1836
1836
Jan. It is a very curious thing about superstition. One would expect that the man who had once seen that his morbid dreams were not fulfilled would abandon them for the future; but on the contrary they grow even stronger just as the love of gambling increases in a man who has once lost in the lottery.
Feb. People understand me so little that they do not even understand when I complain of being misunderstood.
March. The difference between a man who faces death for the sake of an idea and an imitator who goes in search of martyrdom is that whilst the former expresses his idea most fully in death it is the strange feeling of bitterness which comes from failure that the latter really enjoys; the former rejoices in his victory, the latter in his suffering.
The three great ideas (Don Juan, Faust and the Wandering Jew) represent, as it were, life outside religion in its three-fold direction, and only when those ideas are merged in the individual and become mediate, only then do morals and religion appear; that is my view of those three ideas in relation to my dogmatic standpoint.
A man walked along contemplating suicide; at that very moment a slate fell and killed him, and he died with the words : God be praised.
I have just returned from a party of which I was the life and soul; wit poured from my lips, everyone laughed and admired me—but I went away—and the dash should be as long as the earth’s orbit——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————and wanted to shoot myself.
’Sdeath, I can abstract from everything but not from myself. I cannot even forget myself when I am asleep.
Is it true that I should not laugh at my own jokes?
The omnipresence of wit.
Exactly how can one explain the inclination, which manifests itself in people who are in some sense or other fallen, to throw themselves into life instead of shunning it. J. Jørgensen for example, says that when he is drunk he feels an almost irresistible urge to be with people, to go wherever there are crowds.
Aug. 25. When Goethe had accomplished the transition involved by a return to classical antiquity, why did the age not follow him, why did it not follow Hegel, why does it have no effect? Because they both limited it to an æsthetic and speculative development, but the political development had also to go through its romantic movement and that is why all the romantics of the newer school are—politicians.
Oct. 8. The extraordinary way in which something long forgotten suddenly bursts into consciousness is really remarkable; for example, the recollection of something wrong of which one was hardly conscious at the moment of acting—Lightning announcing a violent storm. They do not come forward, they literally burst forth with tremendous power, demanding to be heard. And that, generally speaking, is how we are to understand the passage in the Gospels: that on the day of judgment man will be held responsible for every idle word he has spoken.
What Schleiermacher calls “Religion ” and the Hegelians “Faith ” is at the bottom nothing but the first immediate condition for everything—the vital fluidum—the spiritual atmosphere we breathe in—and which cannot therefore with justice be designated by those words.
The old man whom I met in the theatre who had been going to Don Juan for thirty years (Tradition).