Quotessence
Home / Books / Eumeswil

Eumeswil

Book by Ernst Jünger · 4 quotes · Anarch, Freedom, Ernst Jünger

Filter quotes by topic

AllAnarchFreedomErnst JüngerSocietyEumeswilAnarchismAnarchistAnarchyAutonomyHistoryPoliticsPrayerAnarchistsFatherhoodGoldNihilismReligionAnarch LiberalismApoliteiaArt

Eumeswil Quotes

“For the anarch, little has changed; flags have meaning for him, but not sense. I have seen them in the air and on the ground like leaves in May and November; and I have done so as a contemporary and not just as a historian. The May Day celebration will survive, but with a different meaning. New portraits will head up the processions. A date devoted to the Great Mother is re-profaned. A pair of lovers in the wood pays more homage to it. I mean the forest as something undivided, where every tree is still a liberty tree. For the anarch, little is changed when he strips off a uniform that he wore partly as fool’s motley, partly as camouflage. It covers his spiritual freedom, which he will objectivate during such transitions. This distinguishes him from the anarchist, who, objectively unfree, starts raging until he is thrust into a more rigorous straitjacket.”

PoliticsFreedomAnarchismAnarchistAnarchErnst Jünger
Book:Eumeswil
Create image

“If I love freedom above all else, then any commitment becomes a metaphor, a symbol. This touches on the difference between the forest fleer and the partisan:this distinction is not qualitative but essential in nature. The anarch is closer to Being. The partisan moves within the social or national party structure, the anarch is outside of it. Of course, the anarch cannot elude the party structure, since he lives in society.”

PoliticsFreedomAnarchyAnarchErnst Jünger
Book:Eumeswil
Create image

“It is no coincidence that precisely when things started going downhill with the gods, politics gained its bliss-making character. There would be no reason for objecting to this, since the gods, too were not exactly fair. But at least people saw temples instead of termite architecture. Bliss is drawing closer; it is no longer in the afterlife, it will come, though not momentarily, sooner or later in the here and now - in time. The anarch thinks more primitively; he refuses to give up any of his happiness. "Make thyself happy" is his basic law. It his response to the "Know thyself" at the temple of Apollo in Delphi. These two maxims complement each other; we must know our happiness and our measure.”

HappinessPoliticsSelf KnowledgeAnarchErnst Jünger
Book:Eumeswil
Create image