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Max Nordau Quotes

Civilization is built on a number of ultimate principles... respect for human life, the punishment of crimes against property and persons, the equality of all good citizens before the law... or, in a word justice.

Civilization is built on a number of ultimate principles... respect for human life, the punishment of crimes against property and persons, the equality of all good citizens before the law... or, in a word justice.

Equality, Law, Punishment

Hysteria and degeneration have always existed; but they formerly showed themselves sporadically, and had no importance in the life of the whole community. It was only the vast fatigue which was experienced by the generation on which the multitudes of discoveries and innovations burst abruptly, imposing on it organic exigencies greatly surpassing its strength, which created favourable conditions under which these maladies could gain ground enormously, and become a danger to civilization.

Discovery, Civilization, Hysteria

Max Simon Nordau (1895). “Degeneration”, London, Heinemann

Degenerates are not always criminals, prostitutes, anarchists and pronounced lunatics; they are often authors and artists

Artist, Criminals, Degenerates

Max Simon Nordau (1895). “Degeneration”, London, Heinemann

Let me tell you the following words as if I were showing you the rungs of a ladder leading upward and upward: Herzl; the Zionist Congress; the English Uganda proposition; the future world war; the peace conference where with the help of England a free and Jewish Palestine will be created.

War, Uganda, Ladders

How dare the smooth talkers, the clever official blabbers, open their mouths and boast of progress. . . . Here they hold jubilant peace conferences in which they talk against war. . . . But the same righteous Governments, who are so nobly, industriously active to establish the eternal peace, are preparing, by their own confession, complete annihilation for six million people, and there is nobody, except the doomed themselves, to raise his voice in protest although this is a worse crime than any war . . .

Clever, War, Government

By the end of the 20th Century there will be a generation to whom it will not be injurious to read a dozen quire of newspapers daily, to be constantly called to the telephone... and to live half their time in a railway carriage or in a flying machine.

Flying, Generations, Machines

If I despised myself, it would be no compensation if everyone saluted me, and if I respect myself, it does not trouble me if others hold me lightly.

Respect, Doe, Would Be

We find collected in this book [The Bible] the superstitious beliefs of the ancient inhabitants of Palestine, with indistinct echoes of Indian and Persian fables, mistaken imitation of Egyptian theories and customs, historical chronicles as dry as they are unreliable and miscellaneous poems, amatory, human and Jewish-national, which is rarely distinguished by beauties of the highest order but frequently by superfluity of expression, coarseness, bad taste, and genuine Oriental sensuality.

Book, Echoes, Expression

The first condition a community should set, if it aspires to be a nation, is to own the land whereon it lives, and supply its own needs.

Land, Community, Needs

The artist writes, paints, sings or dances the burden of some idea or feeling off his mind.

Dance, Writing, Artist

Max Simon Nordau (1895). “Degeneration”, London, Heinemann

It is well to be alone. It fertilizes the creative impulse.

Creative, Impulse, Wells

[H]istory is a melodrama on the theme of parasitism, characterized by scenes that are exciting or dull, as the case may be, and many a sudden stagetrick.

History, Dull, May

Max Nordau (1911). “The Interpretation of History”

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