Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Joseph Lorenz SteinerFebruary 1861 – 30 March 1925) was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect and esotericist. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century as a literary critic and published philosophical works including The Philosophy of Freedom. At the beginning of the twentieth century he founded an esoteric spiritual movement, anthroposophy, with roots in German idealist philosophy and theosophy; other influences include Goethean science and Rosicrucianism...
NationalityAustrian
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth5 February 1861
CountryAustria
Rudolf Steiner quotes about
All the great Founders of religions have been possessed of clairvoyant sight.
It naturally elevates the soul to feel this intimate relationship to it's primal ground...A man then feels himself truly at home, and whenever he is lifted up through music he can say to himself: "Yes, you come from other worlds, and in music you can experience your native place."
Thoughts that deny reincarnation are transformed in the next life into an inner unreality, an inner emptiness of life; this inner unreality and emptiness are experienced as torment, as disharmony.
Acquisition of [higher] knowledge is not the end, but the means to the end; the end consists of the attainment, thanks to this knowledge of the higher worlds, of greater and truer self-confidence, a higher degree of courage, and a magnanimity and perseverance such as cannot, as a rule, be acquired in the lower world.For every one step that you take in the pursuit of higher knowledge, take three steps in the perfection of your own character.
Not that which is inspires the creation, but that which may be; not the actual, but the possible.
...the worlds represent increasing phases of densification, the involuting descent of spirit into matter, where the way becomes harder and longer...
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.
Our egoism gains nothing from acts of love, but the world gains all the more. Esotericism tells us that love is to the world what the Sun is for outer life. No soul could thrive if love departed from the world. Love is the “moral” Sun of the world.
Truth is a free creation of the human spirit, that never would exist at all if we did not generate it ourselves.
Our highest endeavour must be to develop individuals who are able out of their own initiative to impart purpose & direction to their lives.
Where the realm of freedom of thought and action begin, the determination of individuals according to generic laws ends.
The common trait of all evil is nothing other than egoism... Basically all human evil comes from what we call the selfishness.
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.
Heights of the spirit can only be climbed by passing through the portals of humility.