Rudolf Steiner Quotes

Just as in the body, eye and ear develop as organs of perception, as senses for bodily processes, so does a man develop in himself soul and spiritual organs of perception through which the soul and spiritual worlds are opened to him. For those who do not have such higher senses, these worlds are dark and silent, just as the bodily world is dark and silent for a being without eyes and ears.

Live through deeds of love, and let others live with tolerance for their unique intentions.

The outer world, with all its phenomena, is filled with divine splendour, but we must have experienced the divine within ourselves, before we can discover it in our environment

In so far as we think, we are the all-one being that pervades everything.

The smallest thing in its rightful place can lead to the highest goals.

Seek the truly practical life, but seek it in such a way that it does not blind you to the spirit working in it. Seek the spirit, but seek it not out of spiritual greed, but so that you may apply it in the genuinely practical life.

Where the realm of freedom of thought and action begin, the determination of individuals according to generic laws ends.

Beauty is not the divine in a cloak of physical reality; no, it is physical reality in a cloak that is divine. The artist does not bring the divine on to the earth by letting it flow into the world; he raises the world into the sphere of the divine.

Spirit is never without matter, matter is never without spirit.

If humanity is to live in the future in a socially right way, humanity must educate its children in a socially right way.

In the future no human being is to find peace in the enjoyment of happiness if others beside him are unhappy.

Only when I follow my love for my objective is it I myself who act.

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.

The history of our spiritual life is a continuing search for the unity between ourselves and the world.

Knowledge of life in the astral world leads us to a conclusion of fundamental importance, namely that the physical world is the product of the astral world.

That which secures life from exhaustion lies in the unseen world, deep at the roots of things.

For what lies inside of man is the whole spiritual cosmos in condensed form. In man's inner organism we have an image of the entire cosmos.

Without common sense, all thine efforts are in vain.

When man faces man the one attempts to put the other to sleep and the other continuously wants to maintain his uprightness. But this is, to speak in the Goethean sense, the archetypal phenomenon of social science. This sleeping-into we may call the social principle, the social impulse of the new era: we have to live over into the other; we have to dissolve with our soul into the other.

For every one step that you take in the pursuit of higher knowledge, take three steps in the perfection of your own character

In a community of human beings working together, the well-being of the community will be the greater, the less the individual claims for himself the proceeds of the work he has himself done; i.e., the more of these proceeds he makes over to his fellow workers, and the more his own requirements are satisfied, not out of his own work done, but out of work done by the others.

A race or nation stands so much the higher, the more perfectly its members express the pure, ideal human type ... The evolution of man through the incarnations in ever higher national and racial forms is thus a process of liberation [leading to] an ideal future.

Sounds are the echo of the "Harmony of the Spheres" which man took into himself when he came down from the divine-spiritual world into the physical world.

The sun with loving light makes bright for me each day, the soul with spirit power gives strength unto my limbs. In sunlight shining clear I revere, Oh God, the strength of humankind, which thou has planted in my soul, that I may with all my might, may love to work and learn. From thee stream light and strength to thee rise love and thanks.

Love starts when we push aside our ego and make room for someone else.

Man is effective in the world not only through what he does, but above all through what he is.

Our highest endeavor must be to develop free human beings who are able of themselves to impart purpose and direction to their lives. The need for imagination, a sense of truth, and a feeling of responsibility—these three forces are the very nerve of education.

Not that which is inspires the creation, but that which may be; not the actual, but the possible.

Music is the expression of the will of nature while all other arts are expressions of the idea of nature.

Everyday something must be achieved inwardly.

Geometry is knowledge that appears to be produced by human beings, yet whose meaning is totally independent of them.

Actually, every human being should show the greatest interest in this subject, because, much more than you can imagine, our lives depend upon beekeeping.

A healthy social life is found only, when in the mirror of each soul the whole community finds its reflection, and when in the whole community the virtue of each one is living.

The time has come to realize that supersensible knowledge has now to arise from the materialistic grave.

Anthroposophy does not want to impart knowledge. It seeks to awaken life.

Man is not a being who stands still, he is a being in the process of becoming. The more he enables himself to become, the more he fulfills his true mission.

If a child has been able in his play to give up his whole loving being to the world around him, he will be able, in the serious tasks of later life, to devote himself with confidence and power to the service of the world.

Each individual is a species unto him/herself.

If we do not believe within ourselves this deeply rooted feeling that there is something higher than ourselves, we shall never find the strength to evolve into something higher.

There will be as much deceit and criminality in the world as there is lack of art.

To be free is to be capable of thinking one's own thoughts - not the thoughts merely of the body, or of society, but thoughts generated by one's deepest, most original, most essential and spiritual self, one's individuality.

The worlds represent increasing phases of densification, the involuting descent of spirit into matter, where the way becomes harder and longer.

We have to live over into the other; we have to dissolve with our soul into the other.

If we can simply distinguish between the different successive stages of evolution, it is possible to see primeval events within the earthly events of the present.

Heights of the spirit can only be climbed by passing through the portals of humility.

We must be educated in inner human modesty, so we can recognize that we are not, even for a moment, complete as human beings. Instead, we continue to develop from birth until death. We must recognize that every day of life has a special value, that it is not without purpose that we must learn to live through our thirties right after we have just gone through our twenties. We need to learn that each new day and each new year offers continual revelation.

You have no idea how unimportant is all that the teacher says or does not say on the surface, and how important what he himself is as teacher.

For every step in spiritual perception, three steps are to be taken in moral development.