Jonathan Pond

“What did the Greeks admire in Odysseus? Above all, his capacity for lying, and for cunning and terrible retribution; his being equal to contingencies; when need be, appearing nobler than the noblest; the ability to be whatever he chose; heroic perseverence; having all means at his command; possession of intellect his intellect is the admiration of the gods, they smile when they think of it: all this is the Greek ideal! The most remarkable thing about it is that the antithesis of appearance and being is not felt at all and is thus of no significance morally. Have there ever been such consummate actors!”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality

“Everything changes and nothing stands still.”
― Heraclitus

“What is Democracy; this huge inevitable Product of the Destinies, which is everywhere the portion of our Europe in these latter days? There lies the question for us. Whence comes it, this universal big black Democracy; whither tends it; what is the meaning of it? A meaning it must have, or it would not be here. If we can find the right meaning of it, we may, wisely submitting or wisely resisting and controlling, still hope to live in the midst of it; if we cannot find the right meaning, if we find only the wrong or no meaning in it, to live will not be possible!—The whole social wisdom of the Present Time is summoned, in the name of the Giver of Wisdom, to make clear to itself, and lay deeply to heart with an eye to strenuous valiant practice and effort, what the meaning of this universal revolt of the European Populations, which calls itself Democracy, and decides to continue permanent, may be.”
― Thomas Carlyle, Latter-Day Pamphlets

“Never is a man wholly a saint or a sinner.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha