African Spir - Man Quotes

26 Sourced Quotes

View all African Spir Quotes
The more gifted by nature is a man, the more is deplorable the abuse that he does by using them to shameful ends. A swindler of higher condition is more blameworthy than a vulgar scoundrel; an intelligent evil-doer, having benefited from a higher education, represent a more saddening phenomenon than an unfortunate illiterate fellow having committed an offence.

African Spir
A good man never wholly perishes, the best part of his being outlives in eternity.

African Spir
In ancient times, any man rising up above the common people tried to shape his life according to his principles; it is no longer like than now; it is (because) for the ancients, moral was a principle of inner life, whereas in our days, most of the time one is content to adhere to an official moral, that we recognize in theory, but that one does not care to put into practice.

African Spir
Arbitrariness and true liberty are as distinct from each other that the empirical nature is distinct from the higher nature of man.

African Spir
If we recognize, following the materialist theories, that only the physical nature exist, and that man contain no higher essence, divine, which, by one side of his being, raise him above his animal nature, it would be a question neither of obligation, nor of moral responsibility; then the supreme good would consist for him, indeed, to satisfy his appetites and his natural inclinations, to look for the pleasure and flee from pain. In this case, there could be neither religion nor moral, since religion is precisely what raise man above vulgar reality, and that moral is the very negation of selfishness.

African Spir
When under the influence of certain reasons (alcohol, war, etc.), the low instincts are unbridled, the brute appears and rule over, stifling every noble, generous impulse; it is then the ruin of any humanity in man.

African Spir
Outward, thanks to the knowledge of physical laws, man could subdue nature, but inwardly, he remained a slave to it. For, when all is said and done, at what is aiming all this display of activity, if not to realized outward profits, to provide material pleasure. It is not the first time that men sell their birth right for a dish of lentils, and thus disown the best of themselves.

African Spir
A man, engaged in his simple reflections in everyday life, will comprehend neither the possibility, nor the benefits of self-sacrifice, but, when given a great cause to defend, and he will find only natural to sacrifice oneself for it.

African Spir
When a man make of his personal interests the mainspring of his life and he is greedy to make use of everything that can benefit him, he naturally enters into conflict with other persons, acting also in their interests, hence the disagreements that can become a hundred years old, and drive whole generations to a mutual hate.

African Spir
Man is in pursuit of two goals: he is looking for happiness and, being by essence empty, he is trying to fill his life; the latter reason play a more considerable role than we ordinarily think. What we take for vainglory, ambition, love of power and riches, is often, indeed, a need to mask this emptiness, a need to let one's hair down, to put oneself on a false scent or trail.

African Spir
The divine element manifests itself in man as well by his aptitude for science, than by his aptitude for virtue. True morality, true philosophy and true art are in their essence religious.

African Spir
The intellectual development of man, far from having get men away from war, has, rather, on the contrary, bring them to a refinement always more perfected in the art of killing. They even came to raise the methods of slaughter to the rank of "science"… We would not imagine a more extraordinary moral blindness!

African Spir
The doctrine expounded by me is the true one, but I am not its author. I have only been, so to speak, the soil in which it has germinated and has developed itself with an extreme slowness in the course of long years. Also there has never been such a disproportion between the man and his work than in my case, and what is the saddest, is that one has to suffer because of the incapacity and the weakness of the other. A man more capable than me, possessing this doctrine, would already have stirred the world.

African Spir
The peculiar value that such and such activity can have for a man rather really depends on the spirit in which it was deployed than its importance or its scope. Thus the most humble work can be accomplished by a great genius, whereas the highest functions, such as to rule over a whole people, can be practiced in a petty spirit of personal glorification, as it is frequently seen.

African Spir
The need for sociability induce man to be in touch with his fellow men. However, this need might not find its full satisfaction in the conventional and deceitful world, in which everyone is mostly trying to assert oneself in front of others, to appear, and hoping to find in society relationships some advantages for his interest and vanity.

African Spir
The physical man, who does not imagine that everything is relative, yield to outer force, that impress him from outside, and whose effects are tangible to him, whether they manifest themselves by force, wealth or by domination.

African Spir
It is erroneous to consider the multiplication of needs as a sign of progress, to think that it is necessary to arouse in the people still unpolished, new needs to bring them to a more civilized life. Similarly it is erroneous to expect to measure the degree of culture of a man to the degree of refinement he make in his methods of pleasure.

African Spir
The more a man is successful in getting out from his own individuality, of his egoist self, and to control the instincts of his physical nature, the more his character, by rising above material contingencies, widen, become free and independent.

African Spir
As humanity has begun with flint tools, and has arrived little by little to the so powerful and perfected machines of today, so man, by shaping himself generation after generation, will arrive to a degree of perfection of which, up to here, the exemple was given to us only by rares individuals.

African Spir
Men in general are too inclined to let themselves be overawed by what is quantitatively great. It is thus that even thoughtful minds let themselves be impressed by the strength of Napoleon I, to much so that seeing in his person something majestic, when indeed he only have had selfish plans. Half the earth is put to fire and sword to obtain to a man the pleasant sensation of his own absolute power.

African Spir
A savage man, questioned on what is good and what is wrong, answered: 'Right is when I defeat and deprive others; wrong is when I am beaten and deprived by them.' This is the voice of the natural man, who does not understand that good is always good, and wrong is always wrong, whether it happens to ourselves or it happens to others.

African Spir
If man do not find in himself the required force to accomplish his moral aspirations, he can try to put himself in the conditions suitable to assist his self-control.

African Spir
The incorporation of every individual in a collective mechanism of production, would mean the renunciation for man himself of its independence and his dignity as a rational being. The results of such a state of things would be: regression and deterioration in every fields of life. For the true progress consist in the accomplishment of higher ends, and these would be directly made impossible in a coercive social mechanism. Let us think to the fate that, in these conditions, new truths would have in store.

African Spir
Education has a tremendous power on man. Can't we see to which astonishing disciple the people of Sparta have submitted for centuries, and this with a view to very petty purposes: purely outer greatness, the military predominance of Sparta. This example proves that man can everything on themselves when they want it; therefore it would only be a question of making them will the good.

African Spir
What is the use for a man to have at his disposal a large field of action, if within himself he remains confine to the narrow limits of his individuality.

African Spir
There is a radical dualism between the empirical nature of man and its moral nature.

African Spir