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Quotes of Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (May 19, 1762 – January 27, 1814) was a German philosopher. He was one of the founding figures of the philosophical movement known as German idealism, a movement that developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Kant. Fichte is often perceived as a figure whose philosophy forms a bridge between the ideas of Kant and the German Idealist Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Recently, philosophers and scholars have begun to appreciate Fichte as an important philosopher in his own right due to his original insights into the nature of self-consciousness or self-awareness. Like Descartes and Kant before him, the problem of subjectivity and consciousness motivated much of his philosophical rumination. Fichte also wrote political philosophy, and is thought of by some as the father of German nationalism.
- A man can do what he ought to do; and when he says he cannot, it is because he will not. Johann Gottlieb Fichte
- By mere burial man arrives not at bliss; and in the future life, throughout its whole infinite range, they will seek for happiness as vainly as they sought it here, who seek it in aught else than that which so closely surrounds them here - the Infinite. Johann Gottlieb Fichte
- 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. Johann Gottlieb Fichte
- 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. Johann Gottlieb Fichte
- God is not the mere dead conception to which we have thus given utterance, but he is in himself pure Life. Johann Gottlieb Fichte
- He who is firm in will molds the world to himself. Johann Gottlieb Fichte
- 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. Johann Gottlieb Fichte
- Pure thought is itself the divine existence; and conversely, the divine existence, in its immediate essence, is nothing else than pure thought. Johann Gottlieb Fichte
- Religion consists herein, that man in his own person, with his own spiritual eye, immediately beholds and possesses God. This, however, is possible through pure independent thought alone; for only through this does man assume real personality, and this alone is the eye to which God becomes visible. Johann Gottlieb Fichte
- There are two great classes of men: the people and the scholars, the men of science. For the former, nothing exists but that which directly leads to action. It is for the latter to see beyond. They are the free artists who create the future and its history, the conscious architects of the world. Johann Gottlieb Fichte
- 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. Johann Gottlieb Fichte
- What sort of philosophy one chooses depends on what sort of person one is. Johann Gottlieb Fichte
- What sort of philosophy one chooses depends, therefore, on what sort of man one is; for a philosophical system is not a dead piece of furniture that we can reject or accept as we wish; it is rather a thing animated by the soul of the person who holds it. Johann Gottlieb Fichte