Novalis citations

Les Fragments

Les Fragments

Les Fragments

Hymne à la nuit, 1800

Les Fragments

Les Fragments

Hymne à la nuit, 1800

Henri d'Ofterdingen (posthume)

Les Disciples à Saïs, 1802 (posthume)

Les Disciples à Saïs, 1802 (posthume)

Mais l’onde de cristal, — les sens vulgaires ne la perçoivent pas, — l’onde qui prend sa source au cœur du tertre ténébreux, celui qui l’a goûtée, — celui qui l’a gravi, ce haut lieu au pied duquel vient se briser le flot temporel, celui qui, se dressant sur ces sommets aux frontières du monde, a plongé ses regards dans la patrie nouvelle, dans le domaine de la Nuit, — en vérité, celui-là ne redescend plus aux tumultes du monde, dans la patrie où la lumière habite, en sa perpétuelle agitation.
Là-haut il les dresse, ses tentes, tabernacles de paix, là il porte sa nostalgie et son amour, le regard plongé au-delà, jusqu’à cette heure entre toutes bénie qu’il sera emporté là-bas, dans les eaux de la source ; […]
Hymnes à la Nuit, 1800

Blüthenstaub (1798), Unsequenced
Contexte: 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 (1829)

As quoted in Romantic Vision, Ethical Context: Novalis and Artistic Autonomy (1987) by Géza von Molnár, p. 2
Contexte: 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.

“Miscellaneous Observations,” Philosophical Writings, M. Stolijar, trans. (Albany: 1997) #48

As quoted in Quote, Unquote‎ (1989) by Jonathan Williams, p. 136

Pupils at Sais (1799)
Contexte: The waking man looks without fear at this offspring of his lawless Imagination; for he knows that they are but vain Spectres of his weakness. He feels himself lord of the world: his me hovers victorious over the Abyss; and will through Eternities hover aloft above that endless Vicissitude. Harmony is what his spirit strives to promulgate, to extend. He will even to infinitude grow more and more harmonious with himself and with his Creation; and at every step behold the all-efficiency of a high moral Order in the Universe, and what is purest of his Me come forth into brighter and brighter clearness. This significance of the World is Reason; for her sake is the World here; and when it is grown to be the arena of a childlike, expanding Reason, it will one day become the divine Image of her Activity, the scene of a genuine Church. Till then let man honour Nature as the Emblem of his own Spirit; the Emblem ennobling itself, along with him, to unlimited degrees. Let him, therefore, who would arrive at knowledge of Nature, train his moral sense, let him act and conceive in accordance with the noble Essence of his Soul; and as if of herself Nature will become open to him. Moral Action is that great and only Experiment, in which all riddles of the most manifold appearances explain themselves. Whoso understands it, and in rigid sequence of Thought can lay it open, is forever master of Nature.

Novalis (1829)
Contexte: The ideal of Morality has no more dangerous rival than the ideal of highest Strength, of most powerful life; which also has been named (very falsely as it was there meant) the ideal of poetic greatness. It is the maximum of the savage; and has, in these times, gained, precisely among the greatest weaklings, very many proselytes. By this ideal, man becomes a Beast-Spirit, a Mixture; whose brutal wit has, for weaklings, a brutal power of attraction.

Novalis (1829)
Contexte: There is, properly speaking, no Misfortune in the world. Happiness and Misfortune stand in continual balance. Every Misfortune is, as it were, the obstruction of a stream, which, after overcoming this obstruction, but bursts through with the greater force.