 |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
posted: 07/23/12 at 2:14 PM
|
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Gail65
“Love is a serious mental disease.”
Plato
Do you know by any chance know what dialogue this is from? Many of Plato's insights on love are often taken out of context (hes usually being sarcastic) from the Symposium, the quote in my signature is an example of that, though I found the words ring true for me. Plato's real thoughts on love - and by "love" here I mean the overwhelming nature of powerful and genuine emotions between two individuals - is nicely summed up by Nietzsche:
"Love of one is a barbarism; for it is exercised at the expense of all others."
The quote means exactly as it says, Plato didn't think too highly of a kind of love which is understood only within the context of human relationships. The kind of Love he advocated is universal, one without context, one which transcends the limits of life itself. To Plato, love is much more than mere feelings, it is the ultimate mode of perception through which we glance into the eternal nature of existence and its endless beauty. Heres a passage from the Symposium which captures the essence of Platonic love, imo this is one of the most powerful passages in all of Western philosophy, speaking for myself, this passage has influenced me enormously:
*Pardon the horrible translation, this is the best I could find, Plato is a far more poetic writer:
After listening to a long discussion by others on love, Socrates weighs in with the teachings of Diotima of Mantinea. This excerpt represents the final teachings of Diotima on the pursuit of love in its most perfect form...
quote:
...These [aspects already discussed, love understood within a human context] are the lesser mysteries of love, into which even you, Socrates, may enter; to the greater and more hidden ones which are the crown of these, and to which, if you pursue them in a right spirit, they will lead, I know not whether you will be able to attain. But I will do my utmost to inform you, and do you follow if you can. For he who would proceed aright in this matter should begin in youth to visit beautiful forms; and first, if he be guided by his instructor aright, to love one such form only-out of that he should create fair thoughts; and soon he will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the beauty of another; and then if beauty of form in general is his pursuit, how foolish would he be not to recognize that the beauty in every form is one and the same! And when he perceives this he will abate his violent love of the one, which he will despise and deem a small thing, and will become a lover of all beautiful forms; in the next stage he will consider that the beauty of the mind is more honourable than the beauty of the outward form. So that if a virtuous soul have but a little comeliness, he will be content to love and tend him, and will search out and bring to the birth thoughts which may improve the young, until he is compelled to contemplate and see the beauty of institutions and laws, and to understand that the beauty of them all is of one family, and that personal beauty is a trifle; and after laws and institutions he will go on to the sciences, that he may see their beauty, being not like a servant in love with the beauty of one youth or man or institution, himself a slave mean and narrow-minded, but drawing towards and contemplating the vast sea of beauty, he will create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in boundless love of wisdom; until on that shore he grows and waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science, which is the science of beauty absolute.
----------
"A life with love will have many thorns, but a life without love will have no roses." - Friedrich Nietzsche
"I am persuaded that every time a man smiles - but much more so when he laughs - it adds something to this fragment of life."
- Laurence Sterne
"Wherever your life ends, it is all there. The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use; some men have lived long, and lived little; attend to it while you are in it. It lies in your will, not in the number of years, for you to have lived enough."
- Michel de Montaigne
click to: respond to this topic
|
|
| Options: Reply To Topic | Start New Topic | Edit Message | Quote Message | Report Abuse
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
posted: 07/23/12 at 5:25 PM
|
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Cloud1212
Do you know by any chance know what dialogue this is from? Many of Plato's insights on love are often taken out of context (hes usually being sarcastic) from the Symposium, the quote in my signature is an example of that, though I found the words ring true for me. Plato's real thoughts on love - and by "love" here I mean the overwhelming nature of powerful and genuine emotions between two individuals
I thought it was more fun to present it cold with no context...
quote:
Originally posted by Cloud1212
"Love of one is a barbarism; for it is exercised at the expense of all others."
I love that one even more!!
click to: respond to this topic
|
|
| Options: Reply To Topic | Start New Topic | Edit Message | Quote Message | Report Abuse
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
posted: 07/23/12 at 6:33 PM
|
|
|
| I love that quote too, love, by virtue of being the most excessive of all aspects of the human condition, can indeed be quite barbaric. If I recall correctly, Nietzsche's point with that quote put into its proper context is to ask his audience, so what? And thats the way I see it too, if barbarism is required to love, then I gladly choose to be barbaric.
----------
"A life with love will have many thorns, but a life without love will have no roses." - Friedrich Nietzsche
"I am persuaded that every time a man smiles - but much more so when he laughs - it adds something to this fragment of life."
- Laurence Sterne
"Wherever your life ends, it is all there. The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use; some men have lived long, and lived little; attend to it while you are in it. It lies in your will, not in the number of years, for you to have lived enough."
- Michel de Montaigne
click to: respond to this topic
|
|
| Options: Reply To Topic | Start New Topic | Edit Message | Quote Message | Report Abuse
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
More On Page: « 1 (2) 3 4 » |
|
