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Life must not be a novel that is given to us, but one that is made by us.

Novalis

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Novalis
Age: 28 †
Born: 1772
Born: May 2
Died: 1801
Died: March 25
Engineer
Literary Theorist
Lyricist
Philosopher
Poet
Writer
Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg
Friedrich von Hardenberg
Given
Must
Made
Life
Novel

More quotes by Novalis

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The art of writing books is not yet invented. But it is at the point of being invented. Fragments of this nature are literary seeds. There may be many an infertile grain among them: nevertheless, if only some come up!
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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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In cheerful souls there is no wit. Wit shows a disturbance of the equipoise.
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We touch heaven when we lay our hand on a human body!
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The world must become romanticized, and in that way we find again its original meaning for us.
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If the world is a precipitation of human nature, so to speak, then the divine world is a sublimation of the same. Both occur in one act. No precipitation without sublimation. What goes lost there in agility, is won here.
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The individual soul should seek for an intimate union with the soul of the universe.
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We are more closely connected to the invisible than to the visible.
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Learning is pleasurable but doing is the height of enjoyment.
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I was still blind, but twinkling stars did dance Throughout my being's limitless expanse, Nothing had yet drawn close, only at distant stages I found myself, a mere suggestion sensed in past and future ages.
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Nature is a petrified magic city.
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Play is experimenting with chance.
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The world must be romanticized. In this way the originary meaning may be found again.
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Philosophy is really nostalgia, the desire to be at home.
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A complete need should not exist... love, life in common with loved ones?
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Everywhere we seek the Absolute, and always we find only things.
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Mathematics is the Life of the Gods.
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Life is the beginning of death. Life is for the sake of death. Death is at once the end and the beginning—at once separation and closer union of the self. Through death the reduction is complete.
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To become properly acquainted with a truth, we must first have disbelieved it, and disputed against it.
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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?
Novalis