Top 30 Otto Weininger Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “The fixed stars signify the angel in man. That is why man orients himself by them; and that is why women have no appreciation for the starry sky; because they have no sense of the angel in man.”

— Otto Weininger

2. “Logic and ethics are fundamentally the same, they are no more than duty to oneself.”

— Otto Weininger

3. “The Jew is an inborn Communist.”

— Otto Weininger

4. “All genius is a conquering of chaos and mystery.”

— Otto Weininger

5. “Colour-blindness always extends to the complementary colours. Those who are red blind are also green blind; those who are blind to blue have no consciousness of yellow. This law holds good for all mental phenomena; it is a fundamental condition of consciousness.”

— Otto Weininger

6. “Universality is the distinguishing mark of genius. There is no such thing as a special genius, a genius for mathematics, or for music, or even for chess, but only a universal genius. The genius is a man who knows everything without having learned it.”

— Otto Weininger

7. “In those rare individual cases where women approach genius they also approach masculinity.”

— Otto Weininger

8. “It is not the fear of death which creates the desire for immortality, but the desire for immortality which causes the fear of death.”

— Otto Weininger

9. “Woman, in short, has an unconscious life, man a conscious life, and the genius the most conscious life.”

— Otto Weininger

10. “A creature that cannot grasp the mutual exclusiveness of A and not A has no difficulty in lying; more than that, such a creature has not even any consciousness of lying, being without a standard of truth.”

— Otto Weininger

11. “In the case of complex personalities the matter stands thus: one of these can understand other men better than they can understand themselves, because within himself he has not only the character he is grasping, but also its opposite. Duality is necessary for observation and comprehension.”

— Otto Weininger

12. “Everything evil is revenge.”

— Otto Weininger

13. “In order to depict a man one must understand him, and to understand him one must be like him; in order to portray his psychological activities one must be able to reproduce them in oneself. To understand a man one must have his nature in oneself.”

— Otto Weininger

14. “The danger of insanity is always present in those who try to penetrate the discipline of logic and pure knowledge.”

— Otto Weininger

15. “No men who really think deeply about women retain a high opinion of them; men either despise women or they have never thought seriously about them.”

— Otto Weininger

16. “Great men have always preferred women of the prostitute type.”

— Otto Weininger

17. “Man is alone in the world, in tremendous eternal isolation. He has no object outside himself; lives for nothing else; he is far removed from being the slave of his wishes, of his abilities, of his necessities; he stands far above social ethics; he is alone. Thus he becomes one and all.”

— Otto Weininger

18. “Fate determines many things, no matter how we struggle.”

— Otto Weininger

19. “Every true, eternal problem is an equally true, eternal fault; every answer an atonement, every realisation an improvement.”

— Otto Weininger

20. “Not only virtue, but also insight, not only sanctity but also wisdom, are the duties and tasks of mankind.”

— Otto Weininger

21. “Genius declares itself to be a kind of higher masculinity.”

— Otto Weininger

22. “A man is first reverent about himself, and self-respect is the first stage in reverence for all things.”

— Otto Weininger

23. “A man is himself important precisely in proportion that all things seem important to him.”

— Otto Weininger

24. “An individual’s arrogance is always in proportion to his lack of self-assurance.”

— Otto Weininger

25. “The genius which runs to madness is no longer genius.”

— Otto Weininger

26. “There are men who are willing to marry a woman they do not care about merely because she is admired by other men. Such a relation exists between many men and their thoughts.”

— Otto Weininger

27. “If it really were the case, as popular opinion has tried to establish, that the genius were separated from ordinary men by a thick wall through which no sound could penetrate, then all understanding of the efforts of genius would be denied to ordinary men, and their works would fail to make any impression on them. All hopes of progress depend on this being untrue. And it is untrue. The difference between men of genius and the others is quantitative not qualitative, of degree not of kind.”

— Otto Weininger

28. “To understand a man is really to be that man.”

— Otto Weininger

29. “Among the notable things about fire is that it also requires oxygen to burn – exactly like its enemy, life. Thereby are life and flames so often compared.”

— Otto Weininger

30. “A man’s real nature is never altered by education.”

— Otto Weininger

31. “The deepest, the intelligible, part of the nature of man is that part which does not take refuge in causality, but which chooses in freedom the good or the bad.”

— Otto Weininger

32. “Woman is soulless and possesses neither ego nor individuality, personality nor freedom, character nor will.”

— Otto Weininger

33. “No one can understand himself, for to do that he would have to get outside himself; the subject of the knowing and willing activity would have to become its own object.”

— Otto Weininger

34. “There is, moreover, very little sense in preventing young people from giving expression to their ideas on the pretext that they have less experience than have older persons. There are many who may live a thousand years without encountering experience of any value. It could only be in a society of persons equally gifted that such an idea could have any meaning.”

— Otto Weininger