Pitiful, to be sure, is what the pragmatic philosophy of the French and English is. … They are considered to be so well versed in the knowledge of what man is, despite their failure to speculate on what he should be.

— Friedrich Schleiermacher

Jämmerlich ist freilich jene praktische Philosophie der Franzosen und Engländer, von denen man meint, sie wüßten so gut, was der Mensch sei, unerachtet sie nicht darüber spekulierten, was er sein solle.

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Notes from Wikiquote

Cited in Lucinde and the Fragments, P. Firchow, trans. (1991), "Athenaeum Fragments" (1798), § 355.

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But the imparting of religion is not to be sought in books, like that of intellectual conceptions and scientific knowledge.

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In saying we are in immediate relation with God, the latter term is used only to designate the Whence of our spontaneous and receptive life, of which we become aware in our feeling of absolute dependence.

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That which was then our innermost I and Self has now become something far off and strange to us; and the law of divine appointment, which has now through the grace of God become the law of our life, which we love and obey, was then far off and strange.

Miracle is simply the religious name for event. Every event, even the most natural and usual, becomes a miracle, as soon as the religious view of it can be the dominant. To me all is miracle.

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

Pitiful, to be sure, is what the pragmatic philosophy of the French and English is. … They are considered to be so well versed in the knowledge of what man is, despite their failure to speculate on what he should be.

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