Quotes by Nikolai Berdeaev

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Ethics is not only a judgment on man, but also a judgment on God. Against God, not only evil rebelled, but also good unable to reconcile with the existence of evil.

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Revolution represents a breakdown of an old regime. And there is no salvation either in that which has begun to rot, or in that which has fully rotted.

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Revolution is the end of the old life, but not the beginning of a new life, a reward paid for a long journey. The sins of the past are atoned for in the revolution. A revolution always shows that power has not served its purpose.

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Revolutionaries worship the future but live in the past.

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Jealousy has nothing to do with human freedom. In jealousy, we are dealing with the instinct of ownership and dominance, but in a humiliating form. We must recognize the right of love and deny the right of jealousy, ceasing to idealize it... Jealousy is the tyranny of man over man. Female jealousy is even more disgusting, turning the woman into a rage.

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Psychoanalysis is a psychology without a soul.

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It is almost monstrous how men could reach such a state of consciousness that in the opinion and will of the majority he saw the source and criterion of truth!

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A saint is more than a man, but he who worships a saint is less than a man. Where is the man?

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The veneration of the saints overshadowed communion with God.

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The main idea of ​​man is the idea of ​​God. The main idea of ​​God is the idea of ​​man.

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The New Testament does not suppress the Old Testament for the people of old.

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Nothing distorts human nature like manic ideas. If a person is obsessed with the idea that all the evil in the world comes from Jews, Freemasons, Bolsheviks, heretics, bourgeoisie, etc., then the gentlest person turns into a beast.

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Nothing can be loved but eternity, and no love can be loved but eternal. If it is not eternity, then it is nothing. The moment has full value only if it is shared from eternity...

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There is no dependence more bitter and humiliating than dependence on the will of man, on the tyranny of your equals.

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The tragedy of the world can only be reconciled because it represents the suffering of God. God shares the destiny of His creation.

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The autocracy of the people is an autocracy of the worst type, because in this case man depends on a large number of ignorant persons, on the dark instincts of the masses. The will of one or the will of a few cannot extend as far as the will of the many does.

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The most ambitious people are the people who don't love themselves.

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A miracle must come from faith, but faith must not be based on miracles.

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Man is a slave because freedom is hard and slavery is easy.

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Man is a being dissatisfied with himself and capable of rebuilding himself.

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Christ was not a founder of religion, but religion itself.

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Christianity is not only faith in God, but also faith in man, in the possibility of discovering the divine in man.

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Utopias turned out to be much more possible to achieve than previously thought. And there is a nagging question: how to avoid their ultimate realization?

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The oppressed will never be able to rule, because in the moment of rule they become oppressors.

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It is difficult to understand and accept the psychology of pious Christians who calmly accept the fact that the people around them, sometimes even those closest to them, will be in hell. It cannot be accepted that the man with whom I drink tea is condemned to the eternal torments of hell. Moral consciousness began with God's question: Cain where is your brother Abel? Moral consciousness will end with another question of God: Abel where is Cain your brother?

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To consider oneself a great sinner is as exaggerated as to consider oneself a saint.

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Death comes to us not only when we die, but also when our loved ones die. We have in our life the experience of death, even if not final.

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Freedom is not easy, as its enemies who slander it believe, freedom is difficult, it is a heavy burden. And people easily give up freedom to make their lives easier... Everything in human life must pass through freedom, through the test of freedom, through the rejection of the temptations that lie at the heart of freedom.

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The freedom of my conscience is an absolute dogma, I admit neither disputes nor agreements in this regard, here only a desperate struggle, and even shooting, is possible.

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Freedom is the right to inequality.

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Not only creative thought, but also creative passion, the passionate will of a passionate feeling must unleash the mind and melt the objective world that appears before this mind.

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There is no such thing as a class truth, there is only a class lie.

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There is no science, there are only sciences.

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The people think they are free in revolutions, but this is a terrible self-delusion. The people are slaves to the elements of darkness... In revolution there is and cannot be freedom, revolution is always hostile to the spirit of freedom... Revolution... happens to man as a disease happens to him, a accident, natural disaster, fire or flood.

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Fools too can be saved in their own way, and even the ignorant and idiots, but we allow ourselves to doubt that the idea of ​​the Kingdom of God includes its people exclusively with fools, ignoramuses and idiots. The apostle advises us to be babies with the heart, not with the mind.

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Women have the extraordinary ability to create illusions, to be what they really are not.

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The recognition of the will of the people as the supreme basis of public life can only be a worship before the contentless formal, only an idolization of human self-will. It is not important what man wants, what is important is that what he wants exists. I want what I want to exist. Here is an extreme formula of democracy, of the power of the people.

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The power of authority implies the freedom of its recognition.

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All revolutions ended in backlash. This is inevitable. It is a law. And the more frenzied and fierce the revolutions, the stronger were these counter-reactions. In the alternation of revolutions and reactions we are dealing with a kind of magic circle. She can't go any deeper. The very content of the popular will is not interested in the democratic principle. The popular will can want the most terrible evil, and the democratic principle has nothing to reply.

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The state exists not to turn earthly life into heaven, but to prevent it from turning permanently into hell.

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Good deeds that are not done out of love for people, but for the salvation of one's own soul, are not good. Where there is no love, there is no good.

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Belief in immortality is not only the comforting belief that makes life easier, it is also a terrible, fearful belief that burdens life with immeasurable responsibility. It could be said that the unbelievers have had it easier than the believers.

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Politeness is a symbolically conditioned expression of respect towards any person.

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In sexual life, it is something humiliating for man. Only our age allowed the disclosure of sexual life. And the man was broken into pieces. As Freud and psychoanalysis are, so is the contemporary novel. This is the cynicism of the contemporary era, but it is also an enrichment of knowledge about man.

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In love there is despotism and slavery. And the most despotic is the love of the woman, who demands everything from you!

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Buddhism is in its own way a teaching about salvation from torment and suffering, but without a Savior.

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God is denied either because the world is so bad or because the world is so good.

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An ancient tragedy is a tragedy of fatality, while a Christian tragedy is a tragedy of freedom.

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Dogmatism represents integrity of spirit; the creator is always dogmatic, always chooses boldly and does what he has chosen.

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The gospel is a teaching about Christ, and not a teaching of Christ.

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There is an incommensurability between masculine and feminine love, an incommensurability between demands and expectations. Male love is a particle, it does not encompass the whole being. Feminine love is integral. A woman becomes possessed. Herein lies the mortal danger of feminine love. In female love there is a magic, but despotic. And there is always a discrepancy from the ideal female image.

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The myth of the fall is a myth of man's greatness.

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When it comes to love between two people, any third is superfluous... Love is always illegal. Legal love is dead love. Legality exists only in everyday life, and love is out of the ordinary. The world should not know that two beings love each other. In the institution of marriage there is a shameless exposure, in front of society, of what should be hidden, covered from outside eyes... Marriage, on which the family is based, is a very dubious sacrament.

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There is a deep inner tragedy inherent in love, and it is no accident that love is linked to death... I have always found it strange that people talk about the joys of love. It would be more natural, in a deeper view of life, to talk about the tragedy of love and the pain of love... Love, in fact, knows no fulfilled hopes. There is sometimes a relatively happy family life, but this is a happy routine.

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Culture was born from cult.

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Love is the personal-intimate sphere of life, in which society is not allowed to interfere...

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Man cannot and must not, in his ascension, fly from the world, absolve himself of his responsibility towards others. Everyone is responsible for everything... Freedom should not become an eradication of the responsibility of the neighbor. Mercy, compassion remind us of this freedom.

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The conflict between mercy and freedom... Mercy can lead to renunciation of freedom, freedom can lead to cruelty...

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When you have no wisdom, it remains to love wisdom, that is, to be a philosopher.

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True conservatism is eternity's struggle with time, incorruptible resistance to decay.

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Individualism always kills the personality and the individual.

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Knowledge is imposed, but belief is free.

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Woman is unusually prone to slavery and at the same time inclined to enslave.

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Hell is necessary not so that the wicked receive their punishment, but so that man is not forced into heaven.