Novalis - Philosophy Quotes

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

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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.

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

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Philosophy … bears witness to the deepest love of reflection, to absolute delight in wisdom.

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The true philosophical Act is annihilation of self (Selbsttodtung); this is the real beginning of all Philosophy; all requisites for being a Disciple of Philosophy point hither. This Act alone corresponds to all the conditions and characteristics of transcendental conduct.

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When one begins to reflect on philosophy—then philosophy seems to us to be everything, like God, and love. It is a mystical, highly potent, penetrating idea—which ceaselessly drives us inward in all directions. The decision to do philosophy—to seek philosophy is the act of self-liberation—the thrust toward ourselves.

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Morality must be the heart of our existence, if it is to be what it wants to be for us. … The highest form of philosophy is ethics. Thus all philosophy begins with I am. The highest statement of cognition must be an expression of that fact which is the means and ground for all cognition, namely, the goal of the I.

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Only the most perfect human being can design the most perfect philosophy.

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The idea of philosophy is a mysterious tradition. Philosophy is, in all, the problem of knowing. It is an undefined Science of the Sciences, a mysticism of the desire for knowledge; it is the very Spirit of the Sciences, and consequently unrepresentable, either in form or application, in the perfect representation of a special science.

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Doing philosophy is only a threefold or double kind of waking--being awake--consciousness.

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Now as all the sciences are connected with each other, Philosophy is never completed. In a complete system of all the sciences will philosophy for the first time be made manifest.

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