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Like Attracts Like
Arthur Schopenhauer
The Wisdom of Life

The author argues that individuals are only capable of appreciating things that mirror their own nature, leading the dull to prefer dullness and the wise to prefer wisdom.

...ur, or the temper of the moment,--belonging to it, living and dying with it. The general history of art and literature shows that the highest achievements of the human mind are, as a rule, not favorably received at first; but remain in obscurity until they win notice from intelligence of a high order, by whose influence they are brought into a position which they then maintain, in virtue of the authority thus given them. If the reason of this should be asked, it will be found that ultimately,
A man can really understand and appreciate those things only which are of like nature with himself. The dull person will like what is dull, and the common person what is common; a man whose ideas are mixed will be attracted by confusion of thought; and folly will appeal to him who has no brains at all; but best of all, a man will like his own works, as being of a character thoroughly at one with himself.
This is a truth as old as Epicharmus of fabulous memory-- [Greek: Thaumaston ouden esti me tauth outo legein Kal andanein autoisin autous kal dokein Kalos pethukenai kal gar ho kuon kuni Kalloton eimen phainetai koi bous boi Onos dono kalliston [estin], us dut.] The sense of this passage--for it should not be lost--is that we should not be surprised if people are pleased with themselves, and fancy that they are in good case; for to a dog the best thing in the world is a dog; to an o...
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Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Maxims

Friendship's Selfless Paradox

La Rochefoucauld directly affirms the parent's claim that we can only love what agrees with us, extending it to the context of friendship.

We can love nothing but what agrees with us, and we can only follow our taste or our pleasure when we prefer our friends to ourselves; nevertheless it is only by that preference that friendship can be true and perfect.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Beyond Good and Evil

The Exception's Burden

Nietzsche challenges the idea that one only appreciates what is like oneself by arguing that the exceptional man, if destined for knowledge, must find the ordinary 'rule' interesting—even though it is not like him.

...with artistic curiosity, with regard to many a philosopher it is easy to understand the dangerous desire to see him also in his deterioration (deteriorated into a "martyr," into a stage-and-tribune-bawler). Only, that it is necessary with such a desire to be clear WHAT spectacle one will see in any case--merely a satyric play, merely an epilogue farce, merely the continued proof that the long, real tragedy IS AT AN END, supposing that every philosophy has been a long tragedy in its origin. 26.
Every select man strives instinctively for a citadel and a privacy, where he is FREE from the crowd, the many, the majority--where he may forget "men who are the rule," as their exception;--exclusive only of the case in which he is pushed straight to such men by a still stronger instinct, as a discerner in the great and exceptional sense. Whoever, in intercourse with men, does not occasionally glisten in all the green and grey colours of distress, owing to disgust, satiety, sympathy, gloominess, and solitariness, is assuredly not a man of elevated tastes; supposing, however, that he does not v...
The long and serious study of the AVERAGE man--and consequently much disguise, self-overcoming, familiarity, and bad intercourse (all intercourse is bad intercourse except with one's equals):--that constitutes a necessary part of the life-history of every philosopher; perhaps the most disagreeable, odious, and disappointing part. If he is fortunate, however, as a favourite child of knowledge should be, he will meet with suitable auxiliaries who will shorten and lighten his task; I mean so-calle...

Friedrich Nietzsche

Beyond Good and Evil

The Tyranny of Commonality

Nietzsche explains the mechanism behind the parent claim: the structure of a soul determines its values and needs, and similarity allows for easy communication, which has historically favored ordinary people.

...in all loves and friendships one has the experience that nothing of the kind continues when the discovery has been made that in using the same words, one of the two parties has feelings, thoughts, intuitions, wishes, or fears different from those of the other. (The fear of the "eternal misunderstanding": that is the good genius which so often keeps persons of different sexes from too hasty attachments, to which sense and heart prompt them--and NOT some Schopenhauerian "genius of the species"!)
Whichever groups of sensations within a soul awaken most readily, begin to speak, and give the word of command--these decide as to the general order of rank of its values, and determine ultimately its list of desirable things. A man's estimates of value betray something of the STRUCTURE of his soul, and wherein it sees its conditions of life, its intrinsic needs. Supposing now that necessity has from all time drawn together only such men as could express similar requirements and similar experiences by similar symbols, it results on the whole that the easy COMMUNICABILITY of need, which implies...
One must appeal to immense opposing forces, in order to thwart this natural, all-too-natural PROGRESSUS IN SIMILE, the evolution of man to the similar, the ordinary, the average, the gregarious--to the IGNOBLE--! 269. The more a psychologist--a born, an unavoidable psychologist and soul-diviner--turns his attention to the more select cases and individuals, the greater is his danger of being suffocated by sympathy: he NEEDS sternness and cheerfulness more than any other man. For the corruption,...

Blaise Pascal

Pensees

Conditional Human Love

Pascal reframes the discussion away from similarity to utility: what matters is not whether something is of like nature, but whether it can satisfy all of one's wants.

...35 We should not be able to say of a man, "He is a mathematician," or "a preacher," or "eloquent"; but that he is "a gentleman." That universal quality alone pleases me. It is a bad sign when, on seeing a person, you remember his book. I would prefer you to see no quality till you meet it and have occasion to use it (Ne quid nimis[14]), for fear some one quality prevail and designate the man. Let none think him a fine speaker, unless oratory be in question, and then let them think it. 36
Man is full of wants: he loves only those who can satisfy them all. "This one is a good mathematician," one will say. But I have nothing to do with mathematics; he would take me for a proposition. "That one is a good soldier." He would take me for a besieged town. I need, then, an upright man who can accommodate himself generally to all my wants.
37 [Since we cannot be universal and know all that is to be known of everything, we ought to know a little about everything. For it is far better to know something about everything than to know all about one thing. This universality is the best. If we can have both, still better; but if we must choose, we ought to choose the former. And the world feels this and does so; for the world is often a good judge.] 38 A poet and not an honest man. 39 If lightning fell on low places, etc., poet...

Marcus Aurelius

Meditations

Imperfect Beauty

Marcus Aurelius offers practical guidance: by cultivating a profound mind and attentively considering the world, one can find pleasure and delight in all things, thus transcending limited appreciation.

...ld live any longer or no, to consider duly; for all such things, wherein the best strength and vigour of the mind is most requisite; his power and ability will be past and gone. Thou must hasten therefore; not only because thou art every day nearer unto death than other, but also because that intellective faculty in thee, whereby thou art enabled to know the true nature of things, and to order all thy actions by that knowledge, doth daily waste and decay: or, may fail thee before thou die. II.
This also thou must observe, that whatsoever it is that naturally doth happen to things natural, hath somewhat in itself that is pleasing and delightful: as a great loaf when it is baked, some parts of it cleave as it were, and part asunder, and make the crust of it rugged and unequal, and yet those parts of it, though in some sort it be against the art and intention of baking itself, that they are thus cleft and parted, which should have been and were first made all even and uniform, they become it well nevertheless, and have a certain peculiar property, to stir the appetite. So figs are acco...
So will he behold with as much pleasure the true rictus of wild beasts, as those which by skilful painters and other artificers are imitated. So will he be able to perceive the proper ripeness and beauty of old age, whether in man or woman: and whatsoever else it is that is beautiful and alluring in whatsoever is, with chaste and continent eyes he will soon find out and discern. Those and many other things will he discern, not credible unto every one, but unto them only who are truly and fami...