Johann Gottfried Herder Quotes

• We live in a world we ourselves create.

  Johann Gottfried Herder

  World

  "The German Sturm und Drang". Book by Roy Pascal, p. 136, 1959.

  27 Copy quote

• Everyone loves his own country, customs, language, wife, children, not because they are the best in the world, but because they are his established property, and he loves in them himself, and the labor he has bestowed on them. The working of revolutions, therefore, 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

  Country, Children, Race

  33 Copy quote

• Without inspiration the best powers of the mind remain dormant. There is a fuel in us which needs to be ignited with sparks.

  Johann Gottfried Herder

  Inspirational, Motivation, Mind

  60 Copy quote

• Each nationality contains its centre of happiness within itself, as a bullet the centre of gravity.

  Johann Gottfried Herder

  Bullets, Gravity, Centre

  42 Copy quote

• 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

  Hands, Giving, Soul

  30 Copy quote

• 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

  Beautiful, Thinking, Purpose

  35 Copy quote

• Those that embrace the entire universe with love, for the most part love nothing, but their narrow selves.

  Johann Gottfried Herder

  Love, Self, Embrace

  28 Copy quote

• Touch not the flute when drums are sounding around; when fools have the word, the wise will be silent.

  Johann Gottfried Herder

  Wise, Silence, Fool

  27 Copy quote

• What of us lies in the hearts of others is our truest and deepest self.

  Johann Gottfried Herder

  Lying, Heart, Self

  19 Copy quote

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

  Johann Gottfried Herder

  Perseverance, Persevere

  "Beautiful Thoughts from German and Spanish Authors" by C.T. Ramage, 1868.

  25 Copy quote

• 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

  Men, Mirrors, Forgiving

  26 Copy quote

• Brave is the lion tamer, brave is the world subduer, but braver is the one who has subdued himself.

  Johann Gottfried Herder

  Discipline, Brave, World

  23 Copy quote

• Say oh wise man how you have come to such knowledge? Because I was never ashamed to confess my ignorance and ask others.

  Johann Gottfried Herder

  Wise, Ignorance, Knowledge

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  Children, Real, Wife

  Johann Gottfried Herder (1800). “Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man”, p.222

  24 Copy quote

• All our science calculates with abstracted individual external marks, which do not touch the inner existence of any single thing

  Johann Gottfried Herder

  Individual, Mark, Existence

  23 Copy quote

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

  Johann Gottfried Herder

  Girl, Easier, Peasants

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  Moving, Views, Kingdoms

  "'Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit' ('Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man')". Book by Johann Gottfried Herder, translated by T. Churchill. Book 5, 1803.

  13 Copy quote

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

  Johann Gottfried Herder

  Fruit, Delicate, Craving

  Der Teutsche Merkur, Volume 20, p. 214, 1781.

  13 Copy quote

• 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

  Passion, Winning, Brave

  "'Die wiedergefundenen Söhne' ('The Recovered Sons', 1801)". The Monthly Religious Magazine, Volume 10, p. 445, 1853.

  14 Copy quote

• 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

  Children, Self, Ideas

  16 Copy quote

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

  Johann Gottfried Herder

  Fate, Law, Evil

  18 Copy quote

• 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

  Race, Humanity, Genius

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  Writing, Ice, Sea

  16 Copy quote

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

  Johann Gottfried Herder

  Jesus, Perfect, Humanity

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers". Book by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 54, 1895.

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  Friendship, Morning, Wicked

  4 Copy quote

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