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Quote by Magnus Hirschfeld

“The sex of a person lies more in his mind than in his body, or to express myself in more medical terms, it lies more in the brain than in the genitals.”

Quote by Magnus Hirschfeld

Author

Magnus Hirschfeld
Magnus Hirschfeld

Magnus Hirschfeld was a German physician and sexologist, recognized as one of the founders of modern sexology. Born on May 14, 1868, in Berlin, Germany, he passed away on the same day in 1935. Hirschfeld's research focused on the rights of sexual minorities and the significance of sexual diversity. more

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“On the street, cars hurtled toward their destinations in a symphony of sound. Trees lined the pavement in a powerful show of survival: here they stood in this urban landscape, long-limbed and capable. And green, so green, sunlight pierced through their leaves and marked the concrete with dappled grays. I made my way home to my family, one among a million travelers crossing the city’s great canvas in quick strokes. Everywhere there were colors by the thousands—tint upon tint, shade after shade—of everything the spectrum of beauty satisfied. Everywhere, there were signs of the renewal and restoration of life.”

“Many a time he had caught himself saying: "I can't live without God, but I can live without religion." He may have abandoned the practice of religion which was part of his boyhood, and which taught him how to interpret the world, and his surroundings, and his feelings, but he did so because he would not reconcile his life and his mysticism. He did so because his quest for God was sexual as well as emotional. At the same time he saw religion being practised in a weak and mawkish way, in a way that was emasculated and enfeebled, lacking the fertile passion and the violent receptivity of femininity or the exuberance of virility. A religion without sex for people who are afraid of the passions and the power of love. An accommodating, bourgeois religion, that is more often than not hypocritical. At the same time, on the other hand, even in his silent prayers, he was aware of putting his entire sexuality on the line. This is why he read Hosea. Because in those pages there was not an exclusively mental or spiritual vision of the relationship between God and His people. Rather, there was a representation of bodies, a representation of prostitution and wantonness, of the frenzy of separation, of wrath and of paternal protection. As has always been the case since time immemorial between people who love one another.”

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