaphors are anything very important,…
There were honest people long before there were Christians and there are, God be praised, still honest people where there are no Christians. It could therefore easily be possible that people are Christians because true Christianity corresponds to what they would have been even if Christianity did not exist. - View Quote Details on There were honest people long before there were Christians and…
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One’s first step in wisdom is to question everything — and one’s last is to come to terms with everything. - View Quote Details on One’s first step in wisdom is to question everything —…
A great speech is easy to learn by heart and a great poem even easier. How hard it would be to memorize as many words linked together senselessly, or a speech in a foreign tongue! Sense and understanding thus come to the aid of memory. Sense is order and order is in the last resort conformity with our nature. When we speak rationally we are only speaking in accordance with the nature of our being. That is why we devise genera and species in the case of plants and animals. The hypotheses we make belong here too: we are obliged to have them because otherwise we would unable to retain things… The question is, however, whether everything is legible to us. Certainly experiment and reflection enable us to introduce a significance into what is not legible, either to us or at all: thus we see faces or landscapes in the sand, though they are certainly not there. The introducion of symmetries belongs here too, silhouettes in inkblots, etc. Likewise the gradation we establish in the order of creatures: all this is not in the things but in us. In general we cannot remember too often that when we observe nature, and especially the ordering of nature, it is always ourselves alone we are observing. - View Quote Details on A great speech is easy to learn by heart and…
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The expression divine service should cease to be applied to church attendance and be applied instead to good deeds. - View Quote Details on The expression divine service should cease to be applied to…
One is rarely an impulsive innovator after the age of sixty, but one can still be a very fine orderly and inventive thinker. One rarely procreates children at that age, but one is all the more skilled at educating those who have already been procreated, and education is procreation of another kind. - View Quote Details on One is rarely an impulsive innovator after the age of…
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