The fear of speculation, the ostensible rush from the theoretical to the practical, brings about the same shallowness in action that it does in knowledge. It is by studying a strictly theoretical philosophy that we become most acquainted with Ideas, and only Ideas provide action with vigour and ethical meaning.
Interpretation
The pursuit of knowledge should be deep and theoretical to enrich action with meaning and vigor.
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling argues that a superficial rush to practical action without deep theoretical understanding leads to shallowness in both knowledge and behavior. He emphasizes the importance of a rigorous study of philosophy and ideas, suggesting that such intellectual engagement is essential for meaningful and vigorous action in the world.
In practice
In a lecture on the importance of theoretical knowledge in education.
One is almost tempted to say that the language itself is a mythology deprived of its vitality, a bloodless mythology so to speak, which has only preserved in a formal and abstract form what mythology contains in living and concrete form.
One cannot avoid a certain feeling of disgust, when one observes the actions of man displayed on the great stage of the world. Wisdom is manifested by individuals here and there; but the web of human history as a whole appears to be woven from folly and childish vanity, often, too, from puerile wickedness and love of destruction: with the result that at the end one is puzzled to know what idea to form of our species which prides itself so much on its advantages.
The time is fast approaching when to call a man a patriot will be the deepest insult you can offer him. Patriotism now means advocating plunder in the interest of the privileged classes of the particular State system into which we have happened to be born.
Prayer is to the skeptic a delusion, a waste of time. To the believer it represents perhaps the most important use of time.
Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.
Our sins, when laid upon Christ, were yet personally ours, not his; so his righteousness, when put upon us, is yet personally his, not ours.
Though the most beautiful creature were waiting for me at the end of a journey or a walk; though the carpet were of silk, the curtains of the morning clouds; the chairs and sofa stuffed with cygnet's down; the food manna, the wine beyond claret, the window opening on Winander Mere, I should not feel -or rather my happiness would not be so fine, as my solitude is sublime.
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