The thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions, as seeking explanations of something: to him, success and failure are primarily answers.
[Der Denker sieht in seinen eigenen Handlungen Versuche und Fragen, irgend worüber Aufschluss zu erhalten: Erfolg und Misserfolg sind ihm zu allererst Antworten.]Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
The Gay Science [Die fröhliche Wissenschaft], Book 1, § 41 (1882) [tr. Nauckhoff (2001)]
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Also known as La Gaya Scienza, The Joyful Wisdom, or The Joyous Science.
(Source (German)). Alternate translations:The thinker sees in his own actions attempts and questionings to obtain information about something or other; success and failure are answers to him first and foremost.
[tr. Common (1911)]A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions -- as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.
[tr. Kaufmann (1974)]In his own actions, the thinker sees experiments and enquiries from which he seeks to obtain insight: to him, success and failure are, first of all, answers.
[tr. Hill (2018)]
Quotations about:
thinker
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Although the proportion of those who do think be extremely small, yet every individual flatters himself that he is one of the number.
Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 1, Preface (1820)
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This imputation of inconsistency is one to which every sound politician and every honest thinker must sooner or later subject himself. The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions.
James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) American diplomat, essayist, poet
“Abraham Lincoln” (1864), My Study Windows (1871)
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