His gaze lit upon a lovely girl who was just crossing the street diagonally, carefully lifting her skirt as she did so as to reveal a pair of charming little ankle boots. He had to smile about the about childish impatience of his desire to deck Marfa out like this until she too was a lovely girl -- bring her out of her dour shell. But Marfa was not coming. -- ("A Reunion"), p. 103
German-Russian essayist, philosopher, and psychoanalyst (1861–1937)
Lou Andreas-Salomé (born either Louise von Salomé or Luíza Gustavovna Salomé or Lioulia von Salomé; 12 February 1861 – 5 February 1937) was a Russian-born psychoanalyst and a well-traveled author, narrator, and essayist from a Russian-German family. Her diverse intellectual interests led to friendships with a broad array of distinguished thinkers, including Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Paul Rée, and Rainer Maria Rilke.
From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Alternative Names:
Louise von Salomé
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Luíza Gustavovna Salomé
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Lou Andreas-Salome
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Louise von Salome
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Luiza Gustavovna Salome
From Wikidata (CC0)
Perhaps life's earnestness might often come to destroy the lovers' play, as it had today, perhaps the little song of love might often die out unheard amid the painful, confused tones that assail his heart [as a physician], as it had today. -- But with a happy face she will from this day forward raise up her arms to him, in gratitude that he does not merely caress her and forget life's seriousness when he is with her, but that he struggles with life for himself and for her. And in her lap he shall rest his head when he is suffering. Perhaps then a tender dream will always rise up anew -- in a night like this one -- and, ever again, secretly weave, in the dark, new love around their life. -- -- -- ("One Night") p. 74
"Do you know what love is? I mean the most profound thing about it? I will tell you: it is the mystery of completely sharing the experience of what is happening to the other person. As if hypnotized, as if replaced or exchanged with that other person, you follow the most subtle stirrings of that other person's soul, enjoying them, experiencing them, in that person. For that reason, they call love a kind of insanity or possession by the other. What is the result? The result is that both persons experience the same thing -- that they become identical, so to speak." ("Maidens' Roundelay") p. 50
"There was no way in which I could have intended that [to get married]!" she interrupted him. "Tell me, would one of you [men] want that perhaps, a young man for instance, who had spent his entire youth in order to become free and self-reliant, and who was just on the threshold -- about to reach his goal -- who had learned to love life because of it, because of his professional opportunities, his responsibilities, his independence? No, I cannot envision this as my aim in life: home, family, housewife, children -- it is alien to me, alien. Perhaps only at this moment, at this time in my life, how do I know? Or maybe I would never be good at all that. Love and marriage are simply not the same thing. -- (Fenitschka) p. 39
"Listen to me," she exclaimed resolutely, "why are you putting on this farce? Why are you treating me like a breakable doll with whom you can play all kinds of games, as long as you pack her safely in cotton? I know very well that you know the whole story. Well then, you know it all. I cam here because I had forgotten something here in my room the other day. Because I do have a room here. And last night -- last night it was I who was getting into a sleigh with a man whom I love." -- (Fenitschka) p. 30
Why did he have such a rough picture of her? It was strange that he found it so difficult to comprehend women in the manifold ways of their humanity and not just schematic way, as representations of their gender. Whether he idealized them, or regarded them as diabolic, a man always interpreted women's behavior too simply and personally, based on some chance reaction to himself. Maybe the notion that woman was sphinx-like stemmed from the sole fact that her full humanity, in no way inferior to man's, could not be grasped with such artificial simplifications. p. 25
"How do I imagine love? This is quite uncomplicated -- very simple and wholesome. I would compare it with things that are least demonic or romantic, like the daily bread that is blessed and stills our hunger, like the stream of air that comes into our home to refresh us. In one word, with that which is most important, most beautiful, and most natural, on which we most depend and about which we do not need to engage in empty rhetoric." -- (Fenitschka) p. 19
"For we women who have only recently been allowed to study, it is not at all as you say," she countered, totally convinced of her position. "For us it is not an ascetic kind of life or a retreat behind a desk. How could it be -- when it now enables us to join the battle for our freedom and our rights and to enter into the fullness of life? Those of us who elect to study so not do it with our heads or our intelligence only; no -- we do wit with all our will-power and our total humanity. Our gain is not just knowledge but a new hold on life with all its emotions. What you describe as science sounds like an activity for very old men, who have finished with life as such. Perhaps it is you who are old and senile. Among us women, it is the young, the strong, and the cheerful who become inspired." -- (Fenitschka) p. 9
It was in September, the quietest time of year in Paris. The world of rank and fashion hid in the seaside resorts; visitors were being scared away in droves by the stifling heat. Nevertheless, the crowds that flooded the boulevards in the close evening air were so large and checkered that it would have looked like high season in any other city. (p. 3)
Slowly Ruth got up; an expression of utter surprise appeared on her face. Doubt, disbelief, even horror were mirrored in it. She felt as though she should call a distant friend, Erik, to come to her aid against this unknown assailant. But then she realized that it was he, it was Erik, who stood before her. (p. 326)
A genuine Nietzsche study would require the psychology of religion that would spotlight the meaning of his being, his suffering, and his self-induced bliss. His entire development, as it were, derived from his loss of belief and therefore from his emotions that attend the death of God. These tremendous emotions reverberate in his writings up to the final work, the fourth part of Also Sprach Zarathustra, which was composed on the threshold of madness. The possibility of finding some substitutions for the lost God by means of the most varied forms of self-idolization constituted the story of his mind, his works, and his illness. (p. 26)
Once upon a time, everything was based on trust, free from worry or care; now everything stands in doubt. One upon a time, the wondrous was taken for granted; now everything that had been taught her -- even the most obvious and certain -- appears gnarled and incomprehensible. In such a moment, a child helplessly gropes for the hand of the adult in order to find guidance and direction; but another type of childlikeness, intimately related to the ideals of life, can rapidly gather strength and masculine force. Far from subduing Nora or attuning her to compromise, the first decisive conflict acts upon her like a battle cry . . . Resistance and bravery harden into armor. She has grasped that the peaks of wonder in life do not appear as readily as the fairies who awaken Sleeping Beauty; in life peaks must be conquered. That insight she is willing to put to the test . . .