Category: Haecker, Theodor
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When to Stop Talking
Theodor Haecker, Journal in the Night, #295: When a man perceives that the person he is talking to simply cannot see the things about which he is talking, then he should stop talking.
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The End of Moderation
Top o' the Stack
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On the Eternal in Man
Theodor Haecker, Journal in the Night (tr. Alexander Dru, Pantheon Books, 1950, p. 67, #263, written 1940): The man who explicitly does not believe and does not will to believe (for the will to believe belongs to believing) in an eternal life, that is to say in a personal life after death, will become an animal,…
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The Worst Thing about Poverty
Substack latest. A quotation from Theodor Haecker with a bit of commentary.
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Theodor Haecker on the Teaching of Latin and Greek
Substack latest.
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Nietzsche to his Friend Overbeck
"I am grieved by the transitoriness of things." So he preached the Eternal Recurrence of the Same, letting an ersatz Absolute in through the back door. Becoming became enshrined as Being. Thus was an attempt made to fix the flux and assuage the metaphysical need. Addendum After penning the above observation, I stumbled upon the…
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The Decisive Difference between Kierkegaard and Nietzsche
Theodor Haecker, Journal in the Night (Pantheon, 1950, tr. Dru), #689, p. 212, written in 1944: The endless chatter about Nietzsche and Kierkegaard is quite hopeless. Outward similarities set up a superficial sphere of comparison that is utterly meaningless, for they are localised and limited by a decisive difference at a deeper level; the one prayed,…
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Error Invincibilis
Theodor Haecker, Journal in the Night (Pantheon, 1950, tr. Dru), #691: Spiritual blindness differs from physical blindness in this, that it is not conscious. That is the essence of error invincibilis. Compare Blaise Pascal, Pensees #98 (Krailsheimer tr., p. 55): How is it that a lame man does not annoy us while a lame mind does?…
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The Worst Thing About Poverty
Theodor Haecker, Journal in the Night (Pantheon, 1950, tr. Dru), p. 38, written in 1940: 155. The worst of poverty — today at any rate — the most galling and the most difficult thing to bear, is that it makes it almost impossible to be alone. Neither at work, nor at rest, neither abroad nor at home, neither…
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Theodor Haecker
I've been re-reading Haecker's penetrating and prescient Journal in the Night. Here is a recent article on the man and his work. My Haecker posts are here.
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A Reason Why Germany Had to Lose the War
Theodor Haecker, Journal in the Night, tr. A. Dru, Pantheon, 1950, p. 172, entry #579 of 10 September 1941: A year ago today the official propagandist, Fritsche, talking on the wireless, said of the bombing of London: 'Once upon a time fire rained down upon Sodom and Gomorrha, and there only remained seventy-seven just men;…
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Theodor Haecker on the Teaching of Latin and Greek
The following is from Theodor Haecker's Tag-und Nachtbücher 1939-1945, translated into English by Alexander Dru as Journal in the Night (Pantheon Books, 1950), pp. 114-115.) I have made a couple of corrections in the translation. The following entry was written in 1940 in Hitler's Germany. The National Socialists seized power in 1933 and their 'one…
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Theodor Haecker on Literary Style and a Comparison with Karl Kraus
Theodor Haecker, Tag- und Nachtbücher, 1939-1945, hrsg. Hinrich Siefken, Innsbruck: Haymon-Verlag, 1989, S. 212: Der persönliche und gute Stil eines Schriftstellers ist die — oft durch große Kunst erreichte — natürliche Einheit zweier Naturen — der Natur des Schriftstellers und der Natur der jeweiligen Sprache, in der er schreibt, denn diese beiden Naturen sind nicht…
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Advice for Those in Despair
Theodor Haecker, Tag- und Nachtbuecher 1939-1945 (Haymon Verlag, 1989), p. 115, entry of 4 October 1940: Ich habe einmal einem Verzweifelnden den Rat gegeben, zu tun, was ich selber in aehnlichen Zustaenden getan habe, in kurzen Fristen zu leben. Komm, sagte ich mir damals, eine Viertelstunde wirst du es ja noch aushalten koennen! I once…