Иоганн Готлиб Фихте цитаты

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„Человек может то, что он должен, и, если он говорит «я не могу», значит он не хочет.“

„Цель всякого правительства — сделать правительство излишним. Es ist der Zweck aller Regierung, die Regierung überflüssig zu machen.“

„Трусость есть косность, мешающая нам утверждать нашу свободу и самостоятельность в отношениях с другими.“

„Мы не потому действуем, что познаем, а познаем потому, что предназначены действовать.“

„В понятии человека заложено, что его последняя цель должна быть недостижимой, а его путь к ней — бесконечным.“

„Дай дереву сознание и предоставь ему расти, раскидывать свои ветви, выгонять свойственные его породе листья, почки, цветы и плоды. Вероятно, оно не найдет себя ограниченным тем, что оно дерево, и притом как раз этой породы, и притом именно это дерево данной породы;
оно найдет себя свободным, потому что во всех своих проявлениях оно не делает ничего кроме того, что требует его природа; оно и не захочет делать ничего иного, потому что оно может хотеть только то, чего требует эта последняя. Но пусть его рост задерживается неблагоприятной погодой, недостатком пищи или другими причинами; оно почувствует, что его что-то ограничивает и ему мешает, так как стремление, действительно заложенное в его природе, не находит себе выхода. Привяжи к чему- нибудь его свободно растущие сучья, привей ему веточку с другого дерева: оно почувствует себя принужденным к некоторому действию;
конечно, его сучья продолжают расти, но не в том направлении, какое приняла бы сама себе предоставленная сила; конечно, оно приносит плоды, но не те, каких требовала его первоначальная природа. В непосредственном самосознании я кажусь себе свободным; размышляя обо всей природе, я нахожу, что свобода совершенно невозможна; первое должно быть подчинено последнему, ибо оно должно быть им объяснено.“

„Так как “мышление” мечтательности есть мыслящая сила природы, то оно возвращается к природе,окунается в ее жизнь и стремится в ней действовать; короче выражаясь, всякая мечтательность есть и необходимо становится философией природы.“

„Пусть покинет меня все остальное, только б не покинуло мужество.“

„Каждый момент… существования определен всеми протекшими моментами и определяет все будущие моменты, и невозможно мыслить теперешнее положение… иначе, чем оно есть“

„Идея есть самостоятельная, живая в себе и оживляющая материю мысль.“

„Фихте, как и все преемники Канта, обосновывая свою систему, противополагает догматизму критицизм (Н.О. Лосский).“

„Моя система — это первая система свободы; как та нация освободила человека от внешних оков, моя система освобождает от вещей самих по себе.“

„Разум есть единственно возможное, на себе самом основывающееся и покоящееся бытие и жизнь, которой лишь дальнейшая модификация, определение, изменение и индивидуальное проявление есть все, что является существующим и живым.“

„"Я" воспринимает в восприятии своего действительного действования, основание которого определенного направления оно представляет собою."“

„Существует только один пункт, на который я непрестанно должен направлять все мое размышление:как должен я поступать и как целесообразнее могу я выполнить это должное.
Все мое мышление должно иметь отношение к моей деятельности, и должно признаваться, хотя и отдаленным, средством для этой цели, для деятельности; вне деятельности мышление только пустая бесцельная игра, потеря силы и времени,извращение благородной способности, данной мне для совершенно иной цели.“

„Пусть учёный забудет, что он сделал, как только это уже сделано, и пусть думает о том, что он еще должен сделать.“

„Государство и все человеческие установления, являющиеся голым средством, стремятся к своему собственному уничтожению: цель всякого правительства — сделать правительство излишним.“

“We arrived at five great Epochs of the Earthly Life of the Human Race, which are the only possible Epochs thereof, and thoroughly exhaust the whole of this Life:–First, That in which human affairs are governed by Reason as Instinct without violence or constraint. Second, That in which this Instinct has become weaker, and now only manifests itself in a few chosen Individuals, and thereby becomes an External Ruling Authority in reference to all the rest. Third, That in which this Authority is thrown off; and, with it, Reason in every shape which it has yet assumed. Fourth, That in which Reason in the shape of Science appears among men. Fifth, That in which Art associates itself with this Science, in order to mold Human Life with a firmer and surer hand into harmony with Science, and in which the ordering of all the relations of Man according to Reason is, by means of this Art, freely accomplished, the object of the Earthly Life attained, and our Race enters upon the higher spheres of Eternity.”

“The fundamental maxim of those who stand at the head of this Age, and therefore the principle of the Age, is this,—to accept nothing as really existing or obligatory, but that which they can understand and clearly comprehend.”

“The determination to print them (his lectures), and to communicate them to the General Public, must also speak for itself; and should it not do so, any other recommendation of them would be thrown away. Thus, with respect to the appearance of this work, I have nothing further to say to the Public, than that I have nothing to say.”

“All life, Omnipotent Father, is thy life! and the eye of religion alone penetrates to the realms of truth and beauty. I am related to thee, and what I behold around me is related to me; all is full of animation, and looks towards me with bright spiritual eyes, and speaks with spirit voices to my heart.”

“Should it seem to me that truth has been put to silence, and virtue trampled under foot, and that folly and vice will certainly triumph; should it happen, when all hearts were filled with hope for the human race, that the horizon should suddenly darken around them as it had never done before; should the work, well and happily begun, on which all eyes were fixed with joyous expectation, suddenly and unexpectedly be turned into a deed of shame, — yet will I not be dismayed; nor if the good cause should appear to grow and flourish, the lights of freedom and civilization be diffused, and peace and good-will amongst men be extended, shall yet my efforts be relaxed.”

“Blessed be the hour in which I was first led to inquire into my own spiritual nature and destination! All my doubts are removed; I know what I can know, and have no fears for what I cannot know. I am satisfied; perfect clearness and harmony reign in my soul, and a new and more glorious existence begins for me. My entire destiny I cannot comprehend; what I am to become, exceeds my present power of conception. A part, which is concealed from me, is visible to the father of spirits. I know only that it is secure, everlasting and glorious. That part of it which is confided to me I know, for it is the root of all my other knowledge.”

“I veil my face before thee, and lay my finger on my lips. What thou art in thyself, or how thou appearest to thyself, I can never know. After living through a thousand lives, I shall comprehend Thee as little as I do now in this mansion of clay. What I can comprehend, becomes finite by my mere comprehension, and this can never, by perpetual ascent, be transformed into the infinite, for it does not differ from it in degree merely, but in kind. By that ascent we may find a greater and greater man, but never a God, who is capable of no measurement.”

“I believe it to be this; that my will, absolutely of itself, and without the intervention of any instrument that might weaken its effect, shall act in a sphere perfectly congenial — reason upon reason, spirit upon spirit; in a sphere to which it does not give the laws of life, of activity, of progress, but which has them in itself, therefore, upon self-active reason. But spontaneous, self-active reason is will. The law of the transcendental world must, therefore, be a Will.”

“The will is the living principle of the rational soul, is indeed itself reason, when purely and simply apprehended. That reason is itself active, means, that the pure will, as such, rules and is effectual. The infinite reason alone lies immediately and entirely in the purely spiritual order. The finite being lives necessarily at the same time in a sensuous order; that is to say, in one which presents to him other objects than those of pure reason; a material object, to be advanced by instruments and powers, standing indeed under the immediate command of the will, but whose efficacy is conditional also on its own natural laws.”

“Reason does not exist for the sake of life, but life for the sake of reason. An existence which does not of itself satisfy reason and solve all her doubts, cannot be the true one.”

“It is the destiny of our race to become united into one great body, thoroughly connected in all its parts, and possessed of similar culture. Nature, and even the passions and vices of Man, have from the beginning tended towards this end. A great part of the way towards it is already passed, and we may surely calculate that it will in time be reached.”

“The voice in my soul in which I will have faith, and for the sake of which I have faith in all else, does not merely command me generally to act, but in every particular situation it declares what I shall do and what leave undone; it accompanies me through every event of my life, and it is impossible for me to contend against it. To listen to it and obey it honestly and impartially, without fear or equivocation, is the business of my existence. My life is no longer an empty I play without truth or significance. It is appointed that what I conscience ordains me shall be done, and for this purpose am I here. I have understanding to know, and power to execute it. By conscience alone comes truth and reality into my representations.”

“There is nothing enduring, permanent, either in me or out of me, nothing but everlasting change. I know of no existence, not even of my own. I know nothing and am nothing. Images — pictures — only are, pictures which wander by without anything existing past which they wander, without any corresponding reality which they might represent, without significance and without aim. I myself am one of these images, or rather a confused image of these images. All reality is transformed into a strange dream, without a world of which the dream might be, or a mind that might dream it. Contemplation is a dream; thought, the source of all existence and of all that I fancied reality, of my own existence, my own capacities, is a dream of that dream.”

“Spirit: Do not be deceived by sophists and half philosophers; things do not appear to thee by means of any representatives. Of the thing that exists, and that can exist, thou art conscious immediately; thou, thyself, art that of which thou art conscious. By a fundamental law of thy being thou art thus presented to thyself, and thrown out of thyself.”

“Of what I am, I know no more than that I am, but here no tie is necessary between subject and object. My own being is this tie, I am at once the subject knowing, and the object known of; and this reflection or return of the knowledge on itself is what I designate by the term I, if I have any determinate meaning.”

“I: My consciousness of the object is only a yet unrecognised consciousness of my production of the representation of an object. Of this production I know no more than that it is I who produce, and thus is all consciousness no more than a consciousness of myself, and so far perfectly comprehensible. Am I in the right? Spirit. Perfectly so; but whence then is derived the necessity and universality thou hast ascribed to these propositions, to that of causality for instance?”

“An act of the mind of which we are conscious, as such, is called freedom. An act without consciousness of action is called spontaneity. I by no means assume as necessary any immediate consciousness of the act, but merely, that on subsequent reflection thou shouldst perceive it to be an act. The higher question of what it is that prevents any such state of indecision, or any consciousness of the act, we may perhaps subsequently be able to solve. This act of the mind is called thought and it is said that thought is a spontaneous act, to distinguish it from sensation, in which the mind is merely receptive and passive.”

“Am I a free agent, or am I merely the manifestation of a foreign power? Neither appear sufficiently well founded. By the most courageous resolve of my life am I reduced to this! what Power can save me from it, from myself?”

“That I should by necessity be either wise and good, or foolish or vicious, without having in one case or the other merit or fault — this it was that filled me with aversion and horror. The determination of my actions by a cause out of myself, whose manifestations were again determined by other causes — this it was from which I so violently revolted. The freedom which was not mine, but that of a foreign power, and, in that, only a conditional, half freedom — this it was with which I could not rest satisfied. I myself — that which in this system only appears as the manifestation of a higher existence, I will be independent, — will be something, not by another or through another, but of myself.”

“My immediate consciousness, my absolute perception, cannot go beyond myself, — I have immediate knowledge only of myself, whatever I know further I know only by reasoning, in the same manner in which I have come to those conclusions concerning the original powers of Nature, which certainly do not lie within the circle of my perceptions. I, however, — that which I call myself, — am not the man-forming power of Nature, but only one of its manifestations; and only of this manifestation am I conscious, not of that power, whose existence I have only discovered from the necessity of explaining my own.”

“Mit derselben Sicherheit, mit welcher ich darauf rechne, daß dieser Boden mich tragen wird, wenn ich darauf trete, daß dieses Feuer mich verbrennen würde, wenn ich mich ihm näherte, will ich darauf rechnen können, was ich selbst bin, und was ich sein werde. With the same assurance with which I count on the floor to support me when I step on it, and on the fire to burn me were I to approach it, I want to be able to count on what I myself am and what I will be.”

“What, then, is the animal? First of all, a system of plant-souls. The unity of those plant-souls, which unity nature itself produces, is the soul of the animal. Its world is therefore partly that of the plants — its nourishment, for instance, it receives partly through synthesis from vegetable, and through analysis from animal nature — and partly that of the animals, whereof we shall speak directly. Each product of nature is an organically in-itself completed totality in space, like the plant. Hence, the unknown x which we are looking for must also be such a whole or totality, and in so far it must also have a principle of organization, a sphere and central point of this organization; in short, the same which we have called the soul of the plant, which thus remains common to both. … The animal is a system of plant-souls, and the plant is a separated, isolated part of an animal. Both reciprocally affect each other.”

“It is a proof that the state is not an arbitrary invention, but is established by nature and reason, when we actually find that, in places where men have lived together for a time and have become educated, states are erected, although the people in the one such place know not that the same thing has been done in other places. Each people, which does not live in a condition of nature, but has a government, no matter how constituted, has a right to compel its recognition from all adjoining states.”

“Each citizen of a state promises, in the original compact, that he will promote, as far as lies in his power, all the conditions of the possibility of the state; hence, also, the condition just mentioned. This he can best do by educating children who may grow up to realize various ends of reason. The state has the right to make this education of children a condition of the state-compact, and thus education becomes an external, legal obligation, which the parents owe to the state.”

“Let us apply these principles to adultery. The state can no more prohibit it or punish it by law than any other illegitimate satisfaction of the sexual impulse.”

“Marriage is a union between two persons — one man and one woman. A woman who has given herself up to one, can not give herself up to a second, for her whole dignity requires that she should belong only to this one.”

“The supervision of the state extends to the lock upon the door, and there begins mine own. The lock is the boundary line between the power of the government and my own private power. It is the intention of locks to make possible self-protection. In my own house my person is sacred and inviolable even to the government. In civil cases government has no right to attack me in my house, but must wait till I am upon public ground.”

“The administrators of the executive power may be either elective or not; and in the former case all or only some of them may be elective. They are elective in a proper democracy, that is to say, in a democracy which recognizes representation. If all the public officials are directly elected by the whole people, the democracy is a pure democracy; if only some, it is a mixed democracy. The public officials may also fill vacancies themselves; this is the case in a pure aristocracy. But if only some of the magistrates are thus replaced by the public officers, and if the others are again directly elected by the people, then the form of government is that of a democratic aristocracy. A permanent president (monarch) may also be elected to exercise the executive power during his lifetime. In all these cases, either all citizens of the commonwealth, or only some of them, are eligible to office. Eligibility may, therefore, be limited or unlimited.”

“On condition that you protect my rights, I will protect your rights. How, then, does some party obtain the right to claim the protection of the other? Evidently, by actually protecting the rights of the other. But if this is so, no party will ever obtain a strictly legal claim to the protection of the other.”