Man is a creative retrospection of nature upon itself.
Interpretation
Humans reflect upon and reinterpret the world around them through creativity.
This quote suggests that humanity is not separate from nature but rather an extension of it, capable of reflecting on and creating meaning from the natural world. It emphasizes the idea that our creative endeavors are a way of understanding and interacting with the universe, highlighting both our connection to nature and our unique ability to engage in self-reflection and creativity.
In practice
In a discussion about art, one might quote this to emphasize how artists interpret the world around them.
Prudishness is pretense of innocence without innocence. Women have to remain prudish as long as men are sentimental, dense, and evil enough to demand of them eternal innocence and lack of education. For innocence is the only thing which can ennoble lack of education.
A classical work doesn't ever have to be understood entirely. But those who are educated and who are still educating themselves must desire to learn more and more from it.
If you want to see mankind fully, look at a family. Within the family minds become organically one, and for this reason the family is total poetry.
He who does not become familiar with nature through love will never know her.
Religion can emerge in all forms of feeling: here wild anger, there the sweetest pain; here consuming hatred, there the childlike smile of serene humility.
A priest is he who lives solely in the realm of the invisible, for whom all that is visible has only the truth of an allegory.
Most people, in fact, will not take the trouble in finding out the truth, but are much more inclined to accept the first story they hear.
The momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil.
Compassion doesn't, of course, mean feeling sorry for people, or pity, which is how the word has become emasculated in a way.
It is not our sexual preferences, the color of our skin, the language we speak, nor the religion we practice that creates friction, hatred and wars amongst in society. It is our words and the words of our leaders that can create that disparity.
At times, I feel America is something that I can actually put my arms around, more than a land mass and a Constitution, something far more containable and understandable. I don't exactly know what it is, but at these times I feel completely woven into it.
It's the niceties that make the difference fate gives us the hand, and we play the cards.
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