Paul de Lagarde

“In his depracation of the political and economic man, of the common man of everyday life, and of the political culture that adapts itself to him, he appeared as an idealist because he had turned his back on modernity, on practicality, because he preferred to legislate for an implausible future rather than to reform an intractable present.”

“Lagarde … sneered at the real, the practical world; he distrusted positivism, loathed materialism, and mocked progress.”

“Lagarde … was more closely attuned to the sufferings of other men and the shortcomings of his culture than those healthy people who were caught up in the bounding advance of their society.”

“In many ways, Lagarde with his tempestuous moods had remained a child, wounded, frightened, craving the affectionate recognition of others, yet so fearful of losing his independence that he rebuffed and insulted the very friends he sought.”

“Our speech has ceased to speak, it shouts; it says cute, not beautiful, colossal, not great; it cannot find the right word any more, because the word is no longer the designation of an object, but the echo of some kind of gossip about the object.”

“Es ist das höchste Glück des Menschen, anzubeten, oder, milder gesagt, andre Menschen über sich anzuerkennen, die er liebt und die ihn lieben.”

“What was most repulsive at the meetings was the stench of the guild, which assailed me everywhere: intellectual proletariat, that labors on its humdrum articles in the sweat of its brow, that does not know that science is to make one free and happy.”