Secrecy involves a tension which, at the moment of revelation, finds its release.
Georg SimmelRead
In order to accommodate to change and to the contrast of phenomena, the intellect does not require any shocks and inner upheavals; it is only through such upheavals that the more conservative mind could accommodate to the metropolitan rhythm of events.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Change is often difficult, but it requires an adaptable mind that can embrace new circumstances without constant inner turmoil.
Georg Simmel suggests that while the intellect can adjust to change, it does not necessarily need to experience turmoil or upheaval. However, for those with more traditional or conservative perspectives, such inner challenges may be vital to adapt and understand the fast-paced and ever-evolving nature of contemporary life.
Themes
ChangeIntellectAdaptationUpheavalConservatism
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used during a seminar on personal development to emphasize the importance of adaptability.
More from Georg Simmel
All quotes →Secrecy is thus, so to speak, a transition stadium between being and not-being.
Georg SimmelRead
Music and love are the only accomplishments of humanity which do not, in an absolute sense, have to be called attempts with unsuitable means.
Georg SimmelRead
Discretion is nothing other than the sense of justice with respect to the sphere of the intimate contents of life.
Georg SimmelRead
In the immediate as well as the symbolic sense, in the physical as well as the intellectual sense, we are at any moment those who separate the connected, or connect the separate.
Georg SimmelRead
For the division of labor demands from the individual an ever more one-sided accomplishment, and the greatest advance in a one-sided pursuit only too frequently means dearth to the personality of the individual.
Georg SimmelRead
Similar quotes
We cannot ensure that women will be free of discrimination in the workplace and everywhere as long as women are not universally defended under our Constitution. As it stands now, the equal rights of women are subject to interpretation of law. That is a risk our mothers, sisters and daughters cannot afford.
Carolyn MaloneyRead
There are still thousands of people dying every year in Laos, mostly children and farmers, from unexploded anti-personnel ordnance that the U.S. simply saturated much of the land with, especially in the Plain of Jars. There actually is a British engineering team trying to remove some of these things, which are much worse than land mines.
Noam ChomskyRead
Black and Third World people are expected to educate white people as to our humanity. Women are expected to educate men. Lesbians and gay men are expected to educate the heterosexual world. The oppressors maintain their position and evade their responsibility for their own actions. There is a constant drain of energy which might be better used in redefining ourselves and devising realistic scenarios for altering the present and constructing the future.
Audre LordeRead
We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it.
Rick WarrenRead
One thing the gay rights movement taught the world is the importance of being visible.
Charles M. BlowRead
One mighty deed can change the course of things; a lonely thought becomes omnipotent.
Sri AurobindoRead