Nikolai A. Berdyaev Quotes

A real reconciliation of East and West is impossible and inconceivable on the basis of a materialistic Communism, or of a materialistic Capitalism, or indeed of a materialistic Socialism. The third way will neither be "anti-Communist" nor 'anti-Capitalist'. It will recognize the truth in liberal democracy, and it will equally recognize the truth in Communism. A critique of Communism and Marxism does not entail an enmity towards Soviet Russia, just as a critique of liberal democracy is not entail enmity towards the west. . . . But the final and most important justification of a 'third way' is that there must be a place from which we may boldly testify to, and proclaim, truth, love and justice. No one today likes truth: utility and self interest have long ago been substituted for truth.

God desires that man should be. God does not wish to be alone. The meaning of existence is the conquest of loneliness, the acquisition of kinship and nearness.

The war educated a generation of believers in force. The demons of hatred and murder then released continue their activity.

Each one of us shares in the destiny of the world and humanity, and must accept his own portion of the general responsibility

The Russians are a people in the highest degree polarized: they are a conglomeration of contradictions

History is not an objective empirical datum, it is a myth.

Bread for me is a material question. Bread for my neighbor is a spiritual one.

And when there are no more classes, when society is socially democratized and unified, then there will be revealed in all its metaphysical depths the never-ending tragedy of the conflict between personality and society.

There is a tragic clash between Truth and the world. Pure undistorted truth burns up the world.

Fear is never a good counselor and victory over fear is the first spiritual duty of man.

The distinction between the things of Caesar and the things of God is constantly being erased in our fallen world, and this always indicates that the Kingdom of Caesar is attempting to swallow up the Kingdom of God.

It must be recognized that man in his limited and relative earthly life is capable of bringing about the beautiful and the valuable only when he believes in another life, unlimited, absolute, eternal. That is a law of his being. A contact with this mortal life exclusive of any other ends in the wearing-away of effective energy and a self-satisfaction that makes one useless and superficial. Only the spiritual man, striking his roots deep in infinite and eternal life, can be a true creator. But Humanism denied the spiritual man, handed over the eternal to the temporal, and took its stand by the natural man within the limited confines of the earth.

The Russian Intelligentsia is a quite special and peculiar thing; as a spiritual and a social form it existed only in Russia. The Intelligentsia was an idealistic class, a class of people wholly influenced by ideas and ready to face prison, hard labour and death for the sake of their ideas

The Russian yearning for the meaning of life is the major theme of our literature, and this is the real point of our intelligentsia's existence.

In order to see the world in a true light and everything in its proper shape, in order to contemplate the wide horizon, we must climb out of the pit of self-centeredness and rise to a height. We must see the center of being not in ourselves but in God, where it truly is, and then everything will fall into the right place. Humility in its ontological meaning is the heroic conquest of selfhood and ascent to the heights of theocentrism.

Every single human soul has more meaning and value than the whole of history.

In reality, freedom is aristocratic, not democratic. With sorrow we must recognize the fact that freedom is dear only to those men who think creatively. It is not very necessary to those who do not value thinking. In the so-called democracies, based on the principle of popular sovereignty, a considerable proportion of the people are those who have not yet become conscious of themselves as free beings, bearing within themselves the dignity of freedom. Education to freedom is something still ahead of us, and this will not be achieved in a hurry.

Control and violence that is best reflected in the state, are evil in themselves. In this knowledge lies the great truth of anarchism.