By NOVALIS
TRANSLATED BY FREDERIC H. HEDGE
Where no gods are, spectres rule.
The best thing that the French achieved by their Revolution, was a portion of Germanity.
Germanity is genuine popularity, and therefore an ideal.
Where children are, there is the golden age.
Spirit is now active here and there: when will Spirit be active in the whole? When will mankind, in the mass, begin to consider?
Nature is pure Past, foregone freedom; and therefore, throughout, the soil of history.
The antithesis of body and spirit is one of the most remarkable and dangerous of all antitheses. It has played an important part in history.
Only by comparing ourselves, as men, with other rational beings, could we know what we truly are, what position we occupy.