Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling Quotes

Wie zugleich die objektive Welt nach Vorstellungen in uns, und Vorstellungen in uns nach der objektiven Welt sich bequemen, ist nicht zu begreifen, wenn nicht zwischen den beiden Welten, der ideellen und der reellen, eine vorherbestimmte Harmonie existiert. Diese vorherbestimmte Harmonie aber ist selbst nicht denkbar, wenn nicht die Tätigkeit, durch welche die objektive Welt produziert ist, ursprünglich identisch ist mit der, welche im Wollen sich äußert, und umgekehrt.

The end of the philosophical dialogue lies in itself; it can never serve a purpose outside of itself. Just as a sculptor does not cease to be a work of art even if it lies at the bottom of the sea, so indeed every work of philosophy endures, even if uncomprehended in its own time. One would be grateful if it were merely a matter of incomprehension. Instead, the work is usually refitted and appropriated by various entities-some playing the part of the opponent; others, that of the proponent. P.3-4

They think of the philosopher as holding the ideal or subjective in one hand and the real or objective in the other and then have him strike the palms of his hands together so that one abrades the other. The product of this abrasion is the Absolute. P. 12

Über das Studium der Theologie". Cf. Schellings Sämtliche Werke, Vol. V. Stuttgart 18S9, pp. 296 et seq.

Die christlichen Missionarien, die nach Indien kamen, glaubten den Bewohnern etwas Unerhörtes zu verkündigen, wenn sie lehrten, daß der Gott der Christen Mensch geworden sei. Jene waren darüber nicht verwundert, sie bestritten die Fleischwerdung Gottes in Christo keineswegs, und fanden bloß seltsam, daß bei den Christen nur einmal geschehen sei, was sich bei ihnen oftmals und in steter Wiederholung zutrage. Man kann nicht leugnen, daß sie von ihrer Religion mehr Verstand gehabt haben, wie die christlichen Missionarien von der ihrigen.

All rules for study are summed up in this one: learn only in order to create.

If there is to be any philosophy at all, this contradiction must be resolved – and the solution of this problem, or answer to the question: how can we think both of Presentations as conforming to objects, and objects as conforming to presentations? is, not the first, but the highest task of transcendental philosophy.

It is easy to see that this problem can be solved neither in theoretical nor in practical philosophy, but only in a higher discipline, which is the link that combines them, and neither theoretical nor practical, but both at once.

There was a time when religion was kept secret from popular belief within the mystery cults like a holy fire, sharing a common sanctuary with philosophy. The legends of antiquity name the earliest philosophers as the originators of these mystery cults, from which the most enlightened among the later philosophers, notably Plato, liked to educe their divine teachings. At that time philosophers still had the courage and the right to discuss the singly great themes, the only ones worthy of philosophizing and rising above common knowledge. P. 7

Die Scheu vor der Spekulation, das angebliche Forteilen vom bloß Theoretischen zum Praktischen, bewirkt im Handeln notwendig die gleiche Flachheit wie im Wissen. Das Studium einer streng theoretischen Philosophie macht uns am unmittelbarsten mit Ideen vertraut, und nur Ideen geben dem Handeln Nachdruck und sittliche Bedeutung.

Man kann sich indessen nicht des Gedankens erwehren, welch ein Hindernis der Vollendung die sogenannten biblischen Bücher für dasselbe gewesen sind, die an echt religiösem Gehalt keine Vergleichung mit so vielen andern der früheren und späteren Zeit, vornehmlich den Indischen, auch nur von ferne aushalten.

The fear of speculation, the ostensible rush from the theoretical to the practical, brings about the same shallowness in action that it does in knowledge. It is by studying a strictly theoretical philosophy that we become most acquainted with Ideas, and only Ideas provide action with vigour and ethical meaning.

If the State, modeled after the universe, is split into two spheres or classes of beings – wherein the free represent the ideas and the unfree the concrete and sensate things – then the ultimate and uppermost order remains unrealized by both. By using sensate things as tools or organs, the ideas obtain a direct relationship to the apparitions and enter into them as souls. God, however, as identity of the highest order, remains above all reality and eternally has merely an indirect relationship. If then in the higher moral order the State represents a second nature, then the divine can never have anything other than an indirect relationship to it, never can it bear any real relationship to it, and religion, if it seeks to preserve itself in unscathed pure ideality, can therefore never exist – even in the most perfect State – other than esoterically in the form of mystery cults. P. 51

On its pass through finitude, the being-for-itself of the counter-image expresses itself most potently as “”I-ness”, as self-identical individuality. Just as a planet in its orbit no sooner reaches its farthest distance from the center than it returns to its closest proximity, so the point of the farthest distance from God, the I-ness, is also the moment of its return to the Absolute, of the re-absorption into the ideal. P. 30

What is Europe really but a sterile trunk which owes everything to oriental grafts?