14 quotes
Make Christianity your own, and it will show you a point outside the world, and by means of this you will move heaven and earth.
Works of Love (1847)
Only one deception is possible in the infinite sense, self-deception.
Works of Love (1847)
The relationship between the individual and God, the God-relationship, is the conscience.
Works of Love (1847)
Spontaneous love can reach the point of despair, shows that it is in despair, that even when it is happy it loves with the power of despair.
Works of Love (1847)
When one has once fully entered the realm of Love, the world — no matter how imperfect — becomes rich and beautiful, it consists solely of opportunities for Love.
Works of Love (1847)
As the world changes, the forms of corruption also gradually become more cunning, more difficult to point out - but they certainly do not become better.
Works of Love (1847)
How could one speak properly about love if you were forgotten, you God of love, source of all love in heaven and on earth; you who spared nothing but in love gave everything; you who are love, so that one who loves is what he is only by being in you.
Works of Love (1847)
The distinguished person ... may very well use an exaggerated courtesy toward the more lowly, but he must never associate with them as equals, since that would express that he was—human, but he is—distinguished.
Works of Love (1847)
Every human being can come to know everything about love, just as every human being can come to know that he, like every human being, is loved by God. Some find this thought adequate for the longest life others find this thought so insignificant ...
Works of Love (1847)
What the world actually admires as sagacity is knowledge of evil—whereas wisdom is knowledge of the good. The one who loves does not have and does not want to have knowledge of evil; in this regard he is and remains, he wants to be and wants to remain, a child.
Works of Love (1847)
This distinguished corruption will teach the distinguished person that he exists only for the distinguished, that he is to live only in the alliance of their circles, that he must not exist for other people, just as they must not exist for him.
Works of Love (1847)
If it were so, as conceited sagacity, proud of not being deceived, thinks, that we should believe nothing that we cannot see with our physical eyes, then we first and foremost ought to give up believing in love. ... We can be deceived by believing what is untrue, but we certainly are also deceived by not believing what is true. ... Which deception is more dangerous?
Works of Love (1847)
Perfection in the object is not perfection in the love. Erotic love is determined by the object; friendship is determined by the object; only love of one’s neighbor is determined by love. Therefore genuine love is recognizable by this, that its object is without any of the more definite qualifications of difference, which means that this love is recognizable only by love.
Works of Love (1847)
The intoxication of self-feeling is the most intense, and the height of this intoxication is most admired. Love and friendship are the very height of self-feeling, the I intoxicated in the other-I. The more securely the two I's come together to become one I, the more this united I selfishly cuts itself off from all others.
Works of Love (1847)