42 Quotes by Lev Shestov

It is necessary to choose: if you wish to be an empiricist, you must abandon the hope of founding scientific knowledge on a solid and certain basis; if you wish to have a solidly established science, you must place it under the protection of the idea of Necessity and, in addition, recognize this idea as primordial, original, having no beginning and consequently no end - that is to say, you must endow it with the superiorities and qualities that men generally accord to the S

It is not man who pursues truth, but truth man.

Heretics were most often bitterly persecuted for the their least deviation from accepted belief. It was precisely their obstinacy about trifles that irritated the righteous to madness.

And many a time, towards the end of life, does the genius repent of his choice. “It would be better not to startle the world, but to live at one with it,” says Ibsen in his last drama. Genius is a wretched, blind maniac, whose eccentricities are condoned because of what is got from him.

To praise oneself is considered improper, immodest; to praise one’s own sect, one’s own philosophy, is considered the highest duty.

Objectionable, tedious, irritating labour, – this is the condition of genius, which no doubt explains the reason why men so rarely achieve anything. Genius must submit to cultivate an ass within itself – the condition being so humiliating that man will seldom take up the job.

They certified that I was sane; but I know that I am mad.” This confession gives us the key to what is most important and significant in Tolstoy’s hidden life.

Count Tolstoy preached inaction. It seems he had no need. We “inact” remarkably. Idleness, just that idleness Tolstoy dreamed of, a free, conscious idling that despises labour, this is one of the chief characteristics of our time.

Once an idea is there, the gates must be opened to it.