Johann Gottlieb Fichte Quotes
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Instinct is blind;-a consciousness without insight. Freedom, as the opposite of Instinct, is thus seeing, and clearly conscious of the grounds of its activity.
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If we cannot live so as to be happy, let us so live as to deserve happiness.
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Nothing is more destructive of individual character than for a man to lose all faith in his own abilities for the prosecution of his work.
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As to those in whom the will of God is not inwardly accomplished,-because there is no inward life in them, for they are altogether outward,-upon them the will of God is wrought as alone it can be; appearing at first sight bitter and ungracious, though in reality merciful and loving in the highest degree. To those who do not love God, all things must work together immediately for pain and torment, until, by means of the tribulation, they are led to salvation at last.
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He who is firm in will molds the world to himself.
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Here below is not the land of happiness: I know it now; it is only the land of toil, and every joy which comes to us is only to strengthen us for some greater labor that is to succeed.
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By philosophy the mind of man comes to itself, and from henceforth rests on itself without foreign aid, and is completely master of itself, as the dancer of his feet, or the boxer of his hands.
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Every other art,-as poetry, music, painting,-may be practised without the process showing forth the rules according to which it is conducted ;-but in the self-cognizant art of the philosopher, no step can be taken without declaring the grounds upon which it proceeds.
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Upon the progress of knowledge the whole progress of the human race is immediately dependent: he who retards that, hinders this also.
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To those who do not love God, all things must work together immediately for pain and torment, until, by means of the tribulation, they are led to salvation at last.
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Not alone to know, but to act according to thy knowledge, is thy destination,--proclaims the voice of my inmost soul. Not for indolent contemplation and study of thyself, nor for brooding over emotions of piety,--no, for action was existence given thee; thy actions, and thy actions alone, determine thy worth.
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Wenn ich nur dasjenige weiß, und von ihm überzeugt bin, was ich selbst gefunden, – nur dasjenige wirklich kenne, was ich selbst erfahren habe, so kann ich in der That nicht sagen, daß ich über meine Bestimmung das Geringste wisse; ich weiß blos, was Andre darüber zu wissen behaupten.
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Full surely there is a blessedness beyond the grave for those who have already entered on it here, and in no other form than that wherein they know it here, at any moment.
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Mit derselben Sicherheit, mit welcher ich darauf rechne, daß dieser Boden mich tragen wird, wenn ich darauf trete, daß dieses Feuer mich verbrennen würde, wenn ich mich ihm näherte, will ich darauf rechnen können, was ich selbst bin, und was ich sein werde.
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Humanity may endure the loss of everything; all its possessions may be turned away without infringing its true dignity - all but the possibility of improvement.
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Each individual imagines that he can exist, live, think, and act for himself, and believes that he himself is the thinking principle of his thoughts; whereas in truth he is but a single ray of the ONE universal and necessary Thought.
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What sort of philosophy one chooses depends on what sort of person one is.
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It is so by nature that the plant will develop with regularity, that the animal will move purposefully, and that human beings will think. Why should I take exception to recognizing also the last as the expression of an original force of nature, as I do the first and the second?
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By mere burial man arrives not at bliss; and in the future life, throughout its whole infinite range, they will seek for happiness as vainly as they sought it here, who seek it in aught else than that which so closely surrounds them here - the Infinite.
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The schools must fashion the person, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than what you wish him to will.