Novalis citations (114 citations, Page 3)

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

Sens

Novalis: Citations en anglais

“Friends, the soil is poor, we must sow seeds in plenty for us to garner even modest harvests.”

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Motto
Blüthenstaub (1798)

“What is Nature? An encyclopedical, systematic Index or Plan of our Spirit. Why will we content us with the mere catalogue of our Treasures? Let us contemplate them ourselves, and in all ways elaborate and use them.”

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Novalis (1829)

“Morality must be the heart of our existence, if it is to be what it wants to be for us. … The highest form of philosophy is ethics. Thus all philosophy begins with “I am.” The highest statement of cognition must be an expression of that fact which is the means and ground for all cognition, namely, the goal of the I.”

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Fichte Studies § 556

“Everywhere we seek the Absolute, and always we find only things.”

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Fragment No. 1; Variant: We seek the absolute everywhere and only ever find things.
Blüthenstaub (1798)

“The division of Philosopher and Poet is only apparent, and to the disadvantage of both. It is a sign of disease, and of a sickly constitution.”

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Novalis (1829)

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

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Novalis (1829)

“Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship may be called throughout prosaic and modern. The Romantic sinks to ruin, the Poesy of Nature, the Wonderful. The Book treats merely of common worldly things: Nature and Mysticism are altogether forgotten. It is a poetised civic and household History; the Marvellous is expressly treated therein as imagination and enthusiasm. Artistic Atheism is the spirit of the Book. … It is properly a Candide, directed against Poetry: the Book is highly unpoetical in respect of spirit, poetical as the dress and body of it are.”

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Ralph Waldo Emerson in "Goethe; or, the Writer" writes of this passage, and quotes a slightly different translation: The ardent and holy Novalis characterized the book as "thoroughly modern and prosaic; the romantic is completely levelled in it; so is the poetry of nature; the wonderful. The book treats only of the ordinary affairs of men: it is a poeticized civic and domestic story. The wonderful in it is expressly treated as fiction and enthusiastic dreaming:" — and yet, what is also characteristic, Novalis soon returned to this book, and it remained his favorite reading to the end of his life.
Novalis (1829)

“Pure mathematics is religion.”

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Reine Mathematik ist Religion.
Blüthenstaub (1798), Unsequenced

“Someone arrived there — who lifted the veil of the goddess, at Sais. — But what did he see? He saw — wonder of wonders — himself.”

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Novalis here alludes to Plutarch's account of the shrine of the goddess Minerva, identified with Isis, at Sais, which he reports had the inscription "I am all that hath been, and is, and shall be; and my veil no mortal has hitherto raised."
Pupils at Sais (1799)

“The highest life is mathematics.”

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Das höchste Leben ist Mathematik.
Blüthenstaub (1798), Unsequenced

“Self-alienation is the source of all degradation as well as, on the contrary, the basis of all true elevation. The first step will be a look inward, an isolating contemplation of our self. Whoever remains standing here proceeds only halfway. The second step must be an active look outward, an autonomous, determined observation of the outer world.”

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Fragment No. 24 Variant translation: The first step is to look within, the discriminating contemplation of the self. He who remains at this point only half develops. The second step must be a telling look without, independent, sustained contemplation of the external world.
Blüthenstaub (1798)

“We are on a mission: we are called to the cultivation of the earth.”

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Fragment No. 32; Variant translations: We are on a mission.We are called to form the earth.
We are on a mission.We are called to educate the earth.
Blüthenstaub (1798)

“Man is a sun and his senses are the planets.”

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Blüthenstaub (1798), Unsequenced
Variante: Man is a sun and his senses are the planets.

“Surely this voice meant our Teacher; for it is he that can collect the indications which lie scattered on all sides. A singular light kindles in his looks, when at length the high Rune lies before us, and he watches in our eyes whether the star has yet risen upon us, which is to make the Figure visible and intelligible.”

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Pupils at Sais (1799)

“Every beloved object is the center point of a paradise.”

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Fragment No. 51; Jeder geliebte Gegenstand ist der Mittelpunkt eines Paradieses.
Variant translations:
Every beloved object is the centre of a Paradise.
As quoted by Thomas Carlyle in "Novalis" (1829)
Every beloved object is the midpoint to paradise.
Blüthenstaub (1798)

“Life is a disease of the spirit; a working incited by Passion. Rest is peculiar to the spirit.”

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Novalis (1829)

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

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Fragment No. 97
Blüthenstaub (1798)

“Man is the higher Sense of our Planet; the star which connects it with the upper world; the eye which it turns towards Heaven.”

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Novalis (1829)

“If our Bodily Life is a burning, our Spiritual Life is a being burnt, a Combustion (or, is precisely the inverse the case?); Death, therefore, perhaps a Change of Capacity.”

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Novalis (1829)

“The poem of the understanding is philosophy.”

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“Logological Fragments,” Philosophical Writings, M. Stolijar, trans. (Albany: 1997) #24

“The rude, discursive Thinker is the Scholastic (Schoolman Logician). The true Scholastic is a mystical Subtlist; out of logical Atoms he builds his Universe; he annihilates all living Nature, to put an Artifice of Thoughts (Gedankenkunststuck, literally Conjuror's-trick of Thoughts) in its room. His aim is an infinite Automaton. Opposite to him is the rude, intuitive Poet: this is a mystical Macrologist: he hates rules and fixed form; a wild, violent life reigns instead of it in Nature; all is animate, no law; wilfulness and wonder everywhere. He is merely dynamical. Thus does the Philosophic Spirit arise at first, in altogether separate masses. In the second stage of culture these masses begin to come in contact, multifariously enough; and, as in the union of infinite Extremes, the Finite, the Limited arises, so here also arise "Eclectic Philosophers" without number; the time of misunderstanding begins. The most limited is, in this stage, the most important, the purest Philosopher of the second stage. This class occupies itself wholly with the actual, present world, in the strictest sense. The Philosophers of the first class look down with contempt on those of the second; say, they are a little of everything, and so nothing; hold their views as the results of weakness, as Inconsequentism. On the contrary, the second class, in their turn, pity the first; lay the blame on their visionary enthusiasm, which they say is absurd, even to insanity.”

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Pupils at Sais (1799)

“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.”

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Fragment No. 109
Blüthenstaub (1798)

“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.”

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Fragment No. 96
Blüthenstaub (1798)

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

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As quoted in Demian (1972) by Hermann Hesse, trans. W.J. Strachan

“True anarchy is the generative element of religion. Out of the annihilation of all existing institutions she raises her glorious head, as the new foundress of the world.”

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Wahrhafte Anarchie ist das Zeugungselement der Religion. Aus der Vernichtung alles Positiven hebt sie ihr glorreiches Haupt als neue Weltstifterin empor...
English translation as quoted in The Dublin Review Vol. III (July-October 1837); The original German is quoted http://www.jlrweb.com/whiterose/leaffourger.html from the Fourth Leaflet http://www.jlrweb.com/whiterose/leaffoureng.html of the White Rose (1942)
Variant translation: True anarchy is the generative element of religion. Out of the annihilation of every positive element she lifts her gloriously radiant countenance as the founder of a new world.