Nothing is constant but change! All existence is a perpetual flux of "being and becoming!" That is the broad lesson of the evolution of the world.
We are compelled by reflection to recognize that God is not to be placed against the material world [as in Christianity], but must be placed as a 'divine power' or 'moving spirit' within the cosmos itself ... All the wonderful phenomena of nature around us, organic as well as inorganic, are only various products of one and the same original force.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that God should be viewed as an inherent force within the universe rather than separate from it.
Ernst Haeckel's quote emphasizes the idea that the divine should not be considered as an entity separate from the material world. Instead, he portrays God as a pervasive force or spirit that actively contributes to the cosmos, implying that everything in nature—whether living or non-living—is a manifestation of this singular original force. This perspective challenges traditional views of religion and encourages a more integrated understanding of spirituality and nature.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about environmental conservation, one might quote this to emphasize the sacredness of nature.
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A diner having a row with a waiter in a swanky restaurant chills the blood in a way that a quarrel over a pizza order elsewhere would never do. Compassion is rarely the custom of the privileged.
Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem too insignificant for our concern? Yet in my heart I never will deny her, Who suffered death because she chose to turn.
If goodness were only a theory, it were a pity it should be lost to the world. There are a number of things, the idea of which is a clear gain to the mind. Let people, for instance, rail at friendship, genius, freedom, as long as they will -the very names of these despised qualities are better than anything else that could be substituted for them, and embalm even the most envenomed satire against them.
Human nature is potentially aggressive and destructive and potentially orderly and constructive.
When we preach the love of God there is a danger of forgetting that the Bible reveals not first the love of God but the intense, blazing holiness of God, with His love at the center of that holiness.
When he found that the administrators were upset, he laughed. “Do they expect students not to be anarchists?” he said. “What else can the young be? When you are on the bottom, you must organize from the bottom up