Novalis Quotes

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

— Novalis

“Where are we really going? Always home.”

— Novalis

In a work of art, chaos must shimmer through the veil of order.

— Novalis

“We are close to waking when we dream that we are dreaming.”

— Novalis

The imagination places the world of the future either far above us, or far below, or in a relation of metempsychosis to ourselves. We dream of traveling through the universe-but is not the universe within ourselves? The depths of our spirit are unknown to us-the mysterious way leads inwards. Eternity with its worlds-the past and future-is in ourselves or nowhere. The external world is the world of shadows-it throws its shadow into the realm of light. At present this realm certainly seems to us so dark inside, lonely, shapeless. But how entirely different it will seem to us-when this gloom is past, and the body of shadows has moved away. We will experience greater enjoyment than ever, for our spirit has been deprived.

— Novalis

“One can not understand language because language cannot understand itself; does not want to understand”

— Novalis

“Genius in general is poetic. Where genius has been active it has been poetically active. The truly moral person is a poet.”

— Novalis

“Perceptibility is a kind of attentiveness.”

— Novalis

“The world must be romanticized. Only in that way will one rediscover its original senses. Romanticization is nothing less than a qualitative raising of the power of a thing ... I romanticize something when I give the commonplace a higher meaning, the known the dignity of the unknown, and the finite the appearance of the infinite.”

— Novalis

Novels arise out of the shortcomings of history.

— Novalis

“How can a person have a sense of something if he does not have the germ of it within himself. What I am to understand must develop organically within me
and what I seem to learn is only nourishment
stimulation of the organism.”

— Novalis

“What delights, what pleasures does your life offer you that outweigh the raptures of death?”

— Novalis

“Everything is seed.”

— Novalis

“Is not our body in itself nothing but a common central effect of our senses-if we have mastery over our senses-if we are able to transform them into activity at will-to center them at a common point, then it only depends on us-to give ourselves the body we want.
Indeed, in our senses are nothing other than modifications of the mental organ-of the absolute element-then with mastery over this element we shall also be able to modify and direct our senses as we please.”

— Novalis

“Our life is no dream; but it ought to become one, and perhaps will.”

— Novalis

“Many books are longer than they seem. They have indeed no end. The boredom that they cause is truly absolute and infinite.”

— Novalis

“The seat of the soul is where the inner world and the outer world meet. Where they overlap, it is in every point of the overlap.”

— Novalis

“All the chance events of our lives are materials from which we can make what we like. Whoever is rich in spirit makes much of his life. Every acquaintance, every incident would be for the thoroughly spiritual person-the first element in an endless series-the beginning of an endless novel.”

— Novalis

“Flight from the communal spirit is death!”

— Novalis

I often feel, and ever more deeply I realize, that fate and character are the same conception.

— Novalis

“To become properly acquainted with a truth, we must first have disbelieved it, and disputed against it.”

— Novalis

“Where no gods are, spectres rule.”

— Novalis

Philosophy is properly home-sickness; the wish to be everywhere at home.

— Novalis

Nothing is more indispensable to true religiosity than a mediator that links us with divinity.

— Novalis

“A character is a completely fashioned will.”

— Novalis

“Where children are, there is the golden age.”

— Novalis

We never completely comprehend ourselves, but we can do far more than comprehend.

— Novalis

“There is but one temple in the world, and that is the body of man. Nothing is holier than this high form. Bending before men is a reverence done to this revelation in the flesh. We touch heaven when we lay our hand on a human body.”

— Novalis

“When you understand how to love one thing, then you also understand how to love everything.”

— Novalis

You are alone with everything you love.

— Novalis

“All the events of our life are materials of which we can make what we will.”

— Novalis

“The normal present connects the past and the future through limitation. Contiguity results, crystallization by means of solidification. There also exists, however, a spiritual present that identifies past and future through dissolution, and this mixture is the element, the atmosphere of the poet.”

— Novalis

“The mysterious path goes inward. It is in us, and not anywhere else, where the eternity of the worlds, the past and the future are found.”

— Novalis

“Most observers of the French Revolution, especially the clever and noble ones, have explained it as a life-threatening and contagious illness. They have remained standing with the symptoms and have interpreted these in manifold and contrary ways. Some have regarded it as a merely local ill. The most ingenious opponents have pressed for castration. They well noticed that this alleged illness is nothing other than the crisis of beginning puberty.”

— Novalis

“Our bodies are molded rivers.”

— Novalis

The true Poet is all-knowing; he is an actual world in miniature.

— Novalis

“It is certain my belief gains quite infinitely the very moment I can convince another mind thereof”

— Novalis

“To know a truth well, one must have fought it out.”

— Novalis

“Character is a perfectly educated will.”

— Novalis

“It is not merely the multiplicity of tints, the gladness of tone, or the balminess of the air which delight in the spring; it is the still consecrated spirit of hope, the prophecy of happy days yet to come; the endless variety of nature, with presentiments of eternal flowers which never shall fade, and sympathy with the blessedness of the ever-developing world.”

— Novalis

Prayer is to religion what thinking is to philosophy. To pray is to make religion.

— Novalis

“The world must become romanticized, and in that way we find again its original meaning for us.”

— Novalis

“A complete need should not exist ... love, life in common with loved ones?”

— Novalis

“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.”

— Novalis

Many things are too delicate to be thought; many more, to be spoken.

— Novalis

Blood will stream over Europe until the nations become aware of the frightful madness which drives them in circles. And then, struck by celestial music and made gentle, they approach their former altars all together, hear about the works of peace, and hold a great celebration of peace with fervent tears before the smoking altars.

— Novalis

“Fate and temperament are the names of a concept.”

— Novalis

“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!”

— Novalis

“Darwin remarks that we are less dazzled by the light at waking, if we have been dreaming of visible objects. Happy are those who have here dreamt of a higher vision! They will the sooner be able to endure the glories of the world to come.”

— Novalis

“Not only England, but every Englishman is an island.”

— Novalis