“Who am I? Subject and object in one — contemplating and contemplated, thinking and thought of. As both must I have become what I am.”
Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p. 71
The Vocation of Man (1800), Faith
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Johann Gottlieb Fichte 102
German philosopher 1762–1814Related quotes
Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p. 50
The Vocation of Man (1800), Knowledge
1880s, 1880, Letter to Theo (Cuesmes, July 1880)
Source: The Letters of Vincent van Gogh
Context: So please don't think that I am renouncing anything, I am reasonably faithful in my unfaithfulness and though I have changed, I am the same, and what preys on my mind is simply this one question: what am I good for, could I not be of service or use in some way, how can I become more knowledgeable and study some subject or other in depth? That is what keeps preying on my mind, you see, and then one feels imprisoned by poverty, barred from taking part in this or that project and all sorts of necessities are out of one's reach. As a result one cannot rid oneself of melancholy, one feels emptiness where there might have been friendship and sublime and genuine affection, and one feels dreadful disappointment gnawing at one's spiritual energy, fate seems to stand in the way of affection or one feels a wave of disgust welling up inside. And then one says “How long, my God!”
Source: The Smart Set (October 1919), p. 139
Context: The bitter, of course, goes with the sweet. To be an American is, unquestionably, to be the noblest, grandest, the proudest mammal that ever hoofed the verdure of God's green footstool. Often, in the black abysm of the night, the thought that I am one awakens me with a blast of trumpets, and I am thrown into a cold sweat by contemplation of the fact. I shall cherish it on the scaffold; it will console me in Hell. But there is no perfection under Heaven, so even an American has his small blemishes, his scarcely discernible weaknesses, his minute traces of vice and depravity.
“It is not enough to contemplate ourselves objectively; we must also treat ourselves objectively.”
The Dietetics of the Soul; Or, True Mental Discipline (1838)
“I prefer thought to action, an idea to a transaction, contemplation to activity.”
Je préfère la pensée à l'action, une idée à une affaire, la contemplation au mouvement.
Louis Lambert (1832), as translated by Clara Bell
As quoted in "An American Novelist Who Sometimes Teaches" by John Corry http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/06/20/specials/ellison-teaches.html in The New York Times (20 November 1966).
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 268