"The human soul, as is shown both by its passing actions and its inward characteristics, has its existence chiefly in two opposing impulses. Following the one impulse, it strives to establish itself as an individual. For increase, no less than sustenance, it draws what surrounds it to itself, weaving it into its life, and absorbing it into its own being. The other impulse, again, is the dread fear to stand alone over against the whole, the longing to surrender oneself and be absorbed in a greater, to be taken hold of and determined. All you feel and do that bears on your separate existence, all you are accustomed to call enjoyment or possession works for the first object. The other is wrought for when you are not directed towards the individual life, but seek and retain for yourselves what is the same in all and for all the same existence, that in which, therefore, you acknowledge in your thinking and acting, law and order, necessity and connection, right and fitness. Just as no material thing can exist by only one of the forces of corporeal nature, every soul shares in the two original tendencies of spiritual nature. At the extremes one impulse may preponderate almost to the exclusion of the other, but the perfection of the living world consists in this, that between these opposite ends all combinations are actually present in humanity."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/On_Religion%3A_Speeches_to_its_Cultured_Despisers
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers
14 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers →
Related Quotes
"Von alters her ist der Glaube nicht jedermanns Ding gewesen, von der Religion haben immer nur Wenige etwas verstanden…"
"I know how well you have succeeded in making your earthly life so rich and varied, that you no longer stand in need o…"
"On every subject, however small and unimportant, you would most willingly be taught by those who have devoted to it t…"
"I mean, in particular, those who unite those opposing activities, by imprinting in their lives a characteristic form …"
"Far more the earthly and sensual require such mediators from whom to learn how much of the highest nature of humanity…"
"Acknowledge, then, with me, what a priceless gift the appearance of such a person must be when the higher feeling has…"
"Piety ... helped me as I began to sift the faith of my fathers and to cleanse thought and feeling from the rubbish of…"
"Those proud Islanders whom many unduly honour, know no watchword but gain and enjoyment. Their zeal for knowledge is …"
"See to it, friend, that you have not lighted upon those who merely follow, and collect, and rest satisfied with what …"
"Religion is as far removed, by its whole nature, from all that is systematic as philosophy is naturally disposed to it."