Christopher > Christopher's Quotes

“And thinking in itself deals with that which is best in itself, and that which is thinking in the fullest sense with that which is best in the fullest sense. And thought thinks on itself because it shares the nature of the object of thought; for it becomes an object of thought in coming into contact with and thinking its objects, so that thought and object of thought are the same. For that which is capable of receiving the object of thought, i.e. the essence, is thought. But it is active when it possesses this object. Therefore the possession rather than the receptivity is the divine element which thought seems to contain, and the act of contemplation is what is most pleasant and best. If, then, God is always in that good state in which we sometimes are, this compels our wonder; and if in a better this compels it yet more. And God is in a better state. And life also belongs to God; for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality; and God’s self-dependent actuality is life most good and eternal. We say therefore that God is a living being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and eternal belong to God; for this is God.”
― Aristotle Metaphysics 1072b1830

“Art does not simply reveal God: it is one of the ways in which God reveals, and thus actualizes, himself.”
― Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics

“Uneducated people delight in argument and fault-finding, for it is easy to find fault, but difficult to recognize the good and its inner necessity.”
― Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right

“When we look at the world rationally, the world looks rationally back.”
― Hegel, G. W. H.

“I am Ubik. Before the universe was, I am. I made the suns. I made the worlds. I created the lives and the places they inhabit; I move them here, I put them there. They go as I say, then do as I tell them. I am the word and my name is never spoken, the name which no one knows. I am called Ubik, but that is not my name. I am. I shall always be.”
― Philip K. Dick, Ubik

“Lacking strength beauty hates the understanding for asking of her what it cannot do but the life of spirit is not the life that shrinks from death and keeps itself untouched by devastation, but rather the life that endures it and maintains itself in it. It wins its truth only when, in utter dismemberment, it finds itself. It is this power, not as something positive, which closes its eyes to the negative as when we say of something that it is nothing or is false, and then having done with it, turn away and pass on to something else; on the contrary, spirit is this power only by looking the negative in the face, and tarrying with it. This tarrying with the negative is the magical power that converts it into being.”
― Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

“Real obscurantism is not to hinder the spread of what is true, clear, and useful, but to bring into vogue what is false.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Maxims and Reflections

“No nation gains the power of judgment except it can pass judgment on itself. But to attain this great privilege takes a very long time.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Maxims and Reflections

“Reading ought to mean understanding; writing ought to mean knowing something; believing ought to mean comprehending; when you desire a thing, you will have to take it; when you demand it, you will not get it; and when you are experienced, you ought to be useful to others.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Maxims and Reflections

“The I think, I am, is, since Descartes, the basic mistake of all knowledge; thinking is not my thinking, and being is not my being, for everything is only of God or of the totality.”
― Friedrich Schelling