Max Simon Nordau

“ In Germany Socialism with myriads of tiny teeth, is stealthily gnawing at the columns that uphold the structures of State and society, and nothing, not even the allurements of State and Christian Socialism, nor the countless traps set for it by the laws and the police, nor the state of siege in the capital, can disturb for a single instant, the secret, noiseless, untiring work of this insatiable subterranean destroyer. ”

“ They are always, I say always, without exceptions, clammy mollusc-souls, slimy, cringing hangers-on, who spend their lives in stifling every sentiment of manly independence, culling out every trace of pride and self-esteem, abasing themselves before any one superior to them in station and imitating his peculiarities to flatter themselves into his favor, counterfeiting extravagant loyalty to his person, and finally, as a fitting crown for the services of a lifetime, spent in crawling in the mire, they beg for a title of nobility. ”

“ Why should an organic function, the most important of all by far, because its purpose is the perpetuation of the species, why should it be less decent than others whose purpose is only the preservation of the individual? Why should eating and sleeping be legitimate actions which are openly practiced, spoken of and acknowledged, while generation is a sin and a disgrace which can not be sufficiently concealed and denied? Is not puberty the crowning point of the development of the individual, and its own reproduction its highest triumph and most glorious manifestation? ”

“ I will not enter upon a searching criticism of this theory of woman's emancipation, only remarking in a few words that the struggle for existence would assume phases even more ghastly than at present, if both sexes stood upon the same plane of equality. If woman should become the serious rival of man in many branches of industry, she would as the weaker, be crushed without consideration. Gallantry is an invention of prosperity and leisure. Want and hunger destroy this sentiment upon which woman calculates when she imagines a world in which she could wrestle with man for her daily bread. ”

“ I am convinced that the day will come when even the humblest man will find his individual life merged into the fuller life of the community, and his isolated, circumscribed horizon broadened by means of festivals of poetry, music, art, thought and humanity, until it coincides with the horizon of the entire human race, thus leading him on to nobler standards of development and setting before him the grand ideal of a perfected humanity. ”

“ You cowardly, incapable creature, how do you come to be at the head of a great army? You ignorant blockhead, who are unable to spoil your own mother-tongue correctly, why are you the high and mighty protector of the academies and universities? You criminal, why have you the right to award sentence of life or death upon those accused of crime? You fickle glutton, why are you the rewarder of virtue and merit? ”

“ All living beings, plants as well as animals, consider procreation the most sublime act of their vital energies, and summon nature with pride to be a witness of it, the flowers with their display of brilliant colors and their fragrance, the birds, "warbling sweet the nuptial lay," the fire-fly with its brilliant ray of light, the mammiferous animals by the roars and growls of then wooings and the fury of their rival—combats man alone is ashamed of his most powerful instinct and conceals it like a crime. ”

“ If we are honest we must allow that man and woman, even in the highest paroxysms of a new-born love, keep an obscure corner in their soul which is not illumined by the beams of the concrete passion, where lurk the germs of diverging sympathies and desires. We keep these germs concealed, owing perhaps to a sense of honor instilled into us by our training, we do not allow them to develope at once, but we are continually conscious of their existence and we feel that they would soon grow to be large and strong if we did not prevent their development. ”

“ Certainly it is true that if a man can get as much money for a rocket as for a fowl, then the rocket is worth as much as the fowl, and he who makes a rocket adds as much to the wealth of the nation as he who raises a fowl. And yet it is a lie. No, it is not the same to humanity whether rockets or fowls are produced. No, the Alpine guide is not as valuable to the human race as the fireman of the steam thrashing machine, although it may pay him higher wages than the latter. I know that my distinctions are leading me to attack all articles of luxury. ”

“ What wonder then that they look upon every act of their life, marriage included, solely and exclusively from the standpoint of their personal, palpable advantage in the struggle for existence? Why should they allow love to influence them in the selection of a husband or wife? Because humanity would be better off by it? What do they care for humanity? What has humanity done for them? Does it satisfy their appetite when they are hungry? Does it give them work when they can find no work to do? ”

“ What a curious paradox this phase of the development of civilization presents! The monarchical form of government, which has been able to hold its own from the earliest prehistoric ages to the present day, has long since thrown away as superfluous, those reasons for its existence which could be accepted by the intellect, and only retained those which vanish into nothing at the first ray of rational criticism.
The monarchy of today depends for its authority not upon its actual power, but upon its divine origin. It commands no longer by the strength of its army, but by the "grace of God." ”

“ But in reality, we can no more conceive of absolute non-existence, than we can of eternity, and neither of these terms conveys any exact idea to our minds. The fact that a few master-minds have succeeded in gaining a kind of dim suspicion of their meaning, too illusory to be described in words, is one of the greatest triumphs of the human intellect. If it were possible to carry on a train of thought independent of the consciousness of the Ego, it would be in the nature of a raising ourselves out of and beyond our actual selves. ”

“ Does it not return to the individual the liberty of which he has been deprived by Fiscalism and Mandarinism and the laws passed in their interests? Does it not change the feudal subject into the modern citizen? Does it not place in the hands of every individual the right to govern and decide the destinies of the State, in conjunction with the rest? Is not the voter on the day when his representative is elected, a real sovereign, exercising even if indirectly, the old royal privileges of appointing employés, passing laws, levying taxes and deciding upon the foreign policy of the Government? ”

“ When I call Religion a conventional lie of civilized society, I do not mean by the word Religion, a belief in super-natural, abstract powers. This belief is sincere with most people. It still exists unconsciously even in men of the highest culture, and there are but few children of the Nineteenth Century, who have become so convinced of the inevitable necessity of viewing the world from the standpoint of natural science, that this conviction has penetrated into the farthest recesses of their minds, where moods, sentiments, and emotions are evolved, beyond the control of the will. ”

“ We acknowledge the struggle for existence as the inevitable foundation for all law and morality, and yet, every day we pass laws to uphold and perpetuate conditions which absolutely prevent the free exercise of our powers, and deny to the strong and those worthy of the fullest life, the right to make use of their strength, and we stigmatize their inevitable victory over the feeble, as a capital crime. Thus our whole system of life is based upon false principles which we have inherited from former ages, which are in direct and flagrant opposition to every one of our present convictions. ”

“ The same instinct seems to impel the human race as a whole, to abandon the food-producing soil and cast themselves into the slough of manufacturing industry where they suffocate and starve The whole genius of mankind, all its powers of invention, contrivance and investigation, all its enquiry and experiments, are applied exclusively to manufactures. We see the results: the machines grow more and more wonderful, the systems of labor more and more perfect, the production of goods more and more prolific. But hardly one inventive genius in a hundred busies himself with the production of food. ”

“ Man has the same instincts in Christianism as in paganism; he desires and obtains woman's favor the same; but he has not the pure and ennobling sentiment that he is engaged in a laudable action, but is haunted by the idea that he is treading forbidden paths; it seems to him as if he were committing a crime that must be concealed, he feels degraded by the compulsion to deception and hypocrisy, and condemned to a perpetual lie against himself, the beloved object and mankind in general, by the necessity for leaving unavowed the natural aim of his affections the possession of the beloved being. ”

“ The greatest evil of our times is the prevailing cowardice. We do not dare to assert our opinions, to bring our outward lives into harmony with our inward convictions; we believe it to be worldly policy to cling outwardly to relics of former ages when at heart we are completely severed from them. We do not wish to shock anyone, nor offend anyone's prejudices, and we call this "respecting the convictions of others"—those others who in return do not respect our convictions, who ridicule them, who persecute them, and who would like best to exterminate them and us at the same time. ”

“ The possession of an illustrious and honored name is usually a guarantee that the person to whom it belongs will have a surer and more correct comprehension of duty and a higher ideal of humanity, than an individual of a more obscure origin. Of course this universal rule can not be applied to all cases. A prince or duke of the most ancient pedigree may be a scamp, and the son of a day-laborer, or even some foundling picked up in a city gutter, may be the most brilliant example of dignity of character and self-abnegating heroism ever seen. ”