Time is the product of changing realities, beings, existences. Nikolai Berdyaev More Quotes by Nikolai Berdyaev More Quotes From Nikolai Berdyaev The meaning of conservatism is not that it impedes movement forward and upward, but that it impedes movement backwards and downwards—to chaotic darkness and the return to a primitive state. Nikolai Berdyaev returnmovementdarkness Death, that final evil, is one of the paths to eternity. Endless life in the conditions of our existence would be a nightmare. Nikolai Berdyaev finalswould-beevil There is no objective reality. But there is only an illusion of consciousness, there is only an objectivication of reality, which was created by the spirit. The origin of life is creativity, freedom; and the personality, subject, and spirit are the representatives of that origin, but not the nature, not the object. Nikolai Berdyaev origin-of-lifecreativityreality Conscience is the spiritual, supernatural principle in man, and it is not of social origin at all. It is rather the perversion and confusion of conscience that is of social origin. Nikolai Berdyaev confusionspiritualmen In sex we have the source of man's true connection with the cosmos and of his servile dependence. The categories of sex, male and female, are cosmic categories, not merely anthropological categories. Nikolai Berdyaev malesmensex I never remain passive in the process of reading: while I read I am engaged in a constant creative activity, which leads me to remember not so much the actual matter of the book as the thoughts evoked in my mind by it, directly or indirectly. Nikolai Berdyaev creativereadingbook Ethics occupies a central place in philosophy because it is concerned with sin, with the origin of good and evil and with moral valuations. And since these problems have a universal significance, the sphere of ethics is wider than is generally supposed. It deals with meaning and value and its province is the world in which the distinction between good and evil is drawn, evaluations are made and meaning is sought. Nikolai Berdyaev evilphilosophyworld The essential in artistic creativity is victory over the burden of necessity. In art, man lives outside himself, outside his burdens, the burdens of life. Every creative artistic act is a partial transfiguration of life. In the artistic concept man breaks out through the heaviness of the world. In the creative-artistic attitude towards this world we catch a glimpse of another world. Nikolai Berdyaev creativityattitudeart God is a reality of spirit He cannot be conceived as an object, not even as the very highest object. God is not to be found in the world of objects. Nikolai Berdyaev spiritrealityworld Creativity is something which proceeds from within, out of immeasurable and inexplicable depths, not from without, not from the world's necessity. The very desire to make the creative act understandable, to find a basis for it, is failure to comprehend it. To comprehend the creative act means to recognize that it is inexplicable and without foundation. Nikolai Berdyaev creativitycreativemean The overwhelming majority of people, including Christians, are materialists. They do not believe in the power of spirit. They believe only in material power. Nikolai Berdyaev christianbelievepeople Self-realization is a process of permanent auto-creation, an elaboration of the new man at the expense of the old. Nikolai Berdyaev realizationselfmen The question of bread for myself is a material question; but the question of bread for my neighbour, for everybody, is a spiritual and a religious question. Nikolai Berdyaev religiousspiritualbread So great is the worth of Dostoevsky that to have produced him is by itself sufficient justification for the existence of the Russian people in the world: and he will bear witness for his country-men at the last judgement of the nations. Nikolai Berdyaev mencountrypeople Philosophy... is the creative perception by the spirit of the meaning of human existence. Nikolai Berdyaev perceptioncreativephilosophy The bourgeois takes economic power very seriously, and often worships it quite unselfishly. Nikolai Berdyaev economic-powereconomicworship But man as a person, the same man, gains mastery over egocentric self-confinement by disclosing a universe in himself...Personality is a universe, it is filled with universal content. Nikolai Berdyaev personalityselfmen The physical union of the sexes ... only intensifies man's sense of solitude. Nikolai Berdyaev solitudemensex The Church is simply the path of history, and not the actual kingdom of God. Nikolai Berdyaev churchkingdomspath I do not think discursively. It is not so much that I arrive at truth as that I take my start from it. Nikolai Berdyaev thinking
