Here are a few quotes re temporality:
Martin Walser
"Humans, of course, are not who they are, but who they want to be. He who
can hold them by their desires possesses them."
"Der Mensch ist ja nicht der, der er ist, sondern der, der er sein will.
Wer ihn an seinen W=FCnschen packt, hat ihn."
"To have written, to have read does help nothing. Only writing helps.
Reading helps."
"Geschrieben zu haben, gelesen zu haben, n=FCtzt nichts. Nur Schreiben hilft=
=2E
Lesen hilft."
Martin Walser is presently one of the most read novelists in the German
speaking world. He was given recently the Peace Price of the Germen Book
Editiors and Sellers Association. In his address he made a plea not to
instrumentalize, in the service of some third party, the holocaust. A
timely admonition, I think.
All translations are AL's.
Simone de Beauvoir
"The elderly more than anybody attach high value to the poetic character of
habit: confounding the past, the present and the future habit elevates them
from time which is their ennemy, it confers upon them that eternity which
they do no longer find in the moment... Thus habit bestows on the elderly a
kind of ontological security. Through habit they learn who they are."
=93Le vieillard plus qu'aucun autre attache du prix =E0 la po=E9sie de
l'habitude: confondant pass=E9, pr=E9sent, futur, elle l'arrache au temps, q=
ui
est son ennemi, elle lui conf=E8re cette =E9ternit=E9 qu'il ne rencontre plu=
s
dans l'instant... Ainsi l'habitude assure-t-elle au vieillard une sorte de
s=E9curit=E9 ontologique. A travers elle, il sait qui il est" (S.493).
=46rom The Coming of Age, orig. 1970
Alfred
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Alfred Lang, Psychology, Univ. Bern, Switzerland --- alfred.lang who-is-at psy.unibe.c=
h
Website: http://www.cx.unibe.ch/psy/ukp/langpapers/
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