Quotes from Rudolf Steiner

In ancient times, anterior to our history, the temples of the spirit were also outwardly visible; today, because our life has become so unspiritual, they are not to be found in the world visible to external sight; yet they are present spiritually everywhere, and all who seek may find them.

What to them is known as practical thought or thinking consists in following the example of some authority whose ideas are accepted as a standard in the construction of some object. Anyone who thinks differently is considered impractical because this thought does not coincide with traditional ideas.

The essential characteristic of the fourth period is that, by the exclusion of the soul from direct communion with the psycho-spiritual world, the human faculties of intelligence and feeling were thereby strengthened and invigorated. The souls whose powers of intelligence and feeling had at that time developed to a great extent as the result of former incarnations, carried over with them the fruits of this development into their incarnations during the fifth period.

The teacher, as we know, can confer upon the pupil no powers which are not already latent within him, and his sole function is to assist in the awakening of slumbering faculties. But what he imparts out of his own experience is a pillar of strength for the one wishing to penetrate through darkness to light.

a beggar on earth than a king in the realm of shades.

These two thoughts are, first, that behind the visible world there is another, the world invisible, which is hidden from the senses and also from thought that is fettered by these senses; and secondly, that it is possible for man to penetrate into that unseen world by developing certain faculties dormant within him.

If a man makes his life desolate by losing touch with the unseen, he not only destroys in his inner self something, the decay of which may eventually drive him to despair, but through his weakness he constitutes a hindrance to the evolution of the whole world in which he lives.

The thinker seeks the laws of phenomena, and strives to penetrate by thinking what he experiences by observing. Only when we have made the world-content into our thought-content do we again find the unity out of which we had separated ourselves. We shall see later that this goal can be reached only if the task of the research scientist is conceived at a much deeper level than is often the case.

Man is already weak at the moment he searches for laws and rules according to which he shall think and act. Out of his own being the strong individual controls his way of thinking and doing.

I beg you to see this in the right light, and to combine it with the feeling about what happened through the Mystery of Golgotha, in which his actual sacrifice consisted: namely in leaving the spiritual spheres in order to live with the earth and the human beings on the earth and to consolidate the impulse he gave for further human evolution on earth.

The true occult scientist does not stand aloof from the world, but is a lover of reality, because he does not desire to enjoy the unseen in a remote dream-world, but finds his happiness in bringing to the world ever fresh supplies of force from the invisible sources from whence this very world is derived, and from which it must be continually fructified.

If I meet other people and criticize their weaknesses, I rob myself of higher cognitive power. But if I try to enter deeply and lovingly into another person's good qualities, I gather in that force.

But all those who had made themselves comfortable in the physical world experienced this fading away of consciousness in the spiritual world. It was no fairy tale but plain truth, that the initiates in the Eleusinian

The divinity dwelling in man speaks when the soul recognizes itself as an ego." Just as the sentient and intellectual souls live in the outer world, so a third soul-principle is immersed in the divine when the soul becomes conscious of its own nature.

It does not matter if what I think differs from what the other person thinks. What matters is that, as a result of what I can contribute to the conversation, the other discovers what is right out of themselves.

You can get an idea of human nature only when you can see the relationship of the individual human being to the whole cosmos.

These are two poles in the soul's life: loss of self in what one is contemplating and self-willed assertion of what lies within the self. These are two great opposites. If you wish to attain real knowledge and permeate yourself with wisdom, self-will is lethal. In ordinary life, we know self-will only as prejudice—and prejudices always destroy higher insight.

The student is told to set apart moments in his daily life in which to withdraw into himself, quietly and alone. He is not to occupy himself at such moments with the affairs of his own ego. This would result in the contrary of what is intended. He should rather let his experiences and the messages from the outer world re-echo within his own completely silent self. At such silent moments every flower, every animal, every action will unveil to him secrets undreamt of.

Duchovní vÄ›da v?bec neÃ…â"¢íká: ?lovÄ›k má svou organizací dané meze poznání, nýbrž praví: pro ?lovÄ›ka existují ty svÄ›ty, pro n?ž má orgány vnímání. HovoÃ…â"¢í jen o prostÃ…â"¢edcích, jak do?asné hranice rozÅ¡íÃ…â"¢it.

U?ení se týká astrálního tÄ›la, uvedené promÄ›ny naproti tomu étherného ?i životního tÄ›la. Není tedy nepÃ…â"¢im??eným obrazem, kdy zmÄ›ny astrálního tÄ›la v životÄ› srovnáme s chodem minutové ru?i?ky hodin a promÄ›nu životního tÄ›la s chodem hodinové ru?i?ky.

Jsou dvÄ› magická slova, jež udávají, jak dítÄ› vstupuje ve vztah ke svému okolí, a to: napodobení a vzor. Ã…Ëœecký filozof Aristoteles nazval ?lovÄ›ka nejnapodobivÄ›jÅ¡ím zvíÃ…â"¢etem; pro žádný jiný vÄ›k neplatí tento výrok víc než pro dÄ›tství až do výmÄ›ny zub?.

ObecnÄ› lze Ã…â"¢íci, že zdravé fyzické tÄ›lo touží po tom, co mu patÃ…â"¢í. A pokud jde o fyzické tÄ›lo vyvíjejícího se ?lovÄ›ka, je tÃ…â"¢eba pÃ…â"¢esnÄ› sledovat, co chce mít zdravá touha, žádost a radost.

This gives rise to a new symptom, namely a dissociation, or rather the power of a momentary dissociation of three faculties which, in man, are united: the faculties of willing, feeling and thinking. We must learn to separate and to re-unite them at will. So long, for example, as some outer event carries us away with uncontrolled enthusiasm, we are immature, for such enthusiasm comes from the event, not from ourselves, and we may even exercise a shattering influence of which we are not master.

Je-li v takovéto atmosféÃ…â"¢e lásky možné napodobování zdravých vzor?, pak je dítÄ› ve svém správném elementu. MÄ›lo by se proto pÃ…â"¢ísnÄ› dohlížet na to, aby se v okolí dítÄ›te nedÄ›lo nic, o ?em bychom pak museli dítÄ›ti Ã…â"¢íkat: To nesmíÅ¡ dÄ›lat!