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.
Tramping is too easy with all this money. My days were more exciting when I was penniless and had to forage around for my next meal... I've decided that I'm going to live this life for some time to come. The freedom and simple beauty of it is just too good to pass up.
Meditate upon the Om that is in the heart.
. . . the weal of the race, and the cause of humanity, here and now, are enough To give life meaning and death as well.
No one is without Christianity, if we agree on what we mean by that word. It is every individual's individual code of behavior by means of which he makes himself a better human being than his nature wants to be, if he followed his nature only. Whatever its symbol - cross or crescent or whatever - that symbol is man's reminder of his duty inside the human race.
For age is opportunity no less Than youth itself, though in another dress, And as the evening twilight fades away The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.
cause down the shore everything's all right
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