Johann Gottfried Herder quotes
Johann Gottfried Herder was a German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic who greatly influenced the development of modern thought. His work helped shape the ideas of nationalism, language, and culture in Europe. He is regarded as a key figure in the German Enlightenment and the Sturm und Drang movement. Here are 20 of his quotes:
Should there not be manifest progress and development but in a higher sense than people have imagined it? ... No one is in his age alone, he builds on the preceding one, this becomes nothing but the foundation of the future, wants to be nothing but that - this is what we are told by the analogy in nature, God's speaking exemplary model in all works! Manifestly so in the human species!
Johann Gottfried Herder
Air, fire, water and the earth evolve out of the spiritual and material staminibus in periodic cycles of time. Diverse connections of water, air, and light precede the emergence of the seed of the simplest plant, for instance moss. Many plants had to come into being, then die away before an animal emerged. Insects, birds, water animals, and night animals preceded the present animal forms; until finally the crown of earthly organization appeared-the human being, microcosm. He is the son of all the elements and beings, Nature's most carefully chosen conception and the blossom of creation. He must be the youngest child of Nature; many evolutions and revolutions must have preceded his formation.
Johann Gottfried Herder
[India is the] lost paradise of all religions and philosophies," "the cradle of humanity," and also its "eternal home," and the great Orient "waiting to be discovered within ourselves."... "mankind's origins can be traced to India, where the human mind got the first shapes of wisdom and virtue with simplicity, strength and sublimity which has - frankly spoken - nothing, nothing at all equivalent in our philosophical, cold European world."... "O holy land (India), I salute thee, thou source of all music, thou voice of the heart' ... "Behold the East - cradle of the human race, of human emotion, of all religion."
Johann Gottfried Herder
The nature of man remains ever the same: in the ten thousandth year of the World he will be born with passions, as he was born with passions in the two thousandth, and ran through his course of follies to a late, imperfect, useless wisdom. We wander in a labyrinth, in which our lives occupy but a span; so that it is to us nearly a matter of indifference, whether there be any entrance or outlet to the intricate path.
Johann Gottfried Herder