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The meaning of conservatism is not that it impedes movement forward and upward, but that it impedes movement backwards and downwards—to chaotic darkness and the return to a primitive state.

Nikolai Berdyaev

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Nikolai Berdyaev
Age: 73 †
Born: 1874
Born: January 1
Died: 1948
Died: January 1
Opinion Journalist
Philosopher
University Teacher
Kiev
Nikolay Aleksandrovich Berdyayev
Nikolaj Berdyayev
Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev
Darkness
Downwards
Return
Upward
Movement
Chaotic
State
Conservatism
States
Backwards
Primitive
Forward
Meaning
Impedes

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Every moral act of love, of mercy, and of sacrifice brings to pass the end of the world where hatred, cruelty, and selfishness reign supreme.
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Conscience is the spiritual, supernatural principle in man, and it is not of social origin at all. It is rather the perversion and confusion of conscience that is of social origin.
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The question of bread for myself is a material question but the question of bread for my neighbour, for everybody, is a spiritual and a religious question.
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Perhaps the saddest thing to admit is that those who rejected the Cross have to carry it, while those who welcomed it are so often engaged in crucifying others.
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The will to originality is not the will to be peculiar and unlike anybody else it means the desire to derive one's consciousness from its primary source.
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In creativity the way will be found for subject to pass into object, the identity of subject with object will be restored. All the great creators have foreseen this turning-point. Today, in the depths of culture itself and in all its separate spheres, this crisis of creativity is ripening.
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Death, that final evil, is one of the paths to eternity. Endless life in the conditions of our existence would be a nightmare.
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Freedom is the power to create out of nothing, the power of the spirit to create out of itself.
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We are standing on the threshold of a world-epoch of religious creativeness, on a cosmic divide.
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The creation of the world is not only a process which moves from God to humanity. God demands newness from humanity God awaits the works of human freedom.
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Every single human soul has more meaning and value than the whole of history.
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I do not think discursively. It is not so much that I arrive at truth as that I take my start from it.
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In every artistic activity a new world is created, the cosmos, a world enlightened and free.
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There is a tragic clash between Truth and the world. Pure undistorted truth burns up the world.
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