Secrecy involves a tension which, at the moment of revelation, finds its release.
Georg SimmelRead
The psychological basis of the metropolitan type of individuality consists in the intensification of nervous stimulation which results from the swift and uninterrupted change of outer and inner stimuli.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that living in a bustling city enhances individual sensitivity due to constant changes and stimuli.
Georg Simmel highlights how urban life affects individuality by heightening nervous sensitivities through the rapid and continuous shifts in both external and internal stimuli. This environment of perpetual change can lead to a more acute awareness and responsiveness to the surrounding world, shaping oneβs identity and experiences uniquely in a metropolitan context.
Themes
IndividualityMetropolitanNervous StimulationChangeUrban LifePsychology
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on urban psychology, discussing how city life affects individual behavior.
More from Georg Simmel
All quotes βSecrecy 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
Which of us can resist the temptation of being thought indispensable?
Margaret AtwoodRead
That was what gospel was meant to do - make you hate and love yourself at the same time, make you ashamed and glorified.
Dorothy AllisonRead
Life is just a schoolroom with a glorious opportunity to prepare us for eternity.
Billy GrahamRead
The true fountains of evidence [are] the head and heart of every rational and honest man. It is there nature has written her moral laws, and where every man may read them for himself.
Thomas JeffersonRead
I make up my opinions from facts and reasoning, and not to suit any body but myself. If people don't like my opinions, it makes little difference as I don't solicit their opinions or votes.
William Tecumseh ShermanRead
Angels and demons were identical--interchangeable archetypes--all a matter of polarity. The guardian angel who conquered your enemy in battle was perceived by your enemy as a demon destroyer.
Dan BrownRead