One who hates is a man holding a magnifying-glass, and when he hates someone, he knows precisely that person's surface, from the soles of his feet all the way up to each hair on the hated head
Interpretation
Hate distorts perception, allowing a person to focus only on the flaws of those they despise.
This quote emphasizes how hatred alters our perception, enabling individuals to scrutinize others intensely, often to the point of obsession. The metaphor of a magnifying glass illustrates that when one harbors hate, they become fixated on the surface-level traits of their target, missing out on the deeper humanity that exists beyond those perceived flaws.
In practice
In a discussion about the dangers of hatred, this quote can illustrate how it can cloud our judgments.
The maker of kitsch does not create inferior art, he is not an incompetent or a bungler, he cannot be evaluated by aesthetic standards; rather, he is ethically depraved, a criminal willing radical evil. And since it is radical evil that is manifest here, evil per se, forming the absolute negative pole of every value-system, kitsch will always be evil, not just kitsch in art, but kitsch in every value-system that is not an imitation system.
No one's death comes to pass without making some impression, and those close to the deceased inherit part of the liberated soul and become richer in their humanness.
Were one merely to seek information, one should inquire of the man who hates, but if one wishes to know what truly is, one better ask the one who loves
The next time you experience a blackout, take some solace by looking at the sky. You will not recognize it.
...the core values that underpin sustainable development - interdependence, empathy, equity, personal responsibility and intergenerational justice - are the only foundation upon which any viable vision of a better world can possibly be constructed
To believe in the God over us and around us and not in the God within us - that would be a powerless and fruitless faith.
I thought of a labyrinth of labyrinths, of one sinuous spreading labyrinth that would encompass the past and the future . . . I felt myself to be, for an unknown period of time, an abstract perceiver of the world.
To me the front is a mysterious whirlpool. Though I am in still water far away from its centre, I feel the whirl of the vortex sucking me slowly, irresistibly, inescapably into itself.
Neither one should hesitate about dedicating oneself to philosophy when young, nor should get tired of doing it when one's old, because no one is ever too young or too old to reach one's soul's healthy.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.