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

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Otto Weininger
Age: 23 †
Born: 1880
Born: April 3
Died: 1903
Died: October 4
Philosopher
Psychologist
Writer
Vienna
Austria
Understand
Opposite
Duality
Also
Opposites
Grasping
Character
Thus
Comprehension
Better
Case
Personalities
Matter
Necessary
Observation
Men
Personality
Stands
Cases
Complexes
Within
Complex

More quotes by Otto Weininger

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The number of different aspects that the face of a man has assumed may be taken almost as a physiognomical measure of his ... genius.
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A man is first reverent about himself, and self-respect is the first stage in reverence for all things.
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In order to depict a man one must understand him, and to understand him one must be like him in order to portray his psychological activities one must be able to reproduce them in oneself. To understand a man one must have his nature in oneself.
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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.
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The Jew is an inborn Communist.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The great man of science, unless he is also a philosopher, ... deserves the title of genius as little as the man of action.
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Fate determines many things, no matter how we struggle.
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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.
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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
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The deepest, the intelligible, part of the nature of man is that part which does not take refuge in causality, but which chooses in freedom the good or the bad.
Otto Weininger
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The genius which runs to madness is no longer genius.
Otto Weininger
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Colour-blindness always extends to the complementary colours. Those who are red blind are also green blind those who are blind to blue have no consciousness of yellow. This law holds good for all mental phenomena it is a fundamental condition of consciousness.
Otto Weininger
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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.
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Logic and ethics are fundamentally the same, they are no more than duty to oneself
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Everything evil is revenge.
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A man is himself important precisely in proportion that all things seem important to him.
Otto Weininger