Now the relation which, in the sphere of nature, being and semblance or sensation bear to one another in this antithesis, is the same as that which in ethics exists between good and pleasure or feeling.
Interpretation
The quote suggests a parallel between the relationship of reality and perception in nature and the relationship of morality and pleasure in ethics.
Friedrich Schleiermacher highlights a fundamental relationship in both the natural world and ethical considerations, drawing a comparison between the way being and appearance coexist in nature and how good and pleasure or feelings coexist in ethical contexts. This illustrates the complexities of how we perceive reality and morality, suggesting that both are subject to the interplay of objective existence and subjective experience.
In practice
In a debate about moral dilemmas, this quote can illustrate the complexity of ethical decision-making.
The first, that their pretensions to this possession of an art properly so called in their art of speaking are entirely unfounded; and the second, that they are involved in a profound mistake in their confusion of the good with the pleasant.
Whenever I find a spark of that hidden fire that will sooner or later consume the old and create the new, I am drawn to it with love and hope, regarding it as a sign of my future home.
Either the translator leaves the author in peace, as much as is possible, and moves the reader towards him: or he leaves the reader in peace, as much as possible, and moves the author towards him.
The essence of the religious emotions consists in the feeling of an absolute dependence.
The essence of religion consists in the feeling of an absolute dependence.
Belief must be something different from a mixture of opinions about God and the world, and of precepts for one life or for two. Piety cannot be an instinct craving for a mess of metaphysical and ethical crumbs.
Language should almost break up or explode in its fruitless effort to contain so many meanings.
Karma means your have to live with the consequences of the actions you have taken in the past. Whatever you put out is coming back.
No matter how much I wanted all those things that I needed money to buy, there was some devilish current pushing me off in another direction -- toward anarchy and poverty and craziness. That maddening delusion that a man can lead a decent life without hiring himself out as a Judas Goat.
It's not a problem that we're sinners; it's a problem that we aren't ashamed of our sin and don't seek forgiveness.
The deeper the experience of an absence of meaning - in other words, of absurdity - the more energetically meaning is sought.
A certain kind of shittiness, a certain kind of stagnation, a certain kind of darkness, goes on propagating itself by its own power in its own self-contained cycle. And once it passes a certain point, no one can stop it-even if the person himself wants to stop it.
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