47 quotes
Upon the progress of knowledge the whole progress of the human race is immediately dependent: he who retards that, hinders this also.
The Vocation of the Scholar (1794)
Humanity may endure the loss of everything: all its possessions may be torn away without infringing its true dignity; — all but the possibility of improvement.
The Vocation of the Scholar (1794)
By conscience alone comes truth and reality into my representations.
The Vocation of Man (1800)
The law of the transcendental world must, therefore, be a Will.
The Vocation of Man (1800)
A man can do what he ought to do; and when he says he cannot, it is because he will not.
letter (1791)
My consciousness of the object is only a yet unrecognised consciousness of my production of the representation of an object.
The Vocation of Man (1800)
I veil my face before thee, and lay my finger on my lips.
The Vocation of Man (1800)
How is synthesis conceivable without presupposing thesis and antithesis?
Education to true religion is the final task of the new education.
Blind Instinct is indeed annihilated, and in its place there now stands the clearly perceived Shall.
Outline of the Doctrine of Knowledge (1810)
Instinct is blind;—a consciousness without insight. Freedom, as the opposite of Instinct, is thus seeing, and clearly conscious of the grounds of its activity.
The Characteristics of the Present Age (1806)
Reason does not exist for the sake of life, but life for the sake of reason. An existence which does not of itself satisfy reason and solve all her doubts, cannot be the true one.
The Vocation of Man (1800)
The End of the Life of Mankind on Earth is this,—that in this Life they may order all their relations with FREEDOM according to REASON.
The Characteristics of the Present Age (1806)
Let us apply these principles to adultery. The state can no more prohibit it or punish it by law than any other illegitimate satisfaction of the sexual impulse.
There are many tendencies and powers in man, and it is the vocation of each individual to cultivate all his powers, so far as he is able to do so.
The Vocation of the Scholar (1794)
The infinitely smallest part of space is always a space, something endowed with continuity, not at all a mere point or the boundary between specified places in space.
The true vocation of the Scholar; the most widely extended survey of the actual advancement of the human race in general, and the steadfast promotion of that advancement.
The Vocation of the Scholar (1794)
An infirmity which affects the whole race, is no proper object for the scorn of an individual who belongs to that race, and who, before he could expose it, must himself have been its slave.
The Characteristics of the Present Age (1806)
Every Individual can and must, under the given condition, construct the True World of Sense, — for this indeed has beyond the universal and formal laws above deduced, no other Truth and Reality than this universal harmony.
Outline of the Doctrine of Knowledge (1810)
By means of the new education we want to mould the Germans into a corporate body, which shall be stimulated and animated in all its individual members by the same interest.