Johann Gottfried Herder Quotes & Sayings

Each nationality contains its centre of happiness within itself, as a bullet the centre of gravity. — Johann Gottfried Herder

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

It is greatly understated to compare humans to an absorbent sponge, a glowing fuse; they are each an innumerable harmony, a living self that has an effect on all of the forces that surround them. — Johann Gottfried Herder

We see so much that we in fact see nothing, and we know so much that we no longer possess anything that is our own, that is to say, something we could not have learned, something that arises out of the virtues and errors of our own self — 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 — Johann Gottfried Herder

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

The people need a master only as long as they have no understanding of their own. The more it acquires understanding, the more the government is bound to change its methods and to disappear. The most noble end of government is to become dispensable, so that everyone must govern himself. — 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. — 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. — Johann Gottfried Herder

Whoever perseveres will be crowned. — 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. — 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? — Johann Gottfried Herder

You people in all parts of the world, who have passed away over the ages, you did not live only to fertilize the earth with your ashes, so that at the end of time your descendants could become happy through European culture — Johann Gottfried Herder

The craving for a delicate fruit is pleasanter than the fruit itself. — Johann Gottfried Herder

It is easier to make a lady of a peasant-girl than a peasant-girl of a lady. — 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. — Johann Gottfried Herder

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

What of us lies in the hearts of others is our truest and deepest self. — 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. — 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. — Johann Gottfried Herder

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

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

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

The universal dress of philosophy and philanthropy can conceal repression, violations of the true personal, human,
local, civil, and national freedom — 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. — 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. — Johann Gottfried Herder

The roots of the deepest love die in the heart, if not tenderly cherished. — Johann Gottfried Herder