Otto Weininger Quotes
I regret that I must so continually use the word genius, as if that should apply only to a caste as well defined from those below as income-tax payers are from the untaxed. The word genius was very probably invented by a man who had small claims on it himself; greater men would have understood better what to be a genius really was, and probably they would have come to see that the word could be applied to most people. Goethe said that perhaps only a genius is able to understand a genius.
Weininger, Otto. Sex and Character. William Heinemann, 1906.
Otto Weininger was an Austrian thinker who lived in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1903, he published the book Geschlecht und Charakter (Sex and Character), which gained popularity after his suicide at the age of 23. Parts of his work were adapted for use by the Nazi regime (while at the same time denouncing him). Weininger was a strong influence on Ludwig Wittgenstein, August Strindberg, and, via his lesser-known work Über die letzten Dinge, on James Joyce.
