Zitate von Miguel de Unamuno

„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

„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

„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

„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

„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

„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

„Ist der Weg nicht schon Heimat?“

—  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. 127

„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

„Not by way of reason, but only by way of love and suffering, do we come to the living God, the human God.“

—  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.

„Over all civilizations there hovers the shadow of Ecclesiastes, with his admonition, "How dieth the wise man?“

—  Miguel de Unamuno

as the fool" (ii 16)
The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), Conclusion : Don Quixote in the Contemporary European Tragi-Comedy

„The man of flesh and bone; the man who is born, suffers, and dies—above all, who dies; the man who eats and drinks and plays and sleeps and thinks and wills; the man who is seen and heard; the brother, the real brother.“

—  Miguel de Unamuno

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913)

„It is sad not to be loved, but it is much sadder not to be able to love.“

—  Miguel de Unamuno

To a Young Writer

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

—  Miguel de Unamuno

„The ascetic morality is a negative morality. And strictly, what is important for a man is not to die, whether he sins or not.“

—  Miguel de Unamuno

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), IV : The Essence of Catholicism

„Yes, I know well that others before me have felt what I feel and express; that many others feel it today, although they keep silence about it.“

—  Miguel de Unamuno

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), VI : In the Depths of the Abyss
Kontext: Yes, I know well that others before me have felt what I feel and express; that many others feel it today, although they keep silence about it.... And I do not keep silence about it because it is for many the thing which must not be spoken, the abomination of abominations — infandum — and I believe that it is necessary now and again to speak the thing which must not be spoken.... Even if it should lead only to irritating the devotees of progress, those who believe that truth is consolation, it would lead to not a little. To irritating them and making them say: "Poor fellow! if he would only use his intelligence to better purpose!... Someone perhaps will add that I do not know what I say, to which I shall reply that perhaps he may be right — and being right is such a little thing! — but that I feel what I say and I know what I feel and that suffices me. And that it is better to be lacking in reason than to have too much of it.

„There is no tyranny in the world more hateful than that of ideas.“

—  Miguel de Unamuno

Recalled by Walter Starkie from a conversation he had with Unamuno, as related in the Epilogue of Unamuno http://books.google.com/books?id=u8DG-eCTtM4C&lpg=PR1&dq=Unamuno&pg=PA240#v=onepage&q=%22There%20is%20no%20tyranny%20in%20the%20world%20more%20hateful%20than%20that%20of%20ideas%22&f=false.
Kontext: There is no tyranny in the world more hateful than that of ideas. Ideas bring ideophobia, and the consequence is that people begin to persecute their neighbors in the name of ideas. I loathe and detest all labels, and the only label that I could now tolerate would be that of ideoclast or idea breaker.

„Knowledge is employed in the service of the necessity of life and primarily in the service of the instinct of personal preservation.“

—  Miguel de Unamuno

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), II : The Starting-Point
Kontext: Knowledge is employed in the service of the necessity of life and primarily in the service of the instinct of personal preservation. The necessity and this instinct have created in man the organs of knowledge and given them such capacity as they possess. Man sees, hears, touches, tastes and smells that which it is necessary for him to see, hear, touch, taste and smell in order to preserve his life. The decay or loss of any of these senses increases the risks with which his life is environed, and if it increases them less in the state of society in which we are actually living, the reason is that some see, hear, touch, taste and smell for others. A blind man, by himself and without a guide, could not live long. Society is an additional sense; it is the true common sense.

„I neither want to die nor do I want to want to die; I want to live for ever and ever and ever.“

—  Miguel de Unamuno

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), III : The Hunger of Immortality
Kontext: Glorious is the risk! — καλος γαρ ο κινδυνος, glorious is the risk that we are able to run of our souls never dying … Faced with this risk, I am presented with arguments designed to eliminate it, arguments demonstrating the absurdity of the belief in the immortality of the soul; but these arguments fail to make any impression on me, for they are reasons and nothing more than reasons, and it is not with reasons that the heart is appeased. I do not want to die — no; I neither want to die nor do I want to want to die; I want to live for ever and ever and ever. I want this "I" to live — this poor "I" that I am and that I feel myself to be here and now, and therefore the problem of the duration of my soul, of my own soul, tortures me.