Otto Weininger Quotes

Quotes about:

• No men who really think deeply about women retain a high opinion of them; men either despise women or they have never thought seriously about them.

  Otto Weininger

  Women, Thinking, Opinion

  Otto Weininger (1906). “Sex & Character”, p.236, Рипол Классик

  35 Copy quote

• Sending children away to get control of their anger perpetuates the feeling of 'badness" inside them...Chances are they were already feeling not very good about themselves before the outburst and the isolation just serves to confirm in their own minds that they were right.

  Otto Weininger

  Children, Feelings, Mind

  50 Copy quote

• In those rare individual cases where women approach genius they also approach masculinity.

  Otto Weininger

  Genius, Individual, Cases

  27 Copy quote

• Mankind occurs as male or female, as something or nothing. Woman has no share in ontological reality, no relation to the thing-in-itself, which, in the deepest interpretation, is the absolute, is God. Man in his highest form, the genius, has such a relation, and for him the absolute is either the conception of the highest worth of existence, in which case he is a philosopher; or it is the wonderful fairyland of dreams, the kingdom of absolute beauty, and then he is an artist.

  Otto Weininger

  Dream, Artist, Reality

  "Sex & Character".

  26 Copy quote

• A genius has perhaps scarcely ever appeared amongst the negroes, and the standard of their morality is almost universally so low that it is beginning to be acknowledged in America that their emancipation was an act of imprudence.

  Otto Weininger

  America, Genius, Morality

  Otto Weininger (1907). “Sex & Character”

  20 Copy quote

• It is not the fear of death which creates the desire for immortality, but the desire for immortality which causes the fear of death.

  Otto Weininger

  Desire, Causes, Immortality

  Sex and Character Pt II, Ch. 5

  18 Copy quote

• The decision must be made between Judaism and Christianity, between business and culture, between male and female, between the race and the individual, between unworhtiness and worth, between the earthly and the higher life, between negation and God-like. Mankind has the choice to make. There are only two poles, and there is no middle way.

  Otto Weininger

  Race, Two, Choices

  24 Copy quote

• Man is alone in the world, in tremendous eternal isolation. He has no object outside himself; lives for nothing else; he is far removed from being the slave of his wishes, of his abilities, of his necessities; he stands far above social ethics; he is alone. Thus he becomes one and all.

  Otto Weininger

  Men, Wish, World

  Otto Weininger (1906). “Sex & Character”, p.162, Рипол Классик

  13 Copy quote

• The man of genius possesses, like everything else, the complete female in himself; but woman herself is only a part of the Universe, and the part can never be the whole; femaleness can never include genius. This lack of genius on the part of woman is inevitable because woman is not a monad, and cannot reflect the Universe.

  Otto Weininger

  Men, Female, Genius

  Otto Weininger (1907). “Sex & Character”

  18 Copy quote

• Every true, eternal problem is an equally true, eternal fault; every answer an atonement, every realisation an improvement.

  Otto Weininger

  Answers, Faults, Improvement

  27 Copy quote

• Woman, in short, has an unconscious life, man a conscious life, and the genius the most conscious life.

  Otto Weininger

  Men, Genius, Conscious

  Otto Weininger (1906). “Sex & Character”, p.113, Рипол Классик

  17 Copy quote

• The Jew is an inborn Communist.

  Otto Weininger

  Communist, Jew

  Otto Weininger (1907). “Sex & Character”

  12 Copy quote

• In the case of complex personalities the matter stands thus: one of these can understand other men better than they can understand themselves, because within himself he has not only the character he is grasping, but also its opposite. Duality is necessary for observation and comprehension.

  Otto Weininger

  Character, Men, Opposites

  Otto Weininger (1906). “Sex & Character”, p.110, Рипол Классик

  16 Copy quote

• But the higher a man mounts, the greater may be his fall; all genius is a conquering of chaos, mystery.

  Otto Weininger

  Genius, Chaos, Mystery

  "Sex & Character".

  16 Copy quote

• No one suffers so much as he [the genius] with the people, and, therefore, for the people, with whom he lives. For, in a certain sense, it is certainly only "by suffering" that a man knows. If compassion is not itself clear, abstractly conceivable or visibly symbolic knowledge, it is, at any rate, the strongest impulse for the acquisition of knowledge. It is only by suffering that the genius understands men. And the genius suffers most because he suffers with and in each and all; but he suffers most through his understanding. . . .

  Otto Weininger

  Men, Compassion, People

  Otto Weininger (1906). “Sex & Character”, p.181, Рипол Классик

  15 Copy quote

• An individual's arrogance is always in proportion to his lack of self-assurance.

  Otto Weininger

  Self, Arrogance, Individual

  Otto Weininger (2005). “Sex and Character: An Investigation of Fundamental Principles”, p.147, Indiana University Press

  13 Copy quote

• A man is first reverent about himself, and self-respect is the first stage in reverence for all things.

  Otto Weininger

  Men, Self, Firsts

  Otto Weininger (1906). “Sex & Character”, p.127, Рипол Классик

  12 Copy quote

• Universality is the distinguishing mark of genius. There is no such thing as a special genius, a genius for mathematics, or for music, or even for chess, but only a universal genius. The genius is a man who knows everything without having learned it.

  Otto Weininger

  Men, Special, Genius

  Otto Weininger (1906). “Sex & Character”, p.112, Рипол Классик

  12 Copy quote

• It is certainly true that most men need some kind of a God. A few, and they are the men of genius, do not bow to an alien law. The rest try to justify their doings and misdoings, their thinking and existence (at least the menial side of it), to some one else, whether it be the personal God of the Jews, or a beloved, respected, and revered human being. It is only in this way that they can bring their lives under the social law. . . .

  Otto Weininger

  Men, Thinking, Law

  8 Copy quote

• The man of genius is he whose ego has acquired consciousness. He is enabled by it to distinguish the fact that others are different, to perceive the "ego" of other men, even when it is not pronounced enough for them to be conscious of it themselves. But it is only he who feels that every other man is also an ego, a monad, an individual centre of the universe, with specific manner of feeling and thinking and a distinct past, he alone is in a position to avoid making use of his neighbours as means to an end.

  Otto Weininger

  Mean, Past, Men

  Otto Weininger (1907). “Sex & Character”

  17 Copy quote

• The fixed stars signify the angel in man. That is why man orients himself by them; and that is why women have no appreciation for the starry sky; because they have no sense of the angel in man.

  Otto Weininger

  Appreciation, Stars, Angel

  Otto Weininger, Steven A. M. Burns (2001). “A translation of Weininger's Über die letzten Dinge, 1904-1907, On last things”, Edwin Mellen Pr

  52 Copy quote

• There are probably very few people who have not at some time of their lives had some quality of genius. If they have not had such, it is probable that they have also been without great sorrow or great pain. They would have needed only to live sufficiently intently for a time for some quality to reveal itself. The poems of first love are a case in point, and certainly such love is a sufficient stimulus.

  Otto Weininger

  Pain, First Love, Love Is

  Otto Weininger (1906). “Sex & Character”, p.121, Рипол Классик

  6 Copy quote

• A creature that cannot grasp the mutual exclusiveness of A and not A has no difficulty in lying; more than that, such a creature has not even any consciousness of lying, being without a standard of truth.

  Otto Weininger

  Lying, Consciousness, Standards

  Otto Weininger (1906). “Sex & Character”, p.150, Рипол Классик

  13 Copy quote

• With ordinary men the moments which are united in a close continuity out of the original discrete multiplicity are very few, and the course of their lives resembles a little brook, whereas with the genius it is more like a mighty river into which all the little rivulets flow from afar; that is to say, the universal comprehension of genius vibrates to no experience in which all the individual moments have not been gathered up and stored.

  Otto Weininger

  Men, Rivers, Ordinary

  Otto Weininger (1906). “Sex & Character”, p.124, Рипол Классик

  7 Copy quote

• Genius declares itself to be a kind of higher masculinity.

  Otto Weininger

  Genius, Kind, Masculinity

  Otto Weininger (1906). “Sex & Character”, p.111, Рипол Классик

  7 Copy quote

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