Inspirational Quotations by Nikolai Berdyaev (Russian Christian Philosopher)

Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev (1874–1948) was a Russian religious and political philosopher. Berdyaev was born near Kiev in 1874 into an aristocratic military family. His father, Alexander Mikhailovich Berdyaev, came from a long line of nobility from Kiev and Kharkov. Almost all of his ancestors were high-ranking military officers, but he himself resigned from the army quite early and became active in the social life of Kiev aristocracy. Nikolai’s mother, Alina Sergeevna Berdyaeva, was half French, also coming from top levels of French and Russian nobility. Berdyaev’s father was an educated man, greatly influenced by Voltaire. He considered himself a free thinker and was very skeptical toward religion. Nikolai’s mother, orthodox by birth, was in her views on religion more catholic than orthodox. This could be one of the reasons why Berdyaev, a very religious man and a religious philosopher, despised the official Orthodox Church. He spent a solitary childhood at home, where his father’s library allowed him to read widely. He read Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Kant when only fourteen years old and excelled at languages.

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