Skip to content

Attributed quotes — Novalis

1772–1801 Germany

← All quotes by Novalis

49 quotes

The world must be romanticized. In this way the originary meaning may be found again.

Attributed

To get to know a truth properly, one must polemicize it.

Attributed

Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.

Attributed

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

Attributed Novalis (1829)

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

Attributed Novalis (1829)

True anarchy is the generative element of religion. Out of the annihilation of all existing institutions she raises her glorious head, as the new foundress of the world.

Attributed German quoted in the Fourth Leaflet of the White Rose (1942)

The true Poet is all-knowing; he is an actual world in miniature.

Attributed Novalis (1829)

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

Attributed Novalis (1829)

A character is a completely fashioned will.

Attributed Novalis (1829)

I shall in no time forget that moment. We felt as if we had had in our souls a clear passing glimpse into this wondrous World.

Attributed Novalis (1829)

We are near awakening when we dream that we dream.

Attributed Novalis (1829)

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

Attributed Novalis (1829)

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

Attributed Novalis (1829)

One succeeded-he lifted the veil of the goddess at Sais,
But what did he see? — he saw, wonder of wonders, himself.

Attributed Die Lehrlinge zu Sais · Pupils at Sais (1799)

All Fabulous Tales are merely dreams of that home world, which is everywhere and nowhere.

Attributed

To romanticize the world is to make us aware of the magic, mystery and wonder of the world; it is to educate the senses to see the ordinary as extraordinary, the familiar as strange, the mundane as sacred, the finite as infinite.

Attributed

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

Attributed Novalis (1829)

The spirit of Poesy is the morning light, which makes the Statue of Memnon sound.

Attributed Novalis (1829)

The division of Philosopher and Poet is only apparent, and to the disadvantage of both. It is a sign of disease, and of a sickly constitution.

Attributed Novalis (1829)

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.

Attributed Novalis (1829)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Novalis (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.