We have not chosen this time. We cannot help it if we are born as men of the early winter of full Civilization, instead of on the golden summit of a ripe Culture, in a Phidias or a Mozart time. Everything depends on our seeing our own position, our destiny, clearly, on our realizing that though we may lie to ourselves about it, we cannot evade it. He who does not acknowledge this in his heart, ceases to be counted among the men of his generation, and remains either a simpleton, a charlatan, or a pedant.
Oswald SpenglerAll world-improvers are Socialists. And consequently there are no Classical world-improvers.
Oswald SpenglerYou are caught in the current of unceasing change. Your life is a ripple in it. Every moment of your conscious life links the infinite past with the infinite future. Take part in both and you will not find the present empty.
Oswald SpenglerIt doesn't really matter what one writes into a constitution. The important thing is what the collective instinct eventually makes of it.
Oswald SpenglerPhilosophy, the love of Wisdom, is at the very bottom defence against the incomprehensible.
Oswald SpenglerTo-day we live so cowed under the bombardment of this intellectual artillery that hardly anyone can attain to the inward detachment that is required for a clear view of the monstrous drama. The will-to-power operating under a pure democratic disguise has finished off its masterpiece so well that the object's sense of freedom is actually flattered by the most thorough-going enslavement that has ever existed.
Oswald Spengler