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The language of art is constituted precisely by the fact that it speaks to the self-understanding of every person, and it does this as ever present and by means of its own contemporaneousness. Indeed, precisely the contemporaneousness of the work allows it to come to expression in language. Everything depends on how something is said.

— Hans-Georg Gadamer Aesthetics and Hermeneutics (1964)

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More quotes by Hans-Georg Gadamer

Understanding does not occur when we try to intercept what someone wants to say to us by claiming we already know it.

Aesthetics and Hermeneutics (1964)

People cannot live without hope; this is one of the statements I can defend without any reservations.

Everything depends on how something is said.

Aesthetics and Hermeneutics (1964)

What man needs is not just the persistent posing of ultimate questions, but the sense of what is feasible, what is possible, what is correct, here and now.

Truth and Method (1960)

We cannot understand without wanting to understand, that is, without wanting to let something be said.

Aesthetics and Hermeneutics (1964)

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