41 quotes
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)
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)
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)
Man is a Sun; his Senses are the Planets.
Attributed Novalis (1829)
No explanation is required for Holy Writing. Whoso speaks truly is full of eternal life, and wonderfully related to genuine mysteries does his Writing appear to us, for it is a Concord from the Symphony of the Universe.
Attributed Novalis (1829)
Man consists in Truth. If he exposes Truth, he exposes himself. If he betrays Truth, he betrays himself. We speak not here of lies, but of acting against Conviction.
Attributed Novalis (1829)
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.
Attributed Novalis (1829)
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.
Attributed Novalis (1829)
Nature too remains, so far as we have yet come, ever a frightful Machine of Death: everywhere monstrous revolution, inexplicable vortices of movement; a kingdom of Devouring, of the maddest tyranny; a baleful Immense: the few light-points disclose but a so much the more appalling Night, and terrors of all sorts must palsy every observer.
Attributed Novalis (1829)
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.
Attributed Novalis (1829)