Nikolai Berdyaev Quotes
Nikolai Aleksandrovich Berdyaev was a Russian religious-existentialist philosopher. After early involvement with Marxism and a brief imprisonment under the Tsar, he turned to Christianity, was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1922 on the famous Philosophers' Ship, and spent the remainder of his life in Berlin and Paris. The quotes below are attributed to Nikolai Berdyaev, organized by topic.
Browse Nikolai Berdyaev by topic
Nikolai Berdyaev on Freedom
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Attributed to Nikolai Berdyaev:
“Freedom precedes being.”
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Attributed to Nikolai Berdyaev:
“Personality is created by God and is itself creative.”
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Attributed to Nikolai Berdyaev:
“Creativity is the response of human freedom to the divine call.”
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Attributed to Nikolai Berdyaev:
“Slavery to one's own self is the deepest form of slavery.”
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“There is absolute truth in anarchism and it is to be seen in its attitude to the sovereignty of the state and to every form of state absolutism . … The religious truth of anarchism consists in this, that power over man is bound up with sin and evil , that a state of perfection is a state where there is no power of man over man, that is to say, anarchy. The Kingdom of God is freedom and the absence”
Slavery and Freedom (1939), p. 147
Nikolai Berdyaev on God
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“Nihilism On A Religious Soil" (6 May 1907); it should be noted here that Berdyaev is here defining " theocracy " not in the sense as it is often used, of people ruling over other people, in claims of doing so by the commands of God, but rather defining it in terms of Christian anarchism — as a vigorous assertion of the right of no-one to rule over humans, save God .”
The new religious consciousness rises up against the nihilistic attitude towards the world and mankind . If a religious rebirth be possible, only then on this soil will there be the revealing of the religious meaning of secular culture and earthly liberation, the revealing of the truth about mankind. For the new religious consciousness the declaration of the will of God is together with this a dec -
“Nobody is bound to have an optimistic outlook on the future: that is not a precept of the Christian religion. ... It is a matter of immense importance that illusions should be dispelled and man come face to face with positive realities.”
The End of Our Time(1919) | p. 131 -
“Spirit is never an object; nor a spiritual reality an objective one. In the so-called objective world there's no such nature , thing, or objective reality as spirit. Hence it is easy to deny the reality of spirit. God is spirit because he is not object, because he is subject.”
Spirit and Reality(1946) | p. 10
Nikolai Berdyaev on Knowledge
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“Nihilism On A Religious Soil" (6 May 1907)”
The uniting of Orthodoxy with state absolutism came about on the soil of a non-belief in the Divineness of the earth , in the earthly future of mankind ; Orthodoxy gave away the earth into the hands of the state because of its own non-belief in man and mankind, because of its nihilistic attitude towards the world . Orthodoxy does not believe in the religious ordering of human life upon the earth, -
“Ethics occupies a central place in philosophy because it is concerned with sin, with the origin of good and evil and with moral valuations. And since these problems have a universal significance, the sphere of ethics is wider than is generally supposed. It deals with meaning and value and its province is the world in which the distinction between good and evil is drawn, evaluations are made and me”
The Destiny of Man (1931), p. 15
Nikolai Berdyaev on Life
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“What one needs to do at every moment of one's life is to put an end to the old world and to begin a new world.”
The Beginning and the End(1947) -
“In order to be able to go on living it is possible that the bankrupt peoples will have to enter on a new path of self-denial, by curbing their covetousness and putting a check on the indefinite expansion of their wants, and by having smaller families.”
The End of Our Time(1919) | p. 94
Nikolai Berdyaev on Mind
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“Objectification is above all exteriorization, the alienation of spirit from itself.”
The Beginning and the End(1947) | p. 63
Nikolai Berdyaev on Nature
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“The uniting of Orthodoxy with state absolutism came about on the soil of a non-belief in the Divineness of the earth , in the earthly future of mankind ; Orthodoxy gave away the earth into the hands of the state because of its own non-belief in man and mankind, because of its nihilistic attitude towards the world . Orthodoxy does not believe in the religious ordering of human life upon the earth, and it compensates for its own hopeless pessimism by a call for the forceful ordering of it by state authority .”
Nihilism On A Religious Soil" (6 May 1907)
Nikolai Berdyaev on Politics
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“It is beyond dispute that the state exercises very great power over human life and it always shows a tendency to go beyond the limits laid down for it.”
Slavery and Freedom (1939), p. 145 -
“There is absolute truth in anarchism and it is to be seen in its attitude to the sovereignty of the state and to every form of state absolutism . … The religious truth of anarchism consists in this, that power over man is bound up with sin and evil , that a state of perfection is a state where there is no power of man over man, that is to say, anarchy. The Kingdom of God is freedom and the absence of such power... the Kingdom of God is anarchy.”
Slavery and Freedom (1939), p. 147
Nikolai Berdyaev on Time
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Attributed to Nikolai Berdyaev:
“The end is the meaning of history.”
Nikolai Berdyaev on Truth
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“The Truth of Orthodoxy" as translated in Vestnik of the Russian West European Patriarchal Exarchate (1952)”
The Christian world doesn't know Orthodoxy too well. It only knows the external and for the most part, the negative features of the Orthodox Church and not the inner spiritual treasure. Orthodoxy was locked inside itself, it did not have the spirit of proselytism and did not reveal itself to the world. For the longest time, Orthodoxy did not have such world-wide significance as did Catholicism and -
“I do not think discursively. It is not so much that I arrive at truth as that I take my start from it.”
The Beginning and the End(1947) | Introduction
Nikolai Berdyaev on Virtue
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“Ethics occupies a central place in philosophy because it is concerned with sin, with the origin of good and evil and with moral valuations. And since these problems have a universal significance, the sphere of ethics is wider than is generally supposed. It deals with meaning and value and its province is the world in which the distinction between good and evil is drawn, evaluations are made and meaning is sought.”
The Destiny of Man (1931), p. 15