Johann Gottlieb Fichte Quotes

To those who do not love God, all things must work together immediately for pain and torment, until, by means of the tribulation, they are led to salvation at last.

A man can do what he ought to do; and when he says he cannot, it is because he will not.

He who is firm in will molds the world to himself.

What sort of philosophy one chooses depends on what sort of person one is.

The schools must fashion the person, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than what you wish him to will.

By philosophy the mind of man comes to itself, and from henceforth rests on itself without foreign aid, and is completely master of itself, as the dancer of his feet, or the boxer of his hands.

Men in the vehement pursuit of happiness grasp at the first object which offers to them any prospect of satisfaction, but immediately they turn an introspective eye and ask, 'Am I happy?' and at once from their innermost being a voice answers distinctly, 'No, you are as poor and as miserable as before.' Then they think it was the object that deceived them and turn precipitately to another. But the second holds as little satisfaction as the first…Wandering then through life restless and tormented, at each successive station they think that happiness dwells at the next, but when they reach it happiness is no longer there. In whatever position they may find themselves there is always another one which they discern from afar, and which but to touch, they think, is to find the wished delight, but when the goal is reached discontent has followed on the way stands in haunting constancy before them.

In nearly all the nations of Europe, a powerful, hostile government is growing, and is at war with all the others, and sometimes oppresses the people in dreadful ways: It is Jewry

Nothing is more destructive of individual character than for a man to lose all faith in his own abilities for the prosecution of his work.

The correct relationship between the higher and lower classes, the appropriate mutual interaction between the two is, as such, the true underlying support on which the improvement of the human species rests. The higher classes constitute the mind of the single large whole of humanity; the lower classes constitute its limbs; the former are the thinking and designing [ Entwerfende ] part, the latter the executive part.

All death in nature is birth, and at the moment of death appears visibly the rising of life. There is no dying principle in nature, for nature throughout is unmixed life, which, concealed behind the old, begins again and develops itself. Death as well as birth is simply in itself, in order to present itself ever more brightly and more like to itself.

Not alone to know, but to act according to thy knowledge, is thy destination,
proclaims the voice of my inmost soul. Not for indolent contemplation and study of thyself, nor for brooding over emotions of piety,
no, for action was existence given thee; thy actions, and thy actions alone, determine thy worth.

He who has no means of subsistence, has no duty to acknowledge or respect other people's property, considering that the principles of the social convenant have been violated to his prejudice.

My mind can take no hold on the present world, nor rest in it a moment, but my whole nature rushes onward with irresistible force towards a future and better state of being.

God is not the mere dead conception to which we have thus given utterance, but he is in himself pure Life.

Upon the progress of knowledge the whole progress of the human race is immediately dependent: he who retards that, hinders this also.

Full surely there is a blessedness beyond the grave for those who have already entered on it here, and in no other form than that wherein they know it here, at any moment.

Humanity may endure the loss of everything; all its possessions may be turned away without infringing its true dignity - all but the possibility of improvement.

I know what I can know, and am not troubled about what I cannot know.

We do not act because we know, but we know because we are destined for action; practical reason is the root of all reason.

The aim of all government is to make all government superfluous.

Here below is not the land of happiness: I know it now; it is only the land of toil, and every joy which comes to us is only to strengthen us for some greater labor that is to succeed.