Every phenomenon of nature was a word, - the sign, symbol and pledge of a new, mysterious, inexpressible but all the more intimate union, participation and community of divine energies and ideas.
Interpretation
Nature embodies deeper meanings and connections beyond mere appearances.
This quote by Johann Georg Hamann suggests that all elements of nature are not just physical phenomena but also represent profound symbols of the divine and interconnectedness. It emphasizes the idea that the natural world is filled with mysteries that point to a greater spiritual reality, fostering a sense of unity and participation in divine energies and ideas.
In practice
In a speech about environmental protection, one could quote this to emphasize the spiritual significance of nature.
Being, belief and reason are pure relations, which cannot be dealt with absolutely, and are not things but pure scholastic concepts, signs for understanding, not for worshipping, aids to awaken our attention, not to fetter it.
The weakness of ourselves and of our reason makes us see flaws in beauties by making us consider everything piece by piece.
Nature is a book, a letter, a fairy tale (in the philosophical sense) or whatever you want to call it.
The product of paper and printed ink, that we commonly call the book, is one of the great visible mediators between spirit and time, and, reflecting zeitgeist, lasts as long as ore and stone.
Everything is vain and tortures the spirit instead of calming and satisfying it.
Not only the entire ability to think rests on language... but language is also the crux of the misunderstanding of reason with itself.
I'm Gentleman Death in silk and lace, come to put out the candles. The canker in the heart of the rose.
For the world is movement, and you cannot be stationary in your attitude toward something that is moving.
The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them. They walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen.
We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition, and that every person may here worship God according to the dictates of his own heart. In this enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man's religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the United States.
No work nor deed of ours whatsoever, no not faith itself, can be the condition of the covenant of grace properly so called; but only Christ's fulfilling all righteousness.
The values by which we are to survive are not rules for just and unjust conduct, but are those deeper illuminations in whose light justice and injustice, good and evil, means and ends are seen in fearful sharpness of outline.
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