“Existential envy which is directed against the other person’s very nature, is the strongest source of ressentiment. It is as if it whispers continually: “I can forgive everything, but not that you are— that you are what you are—that I am not what you are—indeed that I am not you.” This form of envy strips the opponent of his very existence, for this existence as such is felt to be a “pressure,” a “reproach,” and an unbearable humiliation. In the lives of great men there are always critical periods of instability, in which they alternately envy and try to love those whose merits they cannot but esteem. Only gradually, one of these attitudes will predominate. Here lies the meaning of Goethe’s reflection that “against another’s great merits, there is no remedy but love.”― Max Scheler”

“Existential envy which is directed against the other person’s very nature, is the strongest source of ressentiment. It is as if it whispers continually: “I can forgive everything, but not that you are— that you are what you are—that I am not what you are—indeed that I am not you.” This form of envy strips the opponent of his very existence, for this existence as such is felt to be a “pressure,” a “reproach,” and an unbearable humiliation. In the lives of great men there are always critical periods of instability, in which they alternately envy and try to love those whose merits they cannot but esteem. Only gradually, one of these attitudes will predominate. Here lies the meaning of Goethe’s reflection that “against another’s great merits, there is no remedy but love.”― Max Scheler”

“Existential envy which is directed against the other person’s very nature, is the strongest source of ressentiment. It is as if it whispers continually: “I can forgive everything, but not that you are— that you are what you are—that I am not what you are—indeed that I am not you.” This form of envy strips the opponent of his very existence, for this existence as such is felt to be a “pressure,” a “reproach,” and an unbearable humiliation. In the lives of great men there are always critical periods of instability, in which they alternately envy and try to love those whose merits they cannot but esteem. Only gradually, one of these attitudes will predominate. Here lies the meaning of Goethe’s reflection that “against another’s great merits, there is no remedy but love.”

“The ultimate goal of the arriviste’s aspirations is not to acquire a thing of value, but to be more highly esteemed than others. He merely uses the “thing” as an indifferent occasion for overcoming the oppressive feeling of inferiority which results from his constant comparisons.”

“Whenever convictions are not arrived at by direct contact with the world and the objects themselves, but indirectly through a critique of the opinions of others, the processes of thinking are impregnated with ressentiment. The establishment of “criteria” for testing the correctness of opinions then becomes the most important task. Genuine and fruitful criticism judges all opinions with reference to the object itself. Ressentiment criticism, on the contrary, accepts no “object” that has not stood the test of criticism”

“It is peculiar to “ressentiment criticism” that it does not seriously desire that its demands be fulfilled. It does not want to cure the evil. The evil is merely the pretext for the criticism.”

“One of my principal theses is that in every case the nature of a being (contingent as well as essential nature) can, in principle, be immanent to and truly inherent in knowledge and reflexive consciousness as it is outside of consciousness, and therefore not only as it is represented by some image, perception, idea [*Vorstellung*], or thought. This immanence of the nature of a being to consciousness occurs, of course, with totally different degrees of adequation and on completely different levels of the relativity of its existence to the existence and constitution [*Organisation*] of the "knowing" subject. Existence, however, can never be immanent to consciousness. Rather, existence necessarily transcends knowledge and consciousness and is alien to them. Existence is essentially transcendent and remains independent of them, even in the limiting case of a "divine," omniscient Mind." In other words, the nature and the existence of any possible object are separable with respect to the possibility of their being *in mente* [in the mind]. The nature of a being can be *in mente* and actually is so in any evidential cognition of what a thing is, which excludes cases of illusion and error. Existence can never be *in mente*. I shall speak later of how existence can be "given" despite this. Existence transcends thought, intuition, and perception, as well as any cooperation of thought and intuition in that higher form of knowledge we call cognition. Cognition is the "knowledge of something as something," the coincidence [*Deckung*] of intuition and thought." from_Idealism and Realism_”