Philosophers From Germany

"Giebts eine unsichtbare Kirche, so ist es die jener grossen Paradoxie, die von der Sittlichkeit unzertrennlich ist, und von der bloss philosophischen noch sehr unterschieden werden muss. Menschen, die so ekzentrisch sind, im vollen Ernst tugendhaft zu seyn und zu werden, verstehn sich überall, finden sich leicht, und bilden eine stille Opposizion gegen die herrschende Unsittlichkeit, die eben für Sittlichkeit gilt. Ein gewisser Mystizismus des Ausdrucks, der bey einer romantischen Fantasie und mit grammatischem Sinn verbunden, etwas sehr Reizendes und etwas sehr Gutes seyn kann, dient ihnen oft als Symbol ihrer schönen Geheimnisse."

"Prudishness is pretense of innocence without innocence. Women have to remain prudish as long as men are sentimental, dense, and evil enough to demand of them eternal innocence and lack of education. For innocence is the only thing which can ennoble lack of education."

"One can only become a philosopher, but not be one. As one believes he is a philosopher, he stops being one."

"One presupposition, which in this matter has been of great harm and continues to do harm, is the separation between oriental and Greek studies and [the Greek and oriental} mind; [this] is increasingly concocted and arbitrarily applied, as if this grand difference had foundations in reality. In the history of humankind the inhabitants of Asia and the Europeans are to be seen as members of one family, whose history ought never to be divided, if one wants to understand the whole."

"Moderation is the spirit of castrated narrow-mindedness."

"[Languages that lacked inflection, he claimed, were barren and uncreative] only something like a heap of atoms, which the winds of chance can easily drive apart or push back together; the relationship [between them] is nothing but a purely mechanical one made by external attaching. These languages lack in their original form a germ from which life can unfold; the derivations always remain lacking, and when afterwards their artificiality has increased so much because of the appending of more and more affixes, the difficulty of achieving true, simple beauty and lightness is exacerbated even more. What appears to be richness is in fact poverty..."

"The first fundamental rule of historical science and research, when by these is sought a knowledge of the general destinies of mankind, is to keep these, and every object connected with them, steadily in view, without losing ourselves in the details of special inquiries and particular facts, for the multitude and variety of these subjects is absolutely boundless; and on the ocean of historical science the main subject easily vanishes from the eye. ...In the higher grades of academic instruction, the lessons on history must vary with each one's calling and pursuits ...[T]he archives of many a state would alone furnish occupation for more than a man's life. ...The first fundamental rule ...to keep the attention fixed on the main subject, and not to let it be distracted or dissipated by a number of minute details—concerned more the method of historical science. The second rule regards the subject and purport of history... [W]e should not wish to explain every thing. Historical tradition must never be abandoned in the —otherwise we lose all firm ground and footing... [W]e have nothing to do but to record, as it is given, the best and safest testimony which tradition, so far as we have it, can afford... Extremely hazardous is the desire to explain every thing, and to supply whatever appears a gap in history—for in this propensity lies the first cause and germ of all those violent and arbitrary hypotheses which perplex and pervert the science of history far more than the open avowal of our ignorance, or the uncertainty of our knowledge: hypotheses which give an oblique direction, or an exaggerated and false extension to a view of the subject originally not incorrect. And even if there are points which appear not very clear to us, or which we leave unexplained—this will not prevent us from comprehending, so far... as the limited conception of man is able, the great outline of human history, though here and there a gap should remain."

"There is no language in the world, even Greek, which has the clarity and the philosophical precision of Sanskrit. India is not only at the origin of everything, she is superior in everything, intellectually, religiously or politically and even the Greek heritage seems pale in comparison."

"The Indians possessed a knowledge of the true God, conceived and expressed in noble, clear and grand language … Even the loftiest philosophy of the Europeans, the idealization of reason, as set forth by the Greeks, appears in comparison with the abundant light and vigor of oriental idealism, like a feeble spark in the full flood of the noonday sun."

"Even the loftiest philosophy of the Europeans, the idealism of reason, as it is set forth by Greek philosophers, appears, in comparison with the abundant light and vigour of Oriental idealism, like a feeble Promethean spark in the full flood of heavenly glory of the noonday sun—faltering and feeble, and ever ready to be extinguished."

"Whether directly or indirectly all nations are originally nothing but Indian colonies... the oriental antiquity could, if we consented to deepen it, bring us back more safely towards the divine...."

"A year later, the influential Friedrich von Schlegel argued that "the Northwest of India must be considered the central point from which all of these nations had their origin" (505)."

"Here is the actual source of all languages, all the thoughts and poems of the human spirit; everything, everything without exception comes from India."

""It is true that the Indian is almost entirely a philosophical or rather a religious language, and perhaps none, not even excepting the Greek, is so philosophically clear and sharply defined: It has no variable or arbitrary combination of abstractions, but is formed on It permanent system, in which the deep symbolic signification of words and expressions reciprocally explain, elucidate, and support each other."

"The greatness of this people was attested by "the gigantic grandeur and durability of Egyptian and Indian architecture in contradistinction to the fragile littleness of modem buildings. This consideration will enable us," he continued, "by analogy to grasp the idea . . . that all these famous nations sprang from one stock, and that their colonies were all one people directly or indirectly, of Indian origin.... ""

"The doctrine of the transmigration of souls was indigenous to India and was brought into Greece by Pythagoras."

"Germany had no material interests and responded spiritually to India. Friedrich Schlegel, hailed as “the inventor of the Oriental Renaissance,” wrote in 1803, “Everything, yes, everything without exception has its origin in India.” He proclaimed India with Greece and Germany, the most philosophical of nations. “If one considers,” he said, “the superior conception which is at the basis of the truly universal Indian culture and which, itself divine, knows how to embrace in its universality everything that is divine without distinction, then, what we in Europe call religion or what we used to call such, no longer seems to deserve that name. And one would like to advice everyone who wants to see religion, he should, just as one goes to Italy to study art, go to India for that purpose where he may be certain to find at least fragments for which he will surely look in vain in Europe.” Friedrich Schlegel’s The Language and Wisdom of the Indians (1808) was the first German contribution to Indology. Friedrich wrote, “May Indic studies find as many disciples and protectors as Germany and Italy saw spring up in such great numbers for Greek studies in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and may they be able to do as many things in as short a time. The Renaissance of antiquity promptly transformed and rejuvenated all the sciences; we might add that it rejuvenated and transformed the world. We could even say that the effects of Indic studies, if these enterprises were taken up and introduced into learned circles with the same energy today, would be no less great or far-reaching.”"

"It cannot be denied that the early Indians possessed knowledge of God. All their writings are replete with sentiments and expressions, noble, clear, severely grand, as deeply conceived in any human language in which men have spoken of their God."

"India is pre-eminently distinguished for the many traits of original grandeur of thought and of the wonderful remains of immediate knowledge."

""Already from the beginning possessed the brightest and most sincere clarity [and that it had] in its first and most fundamental parts the highest concepts from the world of pure thought, just as it expresses the whole foundation of consciousness not through image, but with immediate clarity."

"The divine origin of man, as taught by Vedanta, IS continually inculcated, to stimulate his efforts to return, to animate him in the struggle, and incite him to consider a reunion and reincorporation with Divinity as the one primary object of every action and reaction. Even the loftiest philosophy of the European, the idealism of reason as it is set forth by the Greek philosophers, appears in comparison with the abundant light and vigor of Oriental idealism like a feeble Promethean spark in the full flood of heavenly glory of the noonday sun, faltering and feeble and ever ready to be extinguished."

"In India lay the real source of all tongues, of all thoughts and utterances of the human mind. Everything - yes, everything without exception - has it origin in India." and "The primary source of all intellectual development - in a word the whole human culture - is unquestionably to be found in the tradItions of the East."

"Everything, absolutely everything, comes from India."

"Selbst in den äusserlichen Gebräuchen sollte sich die Lebensart der Künstler von der Lebensart der übrigen Menschen durchaus unterscheiden. Sie sind Braminen, eine höhere Kaste, aber nicht durch Geburt sondern durch freye Selbsteinweihung geadelt."

"Life is writing. The sole purpose of mankind is to engrave the thoughts of divinity onto the tablets of nature."

"Expect nothing more from philosophy than a voice, language and grammar of the instinct for Godliness that lies at its origin, and, essentially, is philosophy itself."

"Es giebt keine Selbstkenntniss als die historische. Niemand weiss was er ist, wer nicht weiss was seine Genossen sind."

"Wie die Senatoren der Römer sind die wahren Künstler ein Volk von Königen."

"Nur wer einig ist mit der Welt kann einig seyn mit sich selbst."

"When one considers the sublime disposition underlying the tmly universal educatiOn (of traditional India) ... then what IS or has been called religion in Europe seems to us to be scarcely deserving of that name. And one feels compelled to advise those who Wish to witness religion to travel to India for that purpose ...."

"If, in the last decades, an overly one-sided and simply frivolous preoccupation with the Greeks has distanced us too much from the solemnity of the ancient world, or even from the sources of all higher truth, the totally new knowledge and appreciation of oriental antiquity is able, the more deeply we immerse ourselves in it, to lead us back to the knowledge of the divine and to that power of conviction, which first gave life to all art and all wisdom."

"Worauf bin ich stolz und darf ich stolz seyn als Künstler?Auf den Entschluss, der mich auf ewig von (29) allem Gemeinen absonderte und isolirte."

"Wo Politik ist oder Oekonomie, da ist keine Moral."

"Nicht in die politische Welt verschleudere du Glauben und Liebe, aber in der göttlichen Welt der Wissenschaft und der Kunst opfre dein Innerstes in den heiligen Feuerstrom ewiger Bildung."

"Was sich thun lässt, so lange Philosophie und Poesie getrennt sind, ist gethan und vollendet. Also ist die Zeit nun da, beyde zu vereinigen."

"India is not only at the origin of everything, she is superior in everything, intellectually, religiously or politically and even the Greek heritage seems pale in comparison."

"Deute den lieblichen Schein und mache Ernst aus dem Spiel, so wirst du das Centrum fassen und die verehrte Kunst in höherm Lichte wieder finden."

"Der Künstler darf eben so wenig herrschen als dienen wollen. 15 Er kann nur bilden, nichts als bilden, für den Staat also nur das thun, dass er Herrscher und Diener bilde, dass er Politiker und Oekonomen zu Künstlern erhebe."

"Grade die Individualität ist das Ursprüngliche und Ewige im Menschen; an der Personalität ist so viel nicht gelegen. Die Bildung und Entwicklung dieser Individualität als höchsten Beruf zu treiben, wäre ein göttlicher Egoismus."

"Man hat nur so viel Moral, als man Philosophie und Poesie hat."

"Dem Bunde der Künstler einen bestimmten Zweck geben, das heisst ein dürftiges Institut an die Stelle des ewigen Vereins setzen; das heisst die Gemeinde der Heiligen zum Staat erniedrigen."

"Was die Menschen unter den andern Bildungen der Erde, das sind die Künstler unter den Menschen."

"Ein Mittler ist derjenige, der Göttliches in sich wahrnimmt, und sich selbst vernichtend Preis giebt, um dieses Göttliche zu verkündigen, mitzutheilen, und darzustellen allen Menschen in Sitten und Thaten, in Worten und Werken."

"Durch die Künstler wird die Menschheit ein Individuum, indem sie Vor welt und Nachwelt in der Gegenwart verknüpfen. Sie sind das höhere Seelenorgan, wo die Lebensgeister der ganzen 15 äussern Menschheit zusammentreffen und in welchem die innere zunächst wirkt."

"Ein Künstler ist, wer sein Centrum in sich selbst hat. Wem es da fehlt, der muss einen bestimmten Führer und Mittler ausser sich wählen."

"Künstler ist ein jeder, dem es Ziel und Mitte des Daseyns ist, seinen Sinn zu bilden."

"Tugend ist zur Energie gewordne Vernunft."

"Die wahre Tugend ist Genialität."

"Nur derjenige kann ein Künstler seyn, welcher eine eigne Religion, eine originelle Ansicht des Unendlichen hat."

"Nur durch die Bildung wird der Mensch, der es ganz ist überall menschlich und von Menschheit durchdrungen."