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The great artist is the man who most obviously succeeds in turning his pains to advantage, in letting suffering deepen his understanding and sensibility, in growing through his pains.

Walter Kaufmann

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Walter Kaufmann
Age: 59 †
Born: 1921
Born: July 1
Died: 1980
Died: September 4
Philosopher
Poet
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
Freiburg/Breisgau
Walter Arnold Kaufmann
David Dennis
Art
Obviously
Great
Advantage
Men
Succeed
Deepen
Growing
Succeeds
Understanding
Pains
Suffering
Sensibility
Pain
Letting
Artist
Turning

More quotes by Walter Kaufmann

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The problem of suffering is: why is there the suffering we know?
Walter Kaufmann
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For atheism and polytheism there is no special problem of suffering, nor need there be for every kind of monotheism.
Walter Kaufmann
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Success is no proof of virtue. In the case of a book, quick acclaim is presumptive evidence of a lack of substance and originality.
Walter Kaufmann
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The Greeks had considered hope the final evil in Pandora's box. They also gave us an image of perfect nobility: a human being lovingly doing her duty to another human being despite all threats, and going to her death with pride and courage, not deterred by any hope - Antigone.
Walter Kaufmann
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Philosophy means liberation from the - routine, soaring above the well known, seeing it in new perspectives, arousing wonder and the wish to fly.
Walter Kaufmann
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Words signify man's refusal to accept the world as it is.
Walter Kaufmann
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To an even moderately sophisticated and well-read person it should come as no surprise that any religion at all has its hidden as well as its obvious beauties and is capable of profound and impressive interpretations. What is deeply objectionable about most of these interpretations is that they allow the believer to say Yes while evading any No.
Walter Kaufmann
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No other German writer of comparable stature has been a more extreme critic of German nationalism than Nietzsche.
Walter Kaufmann
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Mundus vult decipi: the world wants to be deceived. The truth is too complex and frightening the taste for the truth is an acquired taste that few acquire…. ….The world winks at dishonesty. the world does not call it dishonesty
Walter Kaufmann
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Reason may not always tell us what to believe, but it can help us on what we shouldn't believe.
Walter Kaufmann
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Life ceases to be so oppressive: we are free to give our own lives meaning and purpose, free to redeem our suffering by making something of it.
Walter Kaufmann
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Thirdly, even if we assume that the world is governed by purpose, we need only add that this purpose - or, if there are several, at least one of them - is not especially intent on preventing suffering, whether it is indifferent to suffering or actually rejoices in it.
Walter Kaufmann
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When Hegel later became a man of influence' he insisted that the Jews should be granted equal rights because civic rights belong to man because he is a man and not on account of his ethnic origins or his religion.
Walter Kaufmann
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Rabbi Zusya said that on the Day of Judgment, God would ask him, not why he had not been Moses, but why he had not been Zusya.
Walter Kaufmann
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The deepest difference between religions is not that between polytheism and monotheism.
Walter Kaufmann
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Faith means intense, usually confident, belief that is not based on evidence sufficient to command assent from every reasonable person.
Walter Kaufmann
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Writing is thinking in slow motion.
Walter Kaufmann
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It is widely assumed, contrary to fact, that theism necessarily involves the two assumptions which cannot be squared with the existence of so much suffering, and that therefore, per impossibile, they simply have to be squared with the existence of all this suffering, somehow.
Walter Kaufmann
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It does not follow that the meaning must be given from above that life and suffering must come neatly labeled that nothing is worth while if the world is not governed by a purpose.
Walter Kaufmann
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Job's forthright indictment of the injustice of this world is surely right. The ways of the world are weird and much more unpredictable than either scientists or theologians generally make things look.
Walter Kaufmann