A Quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Where a man has a passion for meditating without the capacity of thinking, a particular idea fixes itself fast, and soon creates a mental disease. — © Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Where a man has a passion for meditating without the capacity of thinking, a particular idea fixes itself fast, and soon creates a mental disease.
The very term ['mental disease'] is nonsensical, a semantic mistake. The two words cannot go together except metaphorically; you can no more have a mental 'disease' than you can have a purple idea or a wise space". Similarly, there can no more be a "mental illness" than there can be a "moral illness." The words "mental" and "illness" do not go together logically. Mental "illness" does not exist, and neither does mental "health." These terms indicate only approval or disapproval of some aspect of a person's mentality (thinking, emotions, or behavior).
With the modern diseases (once TB, now cancer) the romantic idea that the disease expresses the character is invariably extended to assert that the character causes the disease -- because it has not expressed itself. Passion moves inward, striking and blighting the deepest cellular recesses.
You cannot lead without passion. Passion causes things to move, and passion creates a force multiplier. Passion actually covers a multitude of sins. Real EntreLeaders care deeply, and that is basically what passion is. Passion is not yelling or being wild; it is simply caring deeply.
It is very difficult to be wholly joyous or wholly sad on this earth. The comic, when it is human, soon takes upon itself a face of pain; and some of our griefs (some only, not all, for it is the capacity for suffering which makes man August in the eyes of men) have their source in weaknesses which must be recognized with smiling com passion as the common inheritance of us all.
As long as there is a 'you' doing or not-doing, thinking or not-thinking, 'meditating' or 'not-meditating' you are no closer to home than the day you were born.
The animal kingdom exhibits a series of mental developments which may be regarded as antecedents to the mental development of man, for the mental life of animals shows itself to be throughout, in its elements and in the general laws governing the combination of the elements, the same as the mental life of man.
When meditating, do not expect something to happen. Otherwise, you are meditating on your expectation, and you are not doing the Meditation itself.
No ideology can help to create a new world or a new mind or a new human being -- because ideological orientation itself is the root cause of all the conflicts and all the miseries. Thought creates boundaries, thought creates divisions and thought creates prejudices; thought itself cannot bridge them. That's why all ideologies fail. Now man must learn to live without ideologies religious, political or otherwise. When the mind is not tethered to any ideology, it is free to move to new understandings. And in that freedom flowers all that is good and all that is beautiful.
The ever quickening advances of science made possible by the success of the Human Genome Project will also soon let us see the essences of mental disease. Only after we understand them at the genetic level can we rationally seek out appropriate therapies for such illnesses as schizophrenia and bipolar disease.
Today in the west we are asking the question, why is man unhappy? Answer is very simple. We have created a very fast society but we do not have a cozy home, and without a cozy home we do not have a mental state of nerve relaxed personality. Without having a mental state of nerve relaxed personality, you cannot face this fastness of the outer world; it's impossible.
In fact a man in love or one consumed with hatred creates symbols for himself, as a superstitious man does, from a passion of conferring uniqueness on things or persons. A man who knows nothing of symbols is one of Dante's sluggards. This is why art mirrors itself in primitive rites or strong passions, seeking for symbols, revolving round the primitive taste for savagery, for what is irrational (blood and sex).
You know these things as thoughts, but your thoughts are not your experiences, they are an echo and after-effect of your experiences: as when your room trembles whe na carriage goes past. I however am sitting in the carriage, and often I am the carriage itself. Ina man who thinks like this, the dichotomy between thinking and feeling, intellect and passion, has really disappeared. He feels his thoughts. He can fall in love with an idea. An idea can make him ill.
The passion for setting people right is in itself an afflictive disease.
Every passion gives a particular cast to the countenance, and is apt to discover itself in some feature or other. I have seen an eye curse for half an hour together, and an eyebrow call a man a scoundrel.
A good idea is not enough. It must be the fit of a particular idea for a particular entrepreneur and, ideally, unfair advantages in why said particular entrepreneur is going to address said particular idea.
Passion is the energy that love creates with no object other than itself.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!