Ressentiment must therefore be strongest in a society like ours, where

approximately equal rights (political and otherwise) or formal social equality,

publicly recognized, go hand in hand with wide factual differences in power,
property, and education.
Max Scheler, Ressentiment
Whenever convictions are not arrived at by direct contact with the world and the
objects themselves, but indirectly through a critique of the opinions of others, the
processes of thinking are impregnated with ressentiment. The establishment of
criteria for testing the correctness of opinions then becomes the most important
task. Genuine and fruitful criticism judges all opinions with reference to the object
itself. Ressentiment criticism, on the contrary, accepts no object that has not
stood the test of criticism
Max Scheler, Ressentiment
There is not enough love in the world to squander it on anything but human beings.
Max Scheler, as cited in Camus, The Rebel
The purpose of art is... to press forward into the whole of the external world and
the soul, to see and communicate those objective realities within it which rule and
convention have hitherto concealed. (Max Scheler)
From the perspective of mere representation, the external world always remains only a phenomenon.
Wilhelm Dilthey
In the real life-process, willing, feeling, and thinking are only different aspects.
Wilhelm Dilthey
The individual always realizes only one of the possibilities in its development, which could always have
taken a different turning whenever it has to make an important decision.
Wilhelm Dilthey
We have to make philosophy itself an object of philosophical concern.
Wilhelm Dilthey

Understanding is the rediscovery of the I in the Thou; spirit rediscovers itself at

ever higher levels of connectedness; this selfsameness of spirit in the I and the
Thou, in each subject of a community, in each cultural system, and finally, in the
totality of spirit and universal history, makes possible the cooperation of the

various functions of the human sciences.

Dilthey, Wilhelm. Selected Works: Vol. 3: The Formation of the Historical World
in the Human Sciences Trans. Rudolph A Makkreel. Princeton: Princeton
University Press. 2002.
No real blood flows in the veins of the knowing subject constructed by Locke,
Hume, and Kant, but rather the diluted extract of reason as a mere activity of
thought.
Wilhelm Dilthey

The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding,
because to understand is to be free.
Baruch Spinoza
The more you struggle to live, the less you live. Give up the notion that you must
be sure of what you are doing. Instead, surrender to what is real within you, for that
alone is sure....you are above everything distressing.
Baruch Spinoza
Do not weep. Do not wax indignant. Understand.
Baruch Spinoza
Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not
therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.
Baruch Spinoza
I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate
them, but to understand them.
Baruch Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus
Happiness is not the reward of virtue, but is virtue itself; nor do we delight in
happiness because we restrain from our lusts; but on the contrary, because we
delight in it, therefore we are able to restrain them.
Baruch Spinoza

He alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason
Baruch Spinoza
He who wishes to revenge injuries by reciprocal hatred will live in misery. But he
who endeavors to drive away hatred by means of love, fights with pleasure and
confidence; he resists equally one or many men, and scarcely needs at all the help
of fortune. Those whom he conquers yield joyfully
Baruch Spinoza

Every aspect of Western culture needs a new code of ethics - a rational ethics - as a
precondition of rebirth.
Ayn Rand
That's a central part of philosophy, of ethics. What do I owe to strangers? What do
I owe to my family? What is it to live a good life? Those are questions which we
face as individuals.
Peter Singer
One concept corrupts and confuses the others. I am not speaking of the Evil whose
limited sphere is ethics; I am speaking of the infinite.
Jorge Luis Borges
It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in
large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.
Voltaire
If you want to test cosmetics, why do it on some poor animal who hasn't done
anything? They should use prisoners who have been convicted of murder or rape
instead. So, rather than seeing if perfume irritates a bunny rabbit's eyes, they
should throw it in Charles Manson's eyes and ask him if it hurts.
Ellen DeGeneres, My Point...And I Do Have One
People who try hard to do the right thing always seem mad.

 Stephen King, The Stand

A quiet conscience makes one strong!
Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl
I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who overcomes his
enemies.
Aristotle
The assumption that animals are without rights, and the illusion that our
treatment of them has no moral significance, is a positively outrageous example of
Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion in the only guarantee of
morality.
Arthur Schopenhauer, The Basis of Morality
The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but "Can they
suffer?
Jeremy Bentham
Auschwitz begins wherever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks:
theyre only animals.
Theodor W. Adorno
Dogs do not have many advantages over people, but one of them is extremely
important: euthanasia is not forbidden by law in their case; animals have the right
to a merciful death.
Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Think of all those ages through which men have had the courage to die, and then
remember that we have actually fallen to talking about having the courage to live.
G.K. Chesterton, George Bernard Shaw

Euthanasia is a long, smooth-sounding word, and it conceals its

danger as long, smooth words do, but the danger is there,
nevertheless " Perl Buck
Society's prohibition of intentional killing ...is the cornerstone of
law and social relationships. It protects each of us impartially,
embodying the belief that all are equal. - Luke Gormally
Euthanasia is a grave violation of the law of God, since it is the
deliberate and morally unacceptable killing of a human person Pope Paul II
The prescription of the equality of human beings is not a
description of an alleged actual equality among humans: it is a
prescription of how we should treat human beings.
Peter Singer, Animal Liberations