Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald Quotes

Ostwald was a great protagonist and an inspiring teacher. He had the gift of saying the right thing in the right way. When we consider the development of chemistry as a whole, Ostwald's name like Abou ben Adhem's leads all the rest ... Ostwald was absolutely the right man in the right place. He was loved and followed by more people than any chemist of our time. ~ Wilder Dwight Bancroft

Virtue is reason which has become energy. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

That which Dante saw written on the door of the inferno must be written in a different sense also at the entrance to philosophy: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." Those who look for true philosophy must be bereft of all hope, all desire, all longing. They must not wish for anything, not know anything, must feel completely bare and impoverished. ~ Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling

Poetry can be criticized only through poetry. A critique which itself is not a work of art, either in content as representation ofthe necessary impression in the process of creation, or through its beautiful form and in its liberal tone in the spirit of the old Roman satire, has no right of citizenship in the realm of art. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

All phenomena are correlated in one absolute and necessary law, from which they can all be deduced. ~ Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling

Man is a creative retrospection of nature upon itself. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Freedom is the fundamental character of the will, as weight is of matter ... That which is free is the will. Will without freedom is an empty word. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Poetry should describe itself, and always be simultaneously poetry and the poetry of poetry. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Lack of intimacy among friends is a mistake that cannot be censured without becoming irreparable. ~ NIETZSCHE FRIEDRICH WILHELM

Wickedness also resides in the gaze that perceives itself as innocent and surrounded by wickedness. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Quite generally, the familiar, just because it is familiar, is not cognitively understood. The commonest way in which we deceive either ourselves or others about understanding is by assuming something as familiar, and accepting it on that account; with all its pros and cons, such knowing never gets anywhere, and it knows not why ... The analysis of an idea, as it used to be carried out, was, in fact, nothing else than ridding it of the form in which it had become familiar. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

When liberty is mentioned, we must always be careful to observe whether it is not really the assertion of private interests which is thereby designated. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Every form of life is in its origin not natural, but divine and human; for it must spring from love, just as there can be no reason without spirit. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

It is manifest that behind the so-called curtain which is supposed to conceal the inner world, there is nothing to be seen unless we go behind it ourselves, as much in order that we may see, as that there may be something behind there which can be seen. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

A classical work doesn't ever have to be understood entirely. But those who are educated and who are still educating themselves must desire to learn more and more from it. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

It is not a very pleasing spectacle to observe uncultivated ignorance and crudity of mind, with neither form nor taste, without the capacity to concentrate its thoughts on an abstract proposition, still less on a connected statement of such propositions, confidently proclaiming itself to be intellectual freedom and ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Philosophy is the true home of irony, which might be defined as logical beauty: for wherever men are philosophizing in spoken or written dialogues, and provided they are not entirely systematic, irony ought to be produced and postulated; even the Stoics regarded urbanity as a virtue. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

What the English call "comfortable" is something endless and inexhaustible. Every condition of comfort reveals in turn its discomfort, and these discoveries go on for ever. Hence the new want is not so much a want of those who have it directly, but is created by those who hope to make profit from it. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

God is the absolute truth ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State ... For Truth is the unity of the universal and subjective will; and the Universal is to be found in the State, in its laws, its universal and rational arrangements. The State is the Divine Idea as it exists on earth. We have in it, therefore, the object of history in a more definite shape than before; that in which Freedom obtains objectivity. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Honor is the mysticism of legality ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

A family can develop only with a loving woman as its center. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Most thoughts are only profiles of thoughts. They must be inverted and synthesized with their antipodes. Thus many philosophical writings become very interesting which would not have been so otherwise. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

I saw the Emperor – this world-soul – riding out of the city on reconnaissance. It is indeed a wonderful sensation to see such an individual, who, concentrated here at a single point, astride a horse, reaches out over the world and masters it. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

The individual organs follow the same pattern as the whole organism, i.e. they have their period of growth, of stationary, maximum activity and then of aging decline. ~ Wilhelm, Ostwald

What is called good society is usually nothing but a mosaic of polished caricatures. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain
that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

The State is the absolute reality and the individual himself has objective existence, truth and morality only in his capacity as a member of the State. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Since philosophy now criticizes everything it comes across, a critique of philosophy would be nothing less than a just reprisal. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Life is writing. The sole purpose of mankind is to engrave the thoughts of divinity onto the tablets of nature. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

It is because the method of physics does not satisfy the comprehension that we have to go on further. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

crowd of frenzied females, ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Has creation a final purpose at all, and if so why is it not attained immediately, why does perfection not exist from the very beginning? ~ Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling

The evident character of this defective cognition of which mathematics is proud, and on which it plumes itself before philosophy, rests solely on the poverty of its purpose and the defectiveness of its stuff, and is therefore of a kind that philosophy must spurn ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

In the Soul is the awaking of Consciousness: Consciousness sets itself up as Reason, awaking at one bound to the sense of its rationality: and this Reason by its activity emancipates itself to objectivity and the consciousness of its intelligent unity. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Ideas are infinite, original, and lively divine thoughts. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

One has only as much morality as one has philosophy and poetry. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

The only Thought which Philosophy brings with it to the contemplation of History, is the simple conception of Reason; that Reason is the Sovereign of the World; that the history of the world, therefore, presents us with a rational process. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

To the philosopher, infinity, knowledge, movement, empirical laws, etc., are things just as familiar {as family relations}. And as her dead brother and uncle are present to the peasant woman, thus Plato, Spinoza, etc. are present to the philosopher. The one has as much reality as the other, but the latter are immortal. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Original love never appears in pure form, but in manifold veils and shapes, such as confidence, humility, reverence, serenity, asfaithfulness and modesty, as gratefulness; but primarily as longing and wistful melancholy. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

The development of a rational view of the nature of catalysis was thus absolutely dependent on the creation of the concept of the rate of chemical reaction. ~ Wilhelm, Ostwald

Only one man ever understood me, and he didn't understand me. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Religion is absolutely unfathomable. Always and everywhere one can dig more deeply into infinities. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Nothing great in the world was accomplished without passion. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

The worst manifestations of exhaustion were successfully cured by a long period of rest but it was immediately apparent to me that I had lost once and for all my former capacity for carrying out experimental work until physically tired. ~ Wilhelm, Ostwald

Can we expect the redemption of the world from scholars? I doubt it. But the time has come for all artists to join together as a confederation in an eternal league. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

What do the few existing mystics still do?
They more or less mold the raw chaos of already existing religion. But only in an isolated, insignificant manner, through feeble attempts. Do it in a grand manner from all aspects with unified efforts, and let us awaken all religions from their graves, newly revivify and form the immortal ones through the omnipotence of art and science. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Philosophy still moves too much straight ahead, and is not yet cyclical enough. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel