Novalis Quotes

Unser Leben ist kein Traum, aber es soll und wird vielleicht einer werden.

The first Man is the first Spirit-seer; all appears to him as Spirit. What are children, but first men? The fresh gaze of the Child is richer in significance than the forecasting of the most indubitable Seer.

Blood will stream over Europe until the nations become aware of the frightful madness which drives them in circles. And then, struck by celestial music and made gentle, they approach their former altars all together, hear about the works of peace, and hold a great celebration of peace with fervent tears before the smoking altars.

Everything that we experience is a communication. In fact, so is the world too a communication — the revelation of spirit. The time is gone when the spirit of God was comprehensible to us. The meaning of the world has been lost to us. We have seen only its letters. We have lost that which is appearing behind the appearance.

Трябва да бъдем горди за болката, всяка болка е едно напомняне за нашата извисеност.

I am a profoundly anti-juridical man. . . . I have neither any sense of law or need for law.

Let the dragon-flies rise; innocent strangers they are, Follow the twin star, exulting, with gifts, this way.

Philosophy can bake no bread; but she can procure for us God, Freedom, Immortality. Which, then, is more practical, Philosophy or Economy?

To philosophize means to make vivid.

If our Bodily Life is a burning, our Spiritual Life is a being burnt, a Combustion (or, is precisely the inverse the case?); Death, therefore, perhaps a Change of Capacity.

The letter is only an aid to philosophical communication, the actual essence of which consists in arousing a particular train of thought. Someone speaking thinks and produces — someone listening reflects — and reproduces. Words are a deceptive medium for what is already though — unreliable vehicles of a particular, specific stimulus. The true teacher is a guide. If the pupil genuinely desires truth it requires only a hint to show him how to find what he is seeking. Accordingly the representation of philosophy consists purely of themes — of initial propositions — principles. It exists only for autonomous lovers of truth. The analytical exposition of the theme is only for those who are sluggish or unpracticed. The latter must learn thereby how to fly and keep themselves moving in a particular direction.

Attentiveness is a centripetal force. The effective relation between that which is directed and the object of direction begins with the given direction. If we hold fast to this direction we are apodictically certain of reaching the goal that has been set.

True collaboration in philosophy then is a common movement toward a beloved world — whereby we relieve each other in the most advanced outpost, a movement that demands the greatest effort against the resisting element within which we are flying.

Hätten wir auch eine Phantastik wie eine Logik, so wäre die Erfindungskunst – erfunden. Zur Phantastik gehört auch die Ästhetik gewissermaßen wie die Vernunftlehre zur Logik.

In most religious systems we are regarded as parts of the godhead which, if they do not obey the impulses of the whole, and even if they do not intentionally act against the laws of the whole, but only go their own way and do not want to be parts of it, are medically treated by the godhead — and either endure a painful cure or even are cut off.

Куда же мы идем? Всегда домой.

Aside I turn to the holy, unspeakable, mysterious Night. Afar lies the world — sunk in a deep grave — waste and lonely is its place. In the chords of the bosom blows a deep sadness. I am ready to sink away in drops of dew, and mingle with the ashes. — The distances of memory, the wishes of youth, the dreams of childhood, the brief joys and vain hopes of a whole long life, arise in gray garments, like an evening vapor after the sunset. In other regions the light has pitched its joyous tents. What if it should never return to its children, who wait for it with the faith of innocence?