8 Friedrich von Schiller Quotes on Nature

Friedrich von Schiller quotes on nature

23. On the mountains there is freedom! The world is perfect everywhere, Save where man comes with his torment.

38. Joy, in Nature's wide dominion, Mightiest cause of all is found; And 'tis joy that moves the pinion, When the wheel of time goes round

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

89. The universe is a thought of God. After this ideal thought-fabric passed out into reality, and the new-born world fulfilled the plan of its Creator-permit me to use this human simile-the first duty of all thinking beings has been to retrace the original design in this great reality; to find the principle in the mechanism, the unity in the compound, the law in the phenomenon, and to pass back from the structure to its primitive foundation. Accordingly to me there is only one appearance in nature-the thinking being. The great compound called the world is only remarkable to me because it is present to shadow forth symbolically the manifold expressions of that being. All in me and out of me is only the hieroglyph of a power which is like to me. The laws of nature are the cyphers which the thinking mind adds on to make itself understandable to intelligence-the alphabet by means of which all spirits communicate with the most perfect Spirit and with one another. Harmony, truth, order, beauty, excellence, give me joy, because they transport me into the active state of their author, of their possessor, because they betray the presence of a rational and feeling Being, and let me perceive my relationship with that Being.

90. I speak with the Eternal through the instrument of nature, - through the world's history: I read the soul of the artist in his Apollo.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

91. Each state of the human mind has some parable in the physical creation by which it is shadowed forth; nor is it only artists and poets, but even the most abstract thinkers that have drawn from this source. Lively activity we name fire; time is a stream that rolls on, sweeping all before it; eternity is a circle; a mystery is hid in midnight gloom, and truth dwells in the sun. Nay, I begin to believe that even the future destiny of the human race is prefigured in the dark oracular utterances of bodily creation.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

97. Art is the right hand of Nature. The latter has only given us being, the former has made us men.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

101. Disappointments are to the soul what a thunderstorm is to the air.

     Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

125. Nothing leads to good that is not natural.

     Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.