The Essential Rudolf Steiner Quotes

“Think of a world of people born blind who, therefore, know only those objects and relations that exist through the sense of touch. Go among them, and speak to them of colors and the other relations that exist only through light and for the sense of sight. You will convey nothing to their minds, and this will be the more fortunate if they tell you so, for you will then quickly notice your mistake and, if unable to open their eyes, you will cease talking in vain . . . .”
― Rudolf Steiner, The Essential Rudolf Steiner: Theosophy: An Introduction to the Supersensible Knowledge of the World and the Destination of Man; An Esoteric Cosmology; ... Education; How to Know Higher Worlds

“Thought must be permeated with feeling; otherwise it will not pass into the realm of soul and it will be stillborn thought.”
― Rudolf Steiner, The Essential Rudolf Steiner: Theosophy: An Introduction to the Supersensible Knowledge of the World and the Destination of Man; An Esoteric Cosmology; ... Education; How to Know Higher Worlds

“Occultism in general is not concerned with the history of a single evolutionary cycle or period but with the inner history of human evolution as a whole. True, occultism is at pains to discover the first manifestations of the life of our planetary system and the earlier stages of man's existence, but it looks forward through the millennia to a divine humanity, to a time when the Earth herself will have changed in substance and in form. Is it possible to predict the far distant future? It is indeed possible, because all that has finally to become physical in the future, already exists in germ, in archetypal form. The plan of evolution is contained in archetypal thought. Nothing comes into being in the physical world which in its broad lines has not been foreseen and prefigured in the devachanic world. Individual freedom and power of initiative depends upon the manner of the realisation of this truth.”
― Rudolf Steiner, The Essential Rudolf Steiner: Theosophy: An Introduction to the Supersensible Knowledge of the World and the Destination of Man; An Esoteric Cosmology; ... Education; How to Know Higher Worlds

“Nature subjects man to the laws of changing matter, but he subjects himself to the laws of thought.”
― Rudolf Steiner, The Essential Rudolf Steiner: Theosophy: An Introduction to the Supersensible Knowledge of the World and the Destination of Man; An Esoteric Cosmology; ... Education; How to Know Higher Worlds

“This gives rise to a new symptom, namely a dissociation, or rather the power of a momentary dissociation of three faculties which, in man, are united: the faculties of willing, feeling and thinking. We must learn to separate and to re-unite them at will. So long, for example, as some outer event carries us away with uncontrolled enthusiasm, we are immature, for such enthusiasm comes from the event, not from ourselves, and we may even exercise a shattering influence of which we are not master.”
― Rudolf Steiner, The Essential Rudolf Steiner: Theosophy: An Introduction to the Supersensible Knowledge of the World and the Destination of Man; An Esoteric Cosmology; ... Education; How to Know Higher Worlds

“The body is not merely the vesture, it is the instrument of the Spirit.”
― Rudolf Steiner, The Essential Rudolf Steiner: Theosophy: An Introduction to the Supersensible Knowledge of the World and the Destination of Man; An Esoteric Cosmology; ... Education; How to Know Higher Worlds