Third Lecture
GA 266a/1904-02-21/p014
·1904-02-21
·
English
LowLow alignmentMost translators re-paragraphed Steiner substantially. The locus identifies the same chapter or section, but paragraph-N to paragraph-N mapping is loose. For exact-quotation precision, compare with the German.
Record: listeners' notes. Written from listeners' notes, summaries, or memory rather than a shorthand transcript. The wording is the note-taker's as much as Steiner's: weigh a single striking phrase here far more cautiously than the same phrase in a stenographic volume, and do not rest an argument on one word. Evidence: «Gedächtnisaufzeichnungen von Teilnehmern sowie Notizen von Vorträgen» (Participants' records written from memory, and notes of lectures). Rudolf Steiner Verlag Gesamtverzeichnis 2022, volume subtitle. The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.
Those who have experience know that it has an enormous effect when you succeed in achieving the following. A person has hundreds and hundreds of opinions. But it is very unimportant whether A or B thinks something about a matter. The wise man has an opinion and so does the fool. Everyone considers his opinion to be of the utmost importance, and he wants to assert this opinion first. That is why you so often hear people say, “I believe this, I believe that.” Try to realize how unimportant it is to put forward your own opinion at every opportunity; it may be the most unimportant, the most incorrect, because what we believe usually depends on pleasure and pain. If we manage not to express our opinion, then we practice something important and store up a tremendous power.
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