Rudolf Steiner

It is possibly not very helpful to our inner life to ponder a great deal on how the external world is reflected in our soul. By doing so, we do not get beyond a shadowy picture of the world of mental images in ourselves.

You can go from object to object, from plant to plant, from animal to animal and regard them as symbols for the spiritual. In this way, you make your imaginative capacities fluid and release them from the sharp contours of sense perception.

Knowledge has value only insofar as it contributes to the all-round development of the whole nature of man.

The history of our spiritual life is a continuing search for the unity between ourselves and the world. Religion, art, and science follow, one and all, this aim.

If spiritual science is to do the same for spirit that natural science has done for nature, it must investigate quite differently from the latter. It must find ways and means of penetrating into the sphere of the spiritual, a domain which cannot be perceived with outer physical senses nor apprehended with the intellect which is bound to the brain.

Esoteric or inner knowledge is no different from other kinds of human knowledge and ability. It is a mystery for the average person only to the extent that writing is a mystery for those who have not yet learned to write.

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

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

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

Our highest endeavour must be to develop individuals who are able out of their own initiative to impart purpose & direction to their lives.

Materialism has cast man into such depths that a mighty concentration of forces is necessary to raise him again. He is subject to illnesses of the nervous system which are veritable epidemics of the life of the soul.

For every human illness, somewhere in the world there exists a plant which is the cure.

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

We must eradicate root and branch any fear and dread in our soul concerning the future that is coming towards us... We must develop composure with regard to all the feelings and sensations we have about the future; we must anticipate with absolute equanimity whatever may be coming towards us, thinking only that whatever it may be will be brought to us by the wisdom-filled guidance of the universe.

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

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 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.

All of nature begins to whisper its secrets to us through its sounds. Sounds that were previously incomprehensible to our soul now become the meaningful language of nature.

When we raise ourselves through meditation to what unites us with the spirit, we quicken something within us that is eternal and unlimited by birth and death. Once we have experienced this eternal part in us, we can no longer doubt its existence. Meditation is thus the way to knowing and beholding the eternal, indestructible, essential centre of our being.

A real medicine can only exist when it penetrates into a knowledge which embraces the human being in respect to body, soul and spirit.

You will not be good teachers if you focus only on what you do and not upon who you are.