Albert Einstein

Einsteins first quote approaches religion in a very interesting way. The greatest feeling he says is experience of the unknown. He continues to connect the amazing feeling of not knowing to religion, as it being the very center. If you think about it, we choose to believe in something in order to explain the unexplainable or unknown or "mystical". If we knew everything as facts, their would be no need for beliefs which means in turn, no need for religion. I really liked Albert's last quote about how all of us are caught up in only ourselves and our immediate surroundings. So many times we have our blinders on and only can see what is set directly in front of us. I think Albert must have been one to really embrace life to the fullest. He understood that there is alot more in the world besides himself and his close friends. If everyone thought like this, I think that the world would be a completely different place.

Novalis

I found the writings of Novalis very interesting. The concepts he was trying to communicate took me a little while to fully understand, and some I am still left pondering. One that i still am a little confused about is the quote that "we are alone with everything we love." I couldn't figure out if he meant that when we have everything we love, then we are truly alone, or that in life we exist only amongst the things that we love. The first quote about being close to waking up when we dream that we are dreaming caught my eye. I have been studying how to control my dreams because being narcoleptic, most of my dreams tend to be nightmares, so I have been trying to bring my aware mind into my dreams so that I can control their outcomes. I don't know if the quote means that one literally is dreaming that they are dreaming or that one is aware in their dream that it is only a dream and not really happening. This passage of quotes left me with many questions of the exact meaning of them. Perhaps they were vague purposefully so that one can interpret them how they please.