Zitate von Miguel de Unamuno

„In einem Volk, bei dem viel gearbeitet wird, ist die Arbeit meist schlecht verteilt; dort gibt es mehr Leute, die viel arbeiten, damit die anderen faulenzen können.“

—  Miguel de Unamuno

Plädoyer des Müßiggangs. Ausgewählt und aus dem Spanischen übersetzt von Erna Pfeiffer, Literaturverlag Droschl Graz - Wien, 2. Auflage 1996, ISBN 3-85420-442-6, S. 18

„Eine gewisse Anzahl von Müßiggängern ist notwendig zur Entwicklung einer höheren Kultur.“

—  Miguel de Unamuno

Plädoyer des Müßiggangs. Ausgewählt und aus dem Spanischen übersetzt von Erna Pfeiffer, Literaturverlag Droschl Graz - Wien, 2. Auflage 1996, ISBN 3-85420-442-6, S. 19

„Ein Problem setzt nicht so sehr eine Lösung voraus, im analytischen oder auflösenden Sinne, als vielmehr eine Konstruktion, eine Kreation. Es löst sich im Tun.“

—  Miguel de Unamuno

Wie man einen Roman macht. Aus dem Spanischen übersetzt von Erna Pfeiffer, Literaturverlag Droschl Graz - Wien, 2000, ISBN 3-85420-543-0, S. 114

„Der Verstand einigt uns und die Wahrheiten trennen uns.“

—  Miguel de Unamuno

Wie man einen Roman macht. Aus dem Spanischen übersetzt von Erna Pfeiffer, Literaturverlag Droschl Graz - Wien, 2000, ISBN 3-85420-543-0, S. 65

„Der Mensch arbeitet, um Arbeit zu vermeiden, er arbeitet, um nicht zu arbeiten. Es ist unglaublich, welche Arbeiten der Mensch auf sich nimmt, nur um nicht arbeiten zu müssen.“

—  Miguel de Unamuno

Plädoyer des Müßiggangs. Ausgewählt und aus dem Spanischen übersetzt von Erna Pfeiffer, Literaturverlag Droschl Graz - Wien, 2. Auflage 1996, S. 21 ISBN 3-85420-442-6

„Das Vollendete, das Perfekte, ist der Tod, und das Leben kann nicht sterben.“

—  Miguel de Unamuno

Wie man einen Roman macht. Aus dem Spanischen übersetzt von Erna Pfeiffer, Literaturverlag Droschl Graz - Wien, 2000, ISBN 3-85420-543-0, S. 96

„Das Volk glaubt nämlich nicht an sich selbst. Und Gott schweigt. Hierin liegt der Grund der universellen Tragödie: Gott schweigt. Und er schweigt, weil er Atheist ist.“

—  Miguel de Unamuno

Wie man einen Roman macht. Aus dem Spanischen übersetzt von Erna Pfeiffer, Literaturverlag Droschl Graz - Wien, 2000, ISBN 3-85420-543-0, S. 71

„Und wenn die Geschichte nichts als das Lachen Gottes wäre? Jede Revolution eine seiner Lachsalven?“

—  Miguel de Unamuno

Wie man einen Roman macht. Aus dem Spanischen übersetzt von Erna Pfeiffer, Literaturverlag Droschl Graz - Wien, 2000, ISBN 3-85420-543-0, S. 97

„Die Wissenschaft ist ein Kirchhof abgestorbener Ideen, wenn sie auch Leben spendet.“

—  Miguel de Unamuno, Del sentimiento trágico de la vida

Das Tragische Lebensgefühl. Deutsch von Robert Friese. München: Meyer & Jessen 1925, S. 116. Oft verkürzt zu: "Die Wissenschaft ist ein Friedhof toter Ideen."
Original spanisch: "La ciencia es un cementerio de ideas muertas, aunque de ellas salga vida." - Del sentimiento trágico de la vida. Renacimiento, 1913, p. 92 books.google https://books.google.de/books?id=Pxg2AQAAMAAJ&q=cementerio

„Only he who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible.“

—  Miguel de Unamuno

„It is the furious longing to give finality to the Universe, to make it conscious and personal, that has brought us to believe in God, to wish that God may exist, to create God, in a word.“

—  Miguel de Unamuno

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), VII : Love, Suffering, Pity
Kontext: It is the furious longing to give finality to the Universe, to make it conscious and personal, that has brought us to believe in God, to wish that God may exist, to create God, in a word. To create Him, yes! This saying ought not to scandalize even the most devout theist. For to believe in God is, in a certain sense, to create Him, although He first creates us. It is He who is continually creating Himself.

„The knowledge of God proceeds from the love of God, and this love has little or nothing of the rational in it. For God is indefinable. To seek to define Him is to seek to confine Him within the limits of our mind — that is to say, to kill Him. In so far as we attempt to define Him, there rises up before us — Nothingness.“

—  Miguel de Unamuno

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), VIII : From God to God
Kontext: Not by way of reason, but only by way of love and suffering, do we come to the living God, the human God. Reason rather separates us from Him. We cannot first know Him in order that afterward we may love Him; we must begin by loving Him, longing for Him, hungering after Him, before knowing Him. The knowledge of God proceeds from the love of God, and this love has little or nothing of the rational in it. For God is indefinable. To seek to define Him is to seek to confine Him within the limits of our mind — that is to say, to kill Him. In so far as we attempt to define Him, there rises up before us — Nothingness.

„Not without reason did he who had the right to do so speak of the foolishness of the cross.“

—  Miguel de Unamuno

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), X : Religion, the Mythology of the Beyond and the Apocatastasis
Kontext: Not without reason did he who had the right to do so speak of the foolishness of the cross. Foolishness, without a doubt, foolishness. And the American humorist, Oliver Wendell Holmes, was not altogether wide of the mark in making one of the characters in his ingenious conversations say that he thought better of those who were confined in a lunatic asylum on account of religious mania than of those who, while professing the same religious principles, kept their wits and appeared to enjoy life very well outside the asylums. But those who are at large, are they not really, thanks to God, mad too? Are there not mild madnesses, which not only permit us to mix with our neighbors without danger to society, but which rather enable us to do so, for by means of them we are able to attribute a meaning and finality to life and society?

„It has often been said that every man who has suffered misfortunes prefers to be himself, even with his misfortunes, rather than to be someone else without them.“

—  Miguel de Unamuno

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), I : The Man of Flesh and Bone
Kontext: It has often been said that every man who has suffered misfortunes prefers to be himself, even with his misfortunes, rather than to be someone else without them. For unfortunate men, when they preserve their normality in their misfortune — that is to say, when they endeavor to persist in their own being — prefer misfortune to non-existence. For myself I can say that when a as a youth, and even as a child, I remained unmoved when shown the most moving pictures of hell, for even then nothing appeared to me quite so horrible as nothingness itself. It was a furious hunger of being that possessed me, an appetite for divinity, as one of our ascetics [San Juan de los Angeles] has put it.

„None are so likely to believe too little as those who have begun by believing too much.“

—  Miguel de Unamuno

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), IV : The Essence of Catholicism
Kontext: ... as the great Unitarian preacher Channing pointed out, that in France and Spain there are multitudes who have proceeded from rejecting Popery to absolute atheism, because "the fact is, that false and absurd doctrines, when exposed, have a natural tendency to beget skepticism in those who receive them without reflection. None are so likely to believe too little as those who have begun by believing too much." Here is, indeed, the terrible danger of believing too much. But no! the terrible danger comes from another quarter — from seeking to believe with the reason and not with the life.

„May it not be that all the thoughts that have ever passed through the Supreme Consciousness still subsist therein? In Him, who is eternal, is not all existence eternalized?“

—  Miguel de Unamuno

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), VII : Love, Suffering, Pity
Kontext: "God does not think, He creates; He does not exist, He is eternal," wrote Kierkegaard (Afslutende uvidenskabelige Efterskrift); but perhaps it is more exact to say with Mazzini, the mystic of the Italian city, that "God is great because his thought is action" (Ai giovani d'Italila), because with Him to think is to create, and He gives existence to that which exists in His thought by the mere fact of thinking it, and the impossible is unthinkable by God. It is not written in the Scriptures that God creates with His word — that is to say, with His thought — and that by this, by His Word, He made everything that exists? And what God has once made does He ever forget? May it not be that all the thoughts that have ever passed through the Supreme Consciousness still subsist therein? In Him, who is eternal, is not all existence eternalized?

„We must needs believe in the other life, in the eternal life beyond the grave.“

—  Miguel de Unamuno

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), X : Religion, the Mythology of the Beyond and the Apocatastasis
Kontext: We must needs believe in the other life, in the eternal life beyond the grave.... And we must needs believe in that other life, perhaps, in order that we may deserve it, in order that we may obtain it, for it may be that he neither deserves it nor will obtain it who does not passionately desire it above reason and, if need be, against reason.

„May not the absolute and perfect eternal happiness be an eternal hope, which would die if it were realized? Is it possible to be happy without hope? And there is no place for hope once possession has been realized, for hope, desire, is killed by possession.“

—  Miguel de Unamuno

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), X : Religion, the Mythology of the Beyond and the Apocatastasis
Kontext: May not the absolute and perfect eternal happiness be an eternal hope, which would die if it were realized? Is it possible to be happy without hope? And there is no place for hope once possession has been realized, for hope, desire, is killed by possession. May it not be, I say, that all souls grow without ceasing, some in a greater measure than others, but all having to pass some time through the same degree of growth, whatever that degree may be, and yet without ever arriving at the infinite, at God, to whom they continually approach? Is not eternal happiness an eternal hope, with its eternal nucleus of sorrow in order that happiness shall not be swallowed up in nothingness?

„Whosoever will investigate the memorials of primitive times will find this ideal of woman in its full force and purity; the Universe is woman.“

—  Miguel de Unamuno

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), X : Religion, the Mythology of the Beyond and the Apocatastasis
Kontext: When at the beginning of the so-called modern age, at the Renaissance, the pagan sense of religion came to life again, it took the concrete form in the knightly ideal with its codes of conduct of love and honor. But it was a paganism Christianized, baptized. "Woman — la donna — was the divinity enshrined within those savage breasts. Whosoever will investigate the memorials of primitive times will find this ideal of woman in its full force and purity; the Universe is woman.