“It is all one whether I posit the universe in myself or myself in the universe.”
- Novalis
“We dream of travelling through the universe - but is not the universe within ourselves?
The depths of our spirit are unknown to us - the mysterious way leads inwards. Eternity with its worlds - the past and the future - is in ourselves or nowhere.”
- Novalis, Miscellaneous Observations, Novalis, Philosophical Writings, translated by Margaret Mahony Stoljar
“The first step is introspection— exclusive contemplation of the self. But whoever stops there goes only half the way. The second step must be genuine observation outward—spontaneous, sober observation of the external world.”
—Novalis, 1800
Woman before the Rising Sun (Woman before the Setting Sun), Caspar David Friedrich. 1818-20
