J.g. Hamann Quotes & Sayings

I look upon logical proofs the way a well-bred girl looks upon a love letter — Johann Georg Hamann

The most passionate, consistent, extreme and implacable enemy of the Enlightenment and ... all forms of rationalism ... was Johann Georg Hamann. His influence, direct and indirect, upon the romantic revolt against universalism and scientific method ... was considerable and perhaps crucial. — Isaiah Berlin

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

Mine is not a smiling face. Strangers on the street always say, Smile! But my muscles do not naturally go there. — Hilary Thayer Hamann

We are spontaneous when we are at our genuine best. — Hilary Thayer Hamann

Lying is a full time occupation, even if you tell just one, because once you tell it, you're stuck with it. If you want to do it right, you have to visualize it, conjure the graphics, tone, and sequence of action, then relate it purposefully in the midst of seemingly spontaneous dialogue. The more actual the lie becomes to the listener, the more actual it becomes to the teller, which is scariest of all. Some people really get to believing their own lies. — Hilary Thayer Hamann

It was then that I began to write. Writing helps when you can't talk to your friends; it wasn't that my friends were untrustworthy, it's just that I would never discuss something that was hardly real as though it were really real. Often people do this, forcing friends into authenticating an imaginary life. — Hilary Thayer Hamann

What for others is style, for me is soul. — Johann Georg Hamann

Kindness is everything ... When you receive it and express it, it becomes the whole meaning of things. It's life, demystified. A place out of self. Not a waltz, the the whirls within a waltz. — Hilary Thayer Hamann

Optimism is when you're not sure where life is going to take you, so naturally you anticipate the best possible outcome — Hilary Thayer Hamann

The weakness of ourselves and of our reason makes us see flaws in beauties by making us consider everything piece by piece. — Johann Georg Hamann

Whatever Elisabeth did, Franz Joseph's affection remained unchanged. — Brigitte Hamann

Someone who knows she is beautiful, who is always told that she is beautiful, but who, deep down, does not feel very beautiful. — Hilary Thayer Hamann

Sometimes the best you can do is your small part, perfectly — Hilary Thayer Hamann

Everything the human being heard from the beginning, saw with its eyes, looked upon and touched with its hands was a living word; for God was the word. — Johann Georg Hamann

Lies, fables and romances must needs be probable, but not the truth and foundation of our faith. — Johann Georg Hamann

The product of paper and printed ink, that we commonly call the book, is one of the great visible mediators between spirit and time, and, reflecting zeitgeist, lasts as long as ore and stone. — Johann Georg Hamann

I liked the idea of marking the place where a life ends as opposed to the place a corpse is buried. And also the idea of leaving remains uncollected. It's bad enough being dead, but it's worse to have people see you dead, and to have living hands feel a dead you, jostle and dress you, push your stiffening arms into clean sleeves and cry over your blood-drained body. — Hilary Thayer Hamann

And loneliness. I should say something of loneliness. The panic, the sweeping hysteria that comes not when you are without others, but when you are without yourself, adrift. I should describe the filthy province of mind, the blighted district inside, the place so crowded you cannot raise the lids of your eyes. Your shoulders are drawn and your head has fallen and your chest is bruised by the constant assault of your heart. (p. 37) — Hilary Thayer Hamann

They were sorting, or classifying. It's easy-anyone dressed funny is the enemy, especially if they reject your supremacy or do not acknowledge school as entertainment. If the enemy tries to look like you and act like you, only in more affordable clothes, that person is still the enemy, only of a more contemptible, less terrifying variety- — Hilary Thayer Hamann

People with motorcycles always assume that everyone without one wants a ride. I didn't want to offend him, so I said sure. — Hilary Thayer Hamann

When you stop looking forward to things, you get used to low expectations and you realise, what's the big deal about success anyway? If we're all to attain everything we've been conditioned to desire - wealth, fame, education, prestige, security - then those things will become so prevalent that they'll become meaningless. — Hilary Thayer Hamann

Without language we would have no reason, without reason no religion, and without these three essential aspects of our nature, neither mind nor bond of society. — Johann Georg Hamann

What Tarquin the Proud said in his garden with the poppy blooms was understood by the son but not by the messenger. — Johann Georg Hamann

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

Jocks were pretty much exempt from the standards that bound the rest of us. Teachers and administrators humor them because it's in everyone's interests to coax them through school and get them out of the building. Since it's unethical to turn them loose on society, they get sent to college to be kept out of the mix until their frontal lobes develop more fully. As enticement they are given sports scholarships that will later amount to nothing, not even good health. — Hilary Thayer Hamann

Every phenomenon of nature was a word, - the sign, symbol and pledge of a new, mysterious, inexpressible but all the more intimate union, participation and community of divine energies and ideas. — Johann Georg Hamann

It was frankly sort of confusing, the way everyone stared at our bodies exactly as they tried to erase the ideas of our bodies from our minds. We were supposed to get over ourselves but no one was supposed to get over us. The female body was our worst handicap and our best advantage
the surest means to success, the surest course to failure. (p. 72) — Hilary Thayer Hamann

It's better to keep grief inside. Grief inside works like bees or ants, building curious and perfect structures, complicating you. Grief outside means you want something from someone, and chances are good you won't get it. — Hilary Thayer Hamann

Having to talk to people was the one thing, but soliciting conversation was something else. If I acted squirmy or didn't make eye contact, they would want to know what was wrong, and I would have to say, Nothing, since nothing really was wrong. Nothing is an easy thing to feel but a difficult thing to express — Hilary Thayer Hamann