“Everything could be dispensed with if only we had the strength and the courage” (Thomas Bernhard)

On the one hand we overrate other people, on the other we underrate them; and we constantly overrate and underrate ourselves; when we ought to overrate ourselves we underrate ourselves, and in the same way we underrate ourselves when we ought to overrate ourselves. And above all we always overrate whatever we plan to do, for, if the truth were known, every intellectual work, like every other work, is grossly overrated, and there is no intellectual work in this generally overrated world which could not be dispensed with, just as there is no person, and hence no intellect, which cannot be dispensed with in this world: everything could be dispensed with if only we had the strength and the courage.

From Thomas Bernhard’s novel Concrete.