"Strangely enough most people only do sensible things if they are ordered to."
Egon Friedell was a prominent Austrian cultural historian, playwright, actor and Kabarett performer, journalist and theatre critic. Friedell has been described as a polymath. Before 1916, he was also known by his pen name Egon Friedländer.
"Hope and curiosity are the two big powers which force us to continue our existence in repulsive circumstances. It is exactly our not-knowing that is the thrusting power behind our most daring adventures, the constant source of our action. A man who has seen all the twists and turns of destiny and its complete unity no longer would have the courage to do anything about it. He who knows can’t act anymore."
"“How then can you research history?” “We don’t use the same methods as our applied among those of the Evening Countries—or rather, those which were used there. The fundaments of those methods were logical conclusions and empirical research: excavations, the study of archives, the deciphering of inscriptions. These sources are deceiving: they can have different explanations, are vague, can be ambiguous and are generally superficial. We try to approach true history along clearer and more secure paths: by looking with the inner, sympathetic senses, using our minds to draw spiritual conclusions, not logical but intuitive ones. In this way a clear, faultless view of whatever happened in world history, forward as well as backward, is shown to the Blessed among us in a series of pure images.”"
"Many things no longer appear as “miracles” to us, if we decide to look at them through the eyes of practical physics."
"It is the politician’s profession to invent facts."
"Extraordinary, and yet when we look in the mirror of a higher possibility it seems understandable, even self-evident."
"Your history has no age, and your age has no history."