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Poetry is the mother-tongue of the human race.

— Johann Georg Hamann

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Poetry

More quotes by Johann Georg Hamann

A thirsty ambition for truth and virtue, and a frenzy to conquer all lies and vices which are not recognized as such nor desire to be; herein consists the heroic spirit of the philosopher.

Through a vicious circle of pure reason skepsis itself becomes dogma.

Self knowledge begins with the neighbor, the mirror, and just the same with true self-love; that goes from the mirror to the matter.

The philosophers have always given truth a bill of divorce, by separating what nature has joined together and vice versa.

Few authors understand themselves, and a proper reader must not only understand his author but also be able to see beyond him.

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There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet.

Ralph Waldo Emerson Nature (1836)

Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality.

T. S. Eliot Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919)

Poetry, unlike oratory, should not aim at clarity...but be dense with meaning, 'something to be chewed and digested'.

George Chapman Ovid's Banquet of Sense (1595)

I am no poet, but if you think for yourselves, as I proceed, the facts will form a poem in your minds.

Michael Faraday

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Johann Georg Hamann (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.