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The Russian yearning for the meaning of life is the major theme of our literature, and this is the real point of our intelligentsia's existence.

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
Life
Theme
Majors
Major
Meaning
Existence
Literature
Intelligentsia
Point
Yearning
Real
Russian

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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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In every artistic activity a new world is created, the cosmos, a world enlightened and free.
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Time is the product of changing realities, beings, existences.
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Bread for myself is a material question. Bread for my neighbor is a spiritual one.
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But man as a person, the same man, gains mastery over egocentric self-confinement by disclosing a universe in himself...Personality is a universe, it is filled with universal content.
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I never remain passive in the process of reading: while I read I am engaged in a constant creative activity, which leads me to remember not so much the actual matter of the book as the thoughts evoked in my mind by it, directly or indirectly.
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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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Every single human soul has more meaning and value than the whole of history.
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Creativity is the mystery of freedom.
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The overwhelming majority of people, including Christians, are materialists. They do not believe in the power of spirit. They believe only in material power.
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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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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 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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...in the third epoch the divinity of man's creative nature is finally revealed and divine power becomes human power.
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In sex we have the source of man's true connection with the cosmos and of his servile dependence. The categories of sex, male and female, are cosmic categories, not merely anthropological categories.
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It is beyond dispute that the state exercises very great power over human life and it always shows a tendency to go beyond the limits laid down for it.
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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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Victory over fear is the first spiritual duty of man.
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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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Objectification is above all exteriorization, the alienation of spirit from itself.
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