A terrible thing is intelligence. It tends to death as memory tends to stability. The living, the absolutely unstable, the absolutely individual, is … - Miguel de Unamuno

" "
Engraved portrait of Miguel de Unamuno, facing right

A terrible thing is intelligence. It tends to death as memory tends to stability. The living, the absolutely unstable, the absolutely individual, is strictly unintelligible. Logic tends to reduce everything to identities and genera, to each representation having no more than one self-same content in whatever place, time or relation it may occur to us. And there is nothing that remains for two successive moments of its existence. My idea of God is different each time that I conceive it. Identity, which is death, is the goal of the intellect. The mind seeks what is dead, for what is living escapes it; it seeks to congeal the flowing stream in blocks of ice; it seeks to arrest it. In order to analyze a body it is necessary to extenuate or destroy it. In order to understand anything it is necessary to kill it, to lay it out rigid in the mind.

English
Collect this quote

About Miguel de Unamuno

Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (29 September 1864 – 31 December 1936) was a Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright and philosopher.

Biography information from Wikiquote · Portrait adapted from Wikimedia Commons, Agence de presse Meurisse (Public domain / CC0)

Also Known As

Pen Names: Exóristo
Native Name: Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo
Alternative Names: Miguel Unamuno

Share this quote as an image

Customize card

Works in ChatGPT, Claude, or Any AI

Add semantic quote search to your AI assistant via MCP. One command setup.

Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.

Additional quotes by Miguel de Unamuno

Apart from the fact there is no normal standard of health, nobody has proved that man is necessarily cheerful by nature. And further, man, by the very fact of being man, of possessing consciousness, is, in comparison with the ass or the crab, a diseased animal. Consciousness is a disease.

Unlimited Quote Collections

Organize your favorite quotes without limits. Create themed collections for every occasion with Premium.

To say that everything is idea or that everything is spirit, is the same as saying that everything is matter or that everything is energy, for if everything is idea or spirit, just as my consciousness is, it is not plain why the diamond should not endure for ever, if my consciousness, because it is idea or spirit, endures forever.

Loading...