49. The Practical Training of Thinking

So we see how man can, as it were, creep into things, can identify himself with facts in thought. Then what he thinks takes place in the sense of the facts. I am speaking today to adults – it would be going too far for children – but let me just say this: if someone wants to develop real thinking that is connected to the outside world, so that, as it were, their thinking corresponds to what is going on outside, then they must be careful not to do such exercises in such a way that one event is placed next to the other, but they must take care to develop a feeling for the weight of an event. This is something that is connected with the practical training of thinking, but which very few people today know. Anyone who observes knows how little people have a feeling for the fact that it makes a difference whether one thing is said by one person or another. Both can express the same thing. But the way one presents himself to us gives his statements a different weight than the way the other presents himself to us. For the weight of what we acquire, we must, above all, acquire a certain feeling.