William Barrett Quotes

The will to power is weakness as well as strength, and the more it is cut off and isolated from the rest of the human personality, the more desperate, in its weakness, it can become.

Heidegger's philosophy is neither atheism nor theism, but a description of the world from which God is absent.

A recognition of limits, of boundaries, may be the only thing that prevents power from dizzy collapse.

The anguish of loss may be redeemed, but can never be mediated.

One does wish that Sartre would pause for a while to regroup his forces. The man really does write too much.

Nietzsche's life has all the characteristics of a psychological fatality.

Faith can no more be described to a thoroughly rational mind than the idea of colors can be conveyed to a blind man.

Of all the non-European philosophers, William James probably best deserves to be an Existentialist.

As a teacher of philosophy, a very dubious profession in this country, I am in a position to observe how precarious a hold the intellect has upon American life; and this is not true merely of the great majority of students but of cultured people, of intellectuals, to whom here in America a philosophical idea is an alien and embarrassing thing. In their actual life Americans are not only a non-intellectual but an anti-intellectual people.

The peasantry are wiser in their ignorance than the savants of St Petersburg in their learning.