Otto Weininger

“The criminal (as slave) often seeks a person of great perfection (and here, as a judge of people's imperfection, the criminal is much harsher than a good man), because he so wants to obtain trust from outside (not through an inner change of mind). If he believes he has found such a person, he gives himself up to him in the most complete slavery, and he searches in an importunate manner for people whom he could serve as a slave. He also wants to live as a slave so as never to be alone.”

“Napoleon the greatest of the conquerors, is a sufficient proof that great men of action are criminals, and, therefore not geniuses. One can understand him by thinking of the tremendous intensity with which he tried to escape from himself.”

“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.”

“All genius is a conquering of chaos and mystery.”

“Great men have always preferred women of the prostitute type.”

“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.”

“The genius which runs to madness is no longer genius.”

“Fate determines many things, no matter how we struggle.”

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

“Woman is soulless and possesses neither ego nor individuality, personality nor freedom, character nor will.”

“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.”

“Napoleon, the greatest of the conquerors, is a sufficient proof that great men of action are criminals, and therefore, not geniuses. One can understand him by thinking of the tremendous intensity with which he tried to escape from himself. There is this element in all the conquerors, great or small. Just because he had great gifts, greater than those of any emperor before him, he had greater difficulty in stifling the disapproving voice within him. The motive of his ambition was the craving to stifle his better self.”

“Among the notable things about fire is that it also requires oxygen to burn - exactly like its enemy, life. Thereby are life and flames so often compared.”