44 Quotes by Nikolai A. Berdyaev

And when there are no more classes, when society is socially democratized and unified, then there will be revealed in all its metaphysical depths the never-ending tragedy of the conflict between personality and society.

God desires that man should be. God does not wish to be alone. The meaning of existence is the conquest of loneliness, the acquisition of kinship and nearness.

It is noteworthy that at a time when every religious sanction of authority has vanished, we live in a very authoritarian epoch.

Control and violence that is best reflected in the state, are evil in themselves. In this knowledge lies the great truth of anarchism.

The distinction between the things of Caesar and the things of God is constantly being erased in our fallen world, and this always indicates that the Kingdom of Caesar is attempting to swallow up the Kingdom of God.

Victory over fear is the first spiritual duty of man.

Every single human soul has more meaning and value than the whole of history.

Death, that final evil, is one of the paths to eternity. Endless life in the conditions of our existence would be a nightmare.

The will to originality is not the will to be peculiar and unlike anybody else; it means the desire to derive one’s consciousness from its primary source.