Walter Kaufmann Quotes
Walter Arnold Kaufmann was a German-American philosopher, translator, and poet and the principal English-language interpreter of Nietzsche in the second half of the twentieth century. Forced into exile from Nazi Germany in 1939 as a teenager of Jewish descent, he settled in the United States, served in army intelligence during the Second World War, and after the war took a long professorship at Princeton. The quotes below are attributed to Walter Kaufmann, organized by topic.
Browse Walter Kaufmann by topic
Walter Kaufmann on Freedom
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Attributed to Walter Kaufmann:
“Existentialism is the philosophy of authentic individuality.”
Walter Kaufmann on God
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Attributed to Walter Kaufmann:
“Religion at its best is a way of asking questions, not of refusing them.”
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“Of faith and morals, one cannot speak honestly for long without hurting feelings. Therefore, most people speak dishonestly of the most important subjects. Many recent philosophers prefer not to speak of them at all. But in some situations honesty is incompatible with silence.”
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Walter Kaufmann on Knowledge
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Attributed to Walter Kaufmann:
“To translate is to read with double care.”
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“There is thus a certain plausibility to Nietzsche 's doctrine, though it is dynamite. He maintains in effect that the gulf separating Plato from the average man is greater than the cleft between the average man and a chimpanzee.”
p. 151 -
“Heresy is a set of opinions "at variance with established or generally received principles." In this sense, heresy is the price of all originality and innovation.”
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“If it does not upset, it is not philosophy.”
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“The most obvious failure of organized religions is surely that almost all of them have made a mockery of what their founders taught.”
p. 267
Walter Kaufmann on Mind
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“The great artist liberates the emotions and recreates the sheer wonder of childhood without surrendering the development of the intellect .”
p. 258
Walter Kaufmann on Time
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“Of course, not everything old is beautiful, any more than everything black, or everything white, or everything young. But the notion that old means ugly is every bit as harmful as the prejudice that black is ugly. In one way it is even more pernicious. The notion that only what is new and young is beautiful poisons our relationship to the past and to our own future. It keeps us from understanding our roots and the greatest works of our culture and other cultures. It also makes us dread what lies ahead of us and leads many to shirk reality.”
Time is an Artist (1978) Epilogue : Old is Beautiful -
“Time is an Artist (1978) Epilogue : Old is Beautiful”
Of course, not everything old is beautiful, any more than everything black, or everything white, or everything young. But the notion that old means ugly is every bit as harmful as the prejudice that black is ugly. In one way it is even more pernicious. The notion that only what is new and young is beautiful poisons our relationship to the past and to our own future. It keeps us from understanding -
“Walter Kaufmann, Preface to The Present Age , by Soren Kierkegaard , Dru translation 1962 p. 15-16”
What makes The Present Age and The Difference Between a Genius and an Apostle important is not so much that the former essay anticipates Heidegger and the latter, Barth: it would be more accurate to say that Heidegger’s originality is widely overestimated, and that many things he says at great length in his highly obscure German were said earlier by various writers who had made the same points muc
Walter Kaufmann on Truth
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Attributed to Walter Kaufmann:
“Nietzsche was no proto-Nazi; his thought is the most resolute opposition to mass conformism.”
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Attributed to Walter Kaufmann:
“Tragedy is the noblest answer to the absurd.”
Walter Kaufmann on Virtue
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“I agree with Paul that love is more important than faith and hope; but so are honesty, integrity, and moral courage. The world needs less faith and more love and nobility.”
Preface