02 November 2006

German Romantic fragments: Novalis

He that seeks, doubts.

If someone merely speaks for the sake of speaking, he utters the most splendid, original truths. But if he wants to talk about something definite, the whims of language make him say the most ridiculous false stuff.

We are now so limited that there is very little we can enjoy wholly, and in the end is it not better to absorb and assimilate one beautiful object entirely that alight upon a hundred, tasting everything, and dulling our senses soon enough with often conflicting demipleasures, without having profited anything for eternity?

The drive to organization is the drive to turn everything into instrument and means.

Poetry is the true and absolute reality. This is the heart of my philosophy. The more poetic, the more true.

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