Quotessence
Home / Authors / Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner Quotes

Philosopher

Filter quotes by topic

AllHumansWorldSoulHuman BeingsSpiritIfsSpiritualMenWayThinking

Famous Rudolf Steiner Quotes

“As a rule, the people who call themselves liberals or democrats are very glad if they can point to evidence that the number of people in a particular region on earth is increasing tremendously. An increase in the population is something which is very much desired, especially by politically minded democratic and liberal people, and also by people who think that they are free thinkers and intellectuals. Now first of all this is not quite correct, because the statistics are based on errors; people usually look at one part of the earth and they don't realize that the other parts of the earth were more densely populated in previous times than they are today. It is not quite correct; however, on the whole it is correct in the sense that there is a kind of a surplus of human beings who are already appearing in our time who have no egos, who are not really human. This is a terrible truth. They walk around and are not incarnations of an ego; they enter into the physical line of heredity and receive an etheric body and an astral body. In a certain way they are equipped with an Ahrimanic consciousness, and they look human if one doesn't look too closely, but they are not human beings in the full sense of the word. This is a terrible truth, which is present, it's a truth, and when the Apocalypticer speaks about the plague of locusts during the trumpets epoch he is referring directly to human beings. Here again one can see how good the Apocalypticer's vision is, for such men in their astral body look exactly the way the Apocalypticer describes them — like etheric locusts with human faces. One definitely has to think about such supersensible things in this way, and priests must know about such things. For a priest is a minister. Hence he must also be able to find words for everything that happens in such a soul. They're not always bad souls; they can just be souls who get to the soul stage but are lacking an ego. One will certainly realize this when one runs into these human beings. A priest has to know this, for after all there is fellowship among men with regard to such matters. People with normal souls suffer through their association with such persons who really go through the world like human locusts. The question can and must arise: How should one behave towards such human beings? It is often very difficult to relate to such people because they feel things deeply, they can feel things very deeply, but one notices that there is no real individuality in them. However, one must of course take care to keep the fact that they have no individualities from them, otherwise insanity will necessarily result. But even though one has to conceal this from them, it's a question of arranging things for such souls — after all they are souls, even though they're not spirits — in such a way that these people can develop in the company of others, that they can make connections with others and go along with them, as it were. These human beings display the nature and essence of human beings fairly closely until their 20th year. The intellectual or mind soul only emerges around age 20, and this makes it possible for the ego to live out its life on earth.”

SoulSpiritIndividualityNpcLocusts
Book:The Book of Revelation: And the Work of the Priest
Create image

“When anything has to be borne there is at once added the power to bear it steadfastly if we will only reflect calmly on this power and also take time to notice that which wants to manifest itself in the soul. When something painful appears, and when at the same time there is a sure feeling in the soul that forces are to be found which will make the pain bearable and with which we are able to connect ourselves, we are then able to take up such a position towards experiences, which would be unbearable in the course of our ordinary life, so that we seem to be the spectator of ourselves in all such experiences.”

LifePainSpiritExperienceEnduranceEquanimityGeistApatheiaRoad To Self KnowledgeSupersensible Cognition
Author:Rudolf Steiner
Create image

“Wir Theoso­phen wollen die andern gern verstehen; und wir können war­ten, bis sie uns Gleiches mit Gleichem vergelten werden. Sollte ich mein mathematisch-nüchternes Denken, und meine Spinoza-Verehrung verleugnen müssen, weil ich Theosoph bin, wahrlich ich wäre es in einer Stunde nicht mehr. Da ich aber Theosoph geworden bin, weil ich einstmals zwischen den Vorlesungen über «Integration linearer Differentialglei­chungen», synthetischer Geometrie und deskriptiver Geome­trie wirklich habe mathematisch denken gelernt und damit auch den Zugang zum spirituellen Forschen im Sinne Platos er­langt habe, so wird mir wohl—nichts passieren.”

ChristMathematicsPlatoGeometrySpiritual ScienceTheosophyDifferential EquationsAnthroposophyLucifer Gnosis
Author:Rudolf Steiner
Create image

“People who are unable to use their hands skillfully for all kinds of work, will not become good thinkers and will behave awkwardly in life. It is not the head alone, but the whole human being that is a logician. Activities demanding manual and bodily skill, such as knitting, leads to the enhancement of the faculty of judgment. This faculty is actually developed least of all by exercises in logic.”

PeopleHumansKindWholeUseHandsHuman BeingsExerciseActivitySkillsJudgmentLogicAll KindsBehaveFacultyThinkerManualsKnittingEnhancement
Author:Rudolf Steiner
Create image

“Spiritual science attempts to speak about non-sensory things in the same way that the natural sciences speak about sense-perceptible things...No one can ever deny others the right to ignore the supersensible, but there is never any legitimate reason for people to declare themselves authorities, not only on what they themselves are capable of knowing, but also on what they suppose cannot be known by any other human being.”

PeopleWayHumansReasonSpiritualSpeakNaturalHuman BeingsKnownKnowingAuthorityCapableDenyIdealismSensoryNatural Science
Author:Rudolf Steiner
Create image

“Every human being shall see in each and all of his fellow-men a hidden divinity... that every human being is made in the likeness of the Godhead. When that time comes there will be no need for any religious coercion; for then every meeting between one man and another will of itself be in the nature of a religious rite, a sacrament.”

MenNeedsHumansMadeReligiousHuman BeingsCommunicationFellowsMeetingsDivinityOne ManSacramentsFellow ManCoercionNonviolent CommunicationRite
Author:Rudolf Steiner
Create image

“We have seen that blood united to blood in the case of but remotely connected species of animals, kills; blood united to blood in the case of more closely allied species of animals does not kill. The physical organism of man survives when strange blood comes in contact with strange blood, ... but clairvoyant power perishes under the influence of this mixing of blood, or exogamy.”

MenDoeAnimalUnitedCasesBloodInfluenceStrangeSpeciesScaryConnectedContactOrganismsMixingClairvoyant
Author:Rudolf Steiner
Create image

“In diabetes mellitus the case is as follows: the ego-organization, as it submerges in the astral and etheric realm, is so weakened that it can no longer effectively accomplish its action upon the sugar-substance. The sugar then undergoes the processes in the astral and etheric realms which should take place in the ego-organization.... From all this we see that a real healing process for diabetes mellitus can only be initiated if we are in a position to strengthen the ego-organization of the patient.”

IfsShouldRealActionProcessHealingCasesPositionEgoOrganizationPatientScaryAccomplishSubstanceRealmsSugarDiabetesHealing Process
Author:Rudolf Steiner
Create image