Oswald Spengler Quotes

A collection of quotes by Oswald Spengler.

Oswald Spengler was a German philosopher, historian, and cultural critic, best known for his influential work "The Decline of the West." Born on May 29, 1880, in Blankenburg, Germany, Spengler established himself as a prominent figure in early 20th-century intellectual circles. His writings focused on the cyclical nature of civilizations, arguing that cultures experience a rise and fall similar to the life cycle of individuals. Spengler's ideas deeply influenced political and cultural discourse during his time and continue to shape discussions on the philosophy of history and the destiny of civilizations. He died on May 8, 1936, in Munich, Germany.

Man makes history; woman is history. The reproduction of the

Man makes history; woman is history. The reproduction of the species is feminine: it runs steadily and quietly through all species, animal or human, through all short-lived cultures. It is primary, unchanging, everlasting, maternal, plantlike, and cultureless. If we look back we find that it is synonymous with life itself.

Oswald Spengler

Truth Nature History Iron Logic

In place of a world, there is a city, a point, in which the

In place of a world, there is a city, a point, in which the whole life of broad regions is collecting while the rest dries up. In place of a type-true people, born of and grown on the soil, there is a new sort of nomad, cohering unstably in fluid masses, the parasitical city dweller, traditionless, utterly matter-of-fact, religionless, clever, unfruitful, deeply contemptuous of the countryman and especially that highest form of countryman, the country gentleman.

Oswald Spengler

Cities

The press today is an army with carefully organized weapons,

The press today is an army with carefully organized weapons, the journalists its officers, the readers its soldiers. But, as in every army, the soldier obeys blindly, and the war aims and operating plans change without his knowledge. The reader neither knows nor is supposed to know the purposes for which he is used and the role he is to play. There is no more appalling caricature of freedom of thought. Formerly no one was allowed to think freely; now it is permitted, but no one is capable of it any more. Now people want to think only what they are supposed to want to think, and this they consider freedom.

Oswald Spengler

Media

The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the no

The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious.

Oswald Spengler

Victory

Long ago the country bore the country-town and nourished it

Long ago the country bore the country-town and nourished it with her best blood. Now the giant city sucks the country dry, insatiably and incessantly demanding and devouring fresh streams of men, till it wearies and dies in the midst of an almost uninhabited waste of country.

Oswald Spengler

Cities

It is the Late city that first defies the land, contradicts

It is the Late city that first defies the land, contradicts Nature in the lines of its silhouette, denies all Nature. It wants to be something different from and higher than Nature. These high-pitched gables, these Baroque cupolas, spires, and pinnacles, neither are, nor desire to be, related with anything in Nature. And then begins the gigantic megalopolis, the city-as-world, which suffers nothing beside itself and sets about annihilating the country picture.

Oswald Spengler

Architecture