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German poet and writer (1772-1801)

Baron Georg Philipp Friedrich von Hardenberg (2 May 1772 – 25 March 1801) was an author, philosopher and poet of early German Romanticism. He is most commonly known by the pseudonym Novalis (denoting a "clearer of new land" — derived from a tradition of his ancestors, who had called themselves de Novali).

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Alternative Names: Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg • Friedrich von Hardenberg

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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.

Nature is an Æolian Harp, a musical instrument; whose tones again are keys to higher strings in us.

Plants are Children of the Earth; we are Children of the Æther. Our Lungs are properly our Root; we live, when we breathe; we begin our life with breathing.

Man has ever expressed some symbolical Philosophy of his Being in his Works and Conduct; he announces himself and his Gospel of Nature; he is the Messiah of Nature.

Man is a Sun; his Senses are the Planets.

There is but one Temple in the World; and that is the Body of Man. Nothing is holier than this high form. Bending before men is a reverence done to this Revelation in the Flesh. We touch Heaven, when we lay our hand on a human body.

Sleep is for the inhabitants of Planets only. In another time, Man will sleep and wake continually at once. The greater part of our Body, of our Humanity itself, yet sleeps a deep sleep.

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.

What is Nature? An encyclopedical, systematic Index or Plan of our Spirit. Why will we content us with the mere catalogue of our Treasures? Let us contemplate them ourselves, and in all ways elaborate and use them.

Life is a disease of the spirit; a working incited by Passion. Rest is peculiar to the spirit.

Man is the higher Sense of our Planet; the star which connects it with the upper world; the eye which it turns towards Heaven.

To become properly acquainted with a truth, we must first have disbelieved it, and disputed against it.

The true philosophical Act is annihilation of self (Selbsttodtung); this is the real beginning of all Philosophy; all requisites for being a Disciple of Philosophy point hither. This Act alone corresponds to all the conditions and characteristics of transcendental conduct.

We are near awakening when we dream that we dream.

Philosophy is properly Home-sickness; the wish to be everywhere at home.

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