Best 26 quotes of Johann Gottfried Herder on MyQuotes

Johann Gottfried Herder

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    Johann Gottfried Herder

    All our science calculates with abstracted individual external marks, which do not touch the inner existence of any single thing

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    Johann Gottfried Herder

    A poet is the creator of the nation around him, he gives them a world to see and has their souls in his hand to lead them to that world.

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    Johann Gottfried Herder

    As the shadow in early morning, is friendship with the wicked; it dwindles hour by hour. But friendship with the good increases, like the evening shadows, till the sun of life sets.

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    Johann Gottfried Herder

    Brave is the lion tamer, brave is the world subduer, but braver is the one who has subdued himself.

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    Johann Gottfried Herder

    Calmly take what ill betideth; Patience wins the crown at length: Rich repayment him abideth Who endures in quiet strength. Brave the tamer of the lion; Brave whom conquered kingdoms praise; Bravest he who rules his passions, Who his own impatience sways.

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    Johann Gottfried Herder

    Everyone loves his own country, customs, language, wife, children, not because they are the best in the world, but because they are his established property, and he loves in them himself, and the labor he has bestowed on them. The working of revolutions, therefore, misleads me no more; it is as necessary to our race as its waves to the stream, that it may not be a stagnant marsh. Ever renewed in its forms, the genius of humanity blossoms.

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    Johann Gottfried Herder

    Have you never observed that children will sometimes, of a sudden, give utterance to ideas which makes us wonder how they got possession of them? Which presuppose a long series of other ideas and secret self-communings? Which break forth like a full stream out of the earth, an infallible sign that the stream was not produced in a moment from a few raindrops, but had long been flowing concealed beneath the ground?

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    Johann Gottfried Herder

    It is easier to make a lady of a peasant-girl than a peasant-girl of a lady.

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    Johann Gottfried Herder

    Jesus Christ is, in the noblest and most perfect sense, the realized ideal of humanity.

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    Johann Gottfried Herder

    Man is a central creature between the animals, that is to say, the most perfect form, which unites the traits of all in the most complete epitome.

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    Johann Gottfried Herder

    Nothing in Nature stands still; everything strives and moves forward. If we could only view the first stages of creation, how the kingdoms of nature were built one upon the other, a progression of forward-striving forces would reveal itself in all evolution.

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    Johann Gottfried Herder

    Say oh wise man how you have come to such knowledge? Because I was never ashamed to confess my ignorance and ask others.

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    Johann Gottfried Herder

    So says the most ancient book of the Earth; thus it is written on its leaves of marble, lime, sand, slate, and clay: ... that our Earth has fashioned itself, from its chaos of substances and powers, through the animating warmth of the creative spirit, to a peculiar and original whole, by a series of preparatory revolutions, till at last the crown of its creation, the exquisite and tender creature man, was enabled to appear.

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    Johann Gottfried Herder

    The craving for a delicate fruit is pleasanter than the fruit itself.

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    Johann Gottfried Herder

    The friend who holds up before me the mirror, conceals not my smallest faults, warns me kindly, reproves me affectionately, when I have not performed my duty, he is my friend, however little he may appear so. But if a man praises and lauds me, never reproves me, overlooks my faults, and forgives them before I have repented, he is my enemy, however much he may appear my friend.

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    Johann Gottfried Herder

    The roots of the deepest love die in the heart, if not tenderly cherished.

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    Johann Gottfried Herder

    The savage who loves himself, his wife and child with quiet joy and glows with limited activity of his tribe as for his own life is in my opinion a more real being than that cultivated shadow who is enraptured with the shadow of the whole species

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    Johann Gottfried Herder

    The working of revolutions misleads me no more; it is as necessary to our race as its waves to the stream, that it may not be a stagnant marsh. Ever renewed in its forms, the genius of humanity blossoms.

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    Johann Gottfried Herder

    Those that embrace the entire universe with love, for the most part love nothing, but their narrow selves.

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    Johann Gottfried Herder

    Thus we build on the ice, thus we write on the waves of the sea; the waves roaring pass away, the ice melts, and away goes our palace, like our thoughts.

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    Johann Gottfried Herder

    Touch not the flute when drums are sounding around; when fools have the word, the wise will be silent.

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    Johann Gottfried Herder

    What destiny sends, bear! Whoever perseveres will be crowned.

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    Johann Gottfried Herder

    What of us lies in the hearts of others is our truest and deepest self.

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    Johann Gottfried Herder

    Without inspiration the best powers of the mind remain dormant. There is a fuel in us which needs to be ignited with sparks.

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    Johann Gottfried Herder

    A learned society of our day, no doubt with the loftiest of intentions, has proposed the question, “Which people, in history, might have been the happiest?” If I properly understand the question, and if it is not altogether beyond the scope of a human answer, I can think of nothing to say except that at a certain time and under certain circumstances every people must have experienced such a moment or else it never was [a people]. Then again, human nature is no vessel for an absolute, independent, immutable happiness, as defined by the philosopher; rather, she everywhere draws as much happiness towards herself as she can: a supple clay that will conform to the most different situations, needs, and depressions. Even the image of happiness changes with every condition and location (for what is it ever but the sum of “the satisfaction of desire, the fulfillment of purpose, and the gentle overcoming of needs,” all of which are shaped by land, time, and place?). Basically, then, all comparison becomes futile. As soon as the inner meaning of happiness, the inclination has changed; as soon as external opportunities and needs develop and solidify the other meaning—who could compare the different satisfaction of different meanings in different worlds? Who could compare the shepherd and father of the Orient, the ploughman and the artisan, the seaman, runner, conqueror of the world? It is not the laurel wreath that matters, nor the sight of the blessed flock, neither the merchant vessels nor the conquered armies’ standards—but the soul that needed this, strove for it, finally attained it and wanted to attain nothing else. Every nation has its center of happiness within itself, as every ball has its center of gravity!

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    Johann Gottfried Herder

    To think what is true, to sense what is beautiful and to want what is good, hereby the spirit finds purpose of a life in reason.