Friedrich Schleiermacher Quotations

For when it is the good that is under consideration, and the ethical object is predominant, truth must be considered more in reference to art than science, if, that is, unity is to be preserved in the work generally.

Now the relation which, in the sphere of nature, being and semblance or sensation bear to one another in this antithesis, is the same as that which in ethics exists between good and pleasure or feeling.

No God without a world, and no world without God.

The essence of religion consists in the feeling of an absolute dependence.

And, moreover, it is art in its most general and comprehensive form that is here discussed, for the dialogue embraces everything connected with it, from its greatest object, the state, to its least, the embellishment of sensuous existence.

The first, that their pretensions to this possession of an art properly so called in their art of speaking are entirely unfounded; and the second, that they are involved in a profound mistake in their confusion of the good with the pleasant.

Women are certainly more happy in this than we men: their employments occupy a smaller portion of their thoughts, and the earnest longing of the heart, the beautiful inner life of the fancy, always commands the greater part.

Virtue is only a conflict by which we get the mastery of our failings; that, by which every man proves his peculiar power of understanding the will and spirit of God, is only a silent working of the inner man.

Belief must be something different from a mixture of opinions about God and the world, and of precepts for one life or for two. Piety cannot be an instinct craving for a mess of metaphysical and ethical crumbs.

Whenever I find a spark of that hidden fire that will sooner or later consume the old and create the new, I am drawn to it with love and hope, regarding it as a sign of my future home.

Our own theory is that sin was ordained only in view of redemption, and that accordingly redemption shows forth as the gain bound up with sin; in comparison with which there can be no question whatever of mischief due to sin, for the merely gradual and imperfect unfolding of the power of the God-consciousness is one of the necessary conditions of the human stage of existence.

To be a religions man and to pray are really one and the same thing. To join in the thought of God with every thought of any importance that occurs to us ; in all our admiration of external nature, to regard it as the work of His wisdom ; to take counsel with God about all our plans, that we may be able to carry them out in His name ; and even in our most mirthful hours to remember His all-seeing eye ; this is the prayer without ceasing to which we are called, and which is really the essence of true religion.

Since each person, as an individual, is the not-being of the other, it is never possible to eliminate non-understanding completely.

Either the translator leaves the author in peace, as much as is possible, and moves the reader towards him: or he leaves the reader in peace, as much as possible, and moves the author towards him.