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Orthodoxy gave away the earth into the hands of the state because of its own non-belief in man and mankind, because of its nihilistic attitude towards the world. Orthodoxy does not believe in the religious ordering of human life upon the earth, and it compensates for its own hopeless pessimism by a call for the forceful ordering of it by state authority.

— Nikolai Berdyaev

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More quotes by Nikolai Berdyaev

The new religious consciousness rises up against the nihilistic attitude towards the world and mankind.

For the new religious consciousness the declaration of the will of God is together with this a declaration of the rights of man, a revealing of the Divine within mankind.

We live in a nightmare of falsehoods, and there are few who are sufficiently awake and aware to see things as they are. Our first duty is to clear away illusions and recover a sense of reality.

Political Testament (1949)

There is absolute truth in anarchism and it is to be seen in its attitude to the sovereignty of the state and to every form of state absolutism.

Slavery and Freedom (1939)

No one today likes truth: utility and self interest have long ago been substituted for truth.

Political Testament (1949)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Nikolai Berdyaev (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.