Author: Maria Popova / Source: Brain Pickings
“Construction and destruction alike satisfy the will to power,” Bertrand Russell wrote in contemplating human nature, “but construction is more difficult as a rule, and therefore gives more satisfaction to the person who can achieve it.” A generation later, W.
H. Auden echoed this sentiment in his insistence that the only worthwhile criticism is celebration — a conviction which I myself have held and placed at the center of my life for as long as I can remember.Long before Auden and Russell, another titan of thought in language articulated this ethos with unsurpassed poetic precision.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (August 28, 1749–March 22, 1832) offers a lovely counterpoint to the impulse toward criticism with an edge of cynicism that has only swelled in the centuries since:
I am more and more convinced that whenever one has to vent an opinion on the actions or on the…
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