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Johann Gottfried Herder Quotes

1744–1803 Germany

Johann Gottfried Herder (or von Herder; 25 August 1744 – 18 December 1803) was a German poet, philosopher, literary critic and folksong collector. He is remembered as a theorist of the Sturm und Drang movement, and as a decisive influence on the young Goethe.

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Random Johann Gottfried Herder quote

35 quotes

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

"Tell me, O wise man, how hast thou come to know so astonishingly much?"
By never being ashamed to ask of those that knew!

Each strives with each, as each is pressed upon; each must provide for his own subsistence, and defend his own life.

We live in a world we ourselves create.

Übers Erkennen und Empfinden in der menschlichen Seele (1774)

Nowhere on earth does the rose of happiness blossom without thorns; but what bursts forth out of these thorns is everywhere and in various guises the transient, yet beautiful rose of man's joy in living.

Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man (1784)

Whate'er of us lives in the hearts of others
Is our truest and profoundest self.

The two grand tyrants of the Earth, Time and Chance.

Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man (1784)

The flower of humanity, captive still in its germ, will blossom out one day into the true form of man like unto God, in a state of which no man on earth can imagine the greatness and the majesty.

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.

Every one loves his country, his manners, his language, his wife, his children; not because they are the best in the World, but because they are absolutely his own, and he loves himself and his own labours in them.

Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man (1784)

Should there not be manifest progress and development but in a higher sense than people have imagined it? . . . No one is in his age alone, he builds on the preceding one, this becomes nothing but the foundation of the future, wants to be nothing but that — this is what we are told by the analogy in nature, God’s speaking exemplary model in all works! Manifestly so in the human species!

I am no longer misled, therefore, by the mechanism of revolutions: it is as necessary to our species, as the waves to the stream, that it becomes not a stagnant pool. The genius of humanity blooms in continually renovated youth.

Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man (1784)

…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.

Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man (1784)

How transitory all human structures are, nay how oppressive the best institutions become in the course of a few generations. The plant blossoms, and fades: your fathers have died, and mouldered into dust: your temple is fallen: your tabernacle, the tables of your law, are no more: language itself, that bond of mankind, becomes antiquated: and shall a political constitution, shall a system of government or religion, that can be erected solely on these, endure for ever?

Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man (1784)

For every ancient nation likes to consider itself the firstborn and to take its territory for humanity’s birthplace.

Attributed

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

Attributed

It is a hard but good law of fate, that as every evil, so every excessive power, wears itself out.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

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

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

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

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

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

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Johann Gottfried Herder (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.