Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg

“ True speech is is mere word play. The ridiculous misconception that can only be wondered at is that people fancy—that they speak on behalf of things. Straight away, the peculiarity about language is that it is only concerned with itself. That is why it is such a wonderful and productive secret—that when one merely speaks only to speak, he straight away utters the most marvelous, original truths. But if he wants to speak of something specific, the whimsy of language will make him say the most laughable and perverse things. ”

“ Guided by the queen's taste, a brilliant master of ceremonies could make the court into an earthly paradise, could guide it through the simple theme of enjoying life through inexhaustible variations, and allow it to behold objects of common devotion in an always new, always stimulating milieu. For what feeling is is more heavenly than knowing that the ones you love are the truest enjoyment of life. ”

“ One loves changes—the other not. Perhaps during certain years we all love revolution, free competition, tournaments, and other such democratic events. But for most, these years pass—and we feel ourselves attracted to a more peaceful world, where a central sun leads the round dance and one will love the planet, than a destructive war fighting for the first dance. At the very least one should also be politically, as well as religiously, tolerant—one accepts only the possibility—that a rational being could be disposed differently than us. ”

“ The regent produces an infinitely diverse spectacle, where stage and ground floor, actor and audience are one, and he himself is poet, director and hero of the play at the same time. How delightful when, as with the king, the directrice is at the same time the hero's lover and the heroine of the piece, when one catches a glimpse of the muse in her, it fills the poet with holy passion, and his lyre attunes to gentle heavenly melodies. ”

“ Nothing more should be closer to the heart of the king than to be and to stay as well-rounded, as informed, well-oriented, and unbiased, in short, so complete a human being as possible. No person has more means in his hands to make this highest style of humanity his own than a king. He can always keep himself young through interaction and continuous learning. An old king makes a state as miserable as he is himself. Couldn't it be easy for the king to make himself familiar with the scientific advances of humanity. ”

“ But the excellence of representative democracy is undeniable. A more natural, more excellent person is a poet's dream. So, what remains of the rest—an artificial composition. The most excellent people of the nation complement each other—in this society, a pure spirit of society is ignited. The society's decrees are the spirit's emanations—and the ideal ruler is realized. ”

“ But the more we are able to be conscious of this state, the livelier, more powerful, and more compelling is the conviction that arises from it; belief in true revelations of the spirit. It is not seeing, hearing, feeling; It is more than all three combined, more than all of the three: a perception of immediate certainty, a vision of my most true, most unique life. Thoughts transform themselves into laws, the wishes into fulfillments. For the shallow person, the reality of this moment is an article of faith. ”

“ The coarse Philistine imagines the joys of heaven under the image of a church festival, a wedding, a trip or a ball: the sublimated one turns heaven into a sumptuous church with beautiful music, lots of pomp, with chairs for the common groundling, and chapels and galleries for the distinguished.
The worst of them are the revolutionary Philistines, to which also the dregs of the aimlessly-wandering minds, the greedy race, belongs. Gross self-interest is the necessary result of impoverished narrow-mindedness. The sensation of the moment is the liveliest, the highest one for a wretch. ”

“ A true democracy is an absolute minus-state. A true monarchy is an absolute plus-state. The constitution of a monarchy is the character of the regent. Its guarantee is his will. Democracy, in the ordinary sense, is in principle no different than monarchy, only that here the monarch is a mass of heads. True democracy is Protestantism—the political natural state, in the way that Protestantism in a narrower sense is a religious natural state. ”

“ Personal love would bind them forever to their sovereign, and the king would have the best opportunity to get to know his servants well, to choose, to respect and to love them personally. The noble simplicity of royal private life, the image of this happy, intimately connected couple, would have the most benevolent influence on the moral education of this core of Prussian youth, and so the king would most easily be granted the innate desire of his heart, to become the true reformer and restorer of his nation and his time. ”

“ I am using a license here in that I do not take pantheism in the ordinary sense, but understand it as the idea that everything can be an agent of divinity, can be a mediator, by my elevation of it: just as monotheism, on the contrary, indicates a belief that there is only one such agent bestowed for us in the world, one alone that is appropriate to the idea of ​​a mediator, and through which God alone lets himself be heard, which I am compelled to choose for myself: for without which monotheism would not be true religion. ”

“ Everyone should be an artist. Everything can become fine art. The prince's material is the artist; his will is his chisel: he inspires, employs and directs the artist, because only he sees the whole picture from the correct perspective, because only he is the one to execute the great idea through which through which the unity of power and idea is expressed completely in the present. ”

“ Only a righteous man and a righteous state can create lasting happiness. Of what help is all wealth to me if it hinders me from getting fresh horses hastening one's journey through the world? Unselfish love in the heart and its watchword in the head, that is the sole eternal basis of all true inseparable relations, and what else is the relationship with the state than a marriage?
31. Like a father, a king must not show preference. He should not just have military companions and aides. ”

“ What you love, you will find everywhere, and see likenesses everywhere. The greater the love, the wider and more varied this world of likeness. My love is the abbreviation of the universe, the universe is the extension of my love. ”

“ This also gives rise to the hatred that many earnest people have for language. They notice its mischievousness, but they do not notice that the endless disdainful chatter is the immeasurable serious side of language. If one could only make people understand that it is with language as it is with mathematical formulas—They constitute a world for themselves—They play only amongst themselves—express nothing but their wondrous nature, and that is why they are so expressive—that is why the peculiar play of relationship between things are reflected in them. ”

“ A true royal couple is to the entire people what a constitution is to the mere understanding. One can only be interested in a constitution for itself as one is interested in a letter. If the sign is not a beautiful image or song, then being faithful to images is the most inappropriate of all affections.—What is a principle, if it is not the expression of the will of a beloved, admirable person? ”

“ But doesn't reason require that everyone should be his own lawmaker? People should only obey their own laws. Because Solon and Lycurgus have given truly general laws, laws for humanity—where did they get them from? Hopefully from their humanity and its observation. If I am a person, like them, where do I get my laws? Most probably from the same source—and am I , if I then live according to Solon's and Lycurgus's laws, untrue to reason? Every true law is my law—Let everyone who want to, proclaim and establish it. ”

“ When he enlists his capable generals as aides, why doesn't he also enlist capable chairmen and ministers? Only from there, will he pull all the threads of government together. There alone, one learns to pay attention to the big picture of the state and its details. There is no better place for educating oneself for leadership positions than the cabinet, where the wisdom of the state is concentrated, where every matter is thoroughly processed, and where one can follow the course of business to its smallest artery. ”

“ There will be a time coming and soon, when one will be generally convinced that there can exist no king without a republic and no republic without a king, that it is found that both are indivisible, like body and soul, and that a king without a republic and a republic without a king become only words without meaning. Thus a king always develops simultaneously with a true republic, and a republic with a true king. The real king will be the republic, the real republic be the king. ”

“ Any educated woman and any caring mother should have the image of the queen in her or her daughter's living room. What a beautiful, powerful reminder of the archetype that everyone would have set themselves to achieve. The character trait of the new Prussian woman, her national trait, would be similarity with the queen. A lovely being in a thousandfold forms. A meaningful ceremony of homage to the queen could easily be instituted with each wedding; and thus one ought to ennoble ordinary life through the king and queen, as the ancients otherwise did with their gods. ”

“ The leader, the first official of the state, has almost always been confused with the representative of the genius of humanity, which belongs to the unity of society or the people.
In the state everything is the acting of a show, the life of the people is a drama; hence the spirit of the people must also be displayed. This visible spirit either comes, as in the millennial kingdom, without our intervention, or it is chosen unanimously by loud or silent consent. ”

“ In all relative relationships, the individual once and for always subject to arbitrariness—and when I go to a desert—isn't it my primary interest to be subject to the arbitrariness of my own individuality? ”

“ A flourishing land is more of a royal artwork than a park. A tasteful park is an English invention. A country that satisfies heart and mind should be a German invention; and the inventor would also be the king of all inventors. ”

“ Delusion lives away from the truth; truth has its life within itself. One eradicates delusion as one eradicates diseases, and the delusion is therefore nothing but logical inflammation or decay, enthusiasm or philistinism. The former usually leaves behind an apparent deficiency in the power of thought, which is not improved through anything except a diminishing series of incitations, or compulsory treatments. This often results in a misleading volatility, those grave symptoms of revolution that can only be dispelled by an increasing series of drastic methods. ”

“ If the representative through the heights by which he has been raised—should become more mature and more refined—how much more an individual ruler? If people were what they should and can become—so would all forms of government be the same—humanity would be ruled the same everywhere, everywhere according to the original laws of humanity. ”

“ How powerfully court reform might not function! The king should not be frugal like a farmer or a well-off private person; but there is also a royal frugality, and this the king appears to know. The court should be the ideal model of private life on a large scale. The housewife is the composer of housework. So the queen is the composer of the court. The husband is decorative appearance, the wife arranges and organizes. Thoughtless housekeeping is most of the times the fault of the wife. Everyone knows that the queen is thoroughly against superficiality. ”

“ The king is the true life principle of the state; just like the sun in the planetary system. First of all, the supreme life in the state generates the atmosphere of light around the life principle. It crystallizes in every citizen to a greater or lesser degree. The citizen's speech in the presence of the king become as shining and thus poetic as possible, or become expressions of the greatest inspiration. ”

“ The most arbitrary prejudice is to deny a person's ability to be outside oneself, to be with an awareness beyond the senses. A person is able to be a supersensible being at any moment. Without this he would not be a citizen of the world, he would be an animal. ”

“ The caprice of nature and the compulsion to art would permeate one another when one dissolves them in the spirit. The spirit makes both of them fluid. The spirit is at all times poetic. The poetic nation is the genuine, complete nation. ”

“ It is quite possible that a time will come when they all are so ordinary, as like proverbs are now, and new, more sublime discoveries occupy humanity's restless spirit that our present ingenious discoveries would meet a similar fate in the course of time.
79. A law is, by the concept itself, effective. An ineffective law is not a law. Law is a causal concept, a combination of power and thought. Hence one is never conscious of a law as such. Insofar as one thinks of a law, it is only a proposition, that is, a thought connected with a capability. ”

“ Often it seems to me that am alone in the world, and the deities of plague seem to dwell around me and inside of me, chasing away the delight- often so glorious to me, so wonderful- that my imagination creates. ”

“ Humor is the result of a free mixing of the conditioned and the unconditioned. Through humor, that which is peculiarly conditioned becomes universally interesting and obtains objective worth. Where imagination and judgment meet, wit arises; where rationality and arbitrariness come together, humor. Light banter belongs to humor, but it is one degree lower: it is no longer purely artistic, and much more limited. What Fr. Schlegel so distinctly characterizes as irony is, in my opinion, nothing other than the result, the characteristic of discretion, the true presence of spirit. ”

“ The individual, as such, is subject to chance according to his nature. In a complete democracy, I am subject to a great many, in a representative democracy to to fewer, in a monarchy to a single arbitrary fate. ”

“ The state of being confused indicates an abundance of strength and ability, but inadequate circumstances; certainty of of the right conditions, economic assets and strength. That is why the confused mind is so progressive, so perfectable, whereas the ordinary mind ceases and becomes Philistine. Order and certainty alone is not clarity. Through self-examination the confused mind comes to that heavenly transparency, to that self-enlightenment, which the ordered mind so seldom attains. True genius connects these extremes. ”