“As it was, we always misunderstood ourselves and rarely understood others. Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes.”

“we always misunderstood ourselves, and rarely understood others”

“Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.”

“Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes. Moralists had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of warning, had claimed for it a certain ethical efficacy in the formation of character, had praised it as something that taught us what to follow and showed us what to avoid. But there was no motive power in experience. It was as little of an active cause as conscience itself. All that it really demonstrated was that our future would be the same as our past, and that the sin we had done once, and with loathing, we would do many times, and with joy.”

“I would rather be a swineherd, understood by the swine, than a poet misunderstood by men.”

“Although we look at ourselves as One, in the real world we always experience ourselves as TWO.”