53. The Human Character
GA 68b/1909-10-29/p023
·1909-10-29
·
English
HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
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: «Da keine professionellen Stenogramme vorliegen, handelt es sich oftmals um notizenhaft festgehaltene Zusammenfassungen oder Berichte.» (Since no professional shorthand transcripts exist, these are often summaries or reports kept in the form of notes.). The publisher's description of the volume, as mirrored on AnthroWiki (GA 68b). The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.
But one or other of these strings can be struck in the wrong way. It can happen that the I makes a mistake in a certain way, or where it should have a strong effect, it has a weak effect. If it makes a mistake within the soul of the intellect, then what arises is a demonstration of how even the noblest in human life can be distorted, can become a caricature, when the I loses itself in what it has recognized as truth.
Read this passage in another edition