Johann Gottfried Herder Quotes

Der Appetit nach einer schönen Frucht ist angenehmer als die Frucht selbst.

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.

Every one loves his country, his manners, his language, his wife, his children; not because they are the best in the World, but because they are absolutely his own, and he loves himself and his own labours in them.

It can hardly be possible, that Nature should have given us a tongue, in order that the gratification of a few papillae on it should be the aim of a laborious life, or the cause of wretchedness to others.

Ukraine will become a new Greece; the beautiful sky under which these people live, their happy disposition, their musical nature, the fruitfulness of their land, etc. will awake some day; from so many small, savage peoples - as the Greeks too once were - will develop a civilized nation, whose territory will extend to the Black Sea and thence throughout the world. Hungary, these peoples, and a portion of Poland and Russia will become participants in this new culture, and its spirit will go forth from the northwest over Europe, which now lies asleep, and make a spiritual conquest of it.

With the greatest possible solicitude avoid authorship. Too early or immoderately employed, it makes the head waste and the heart empty; even were there no other worse consequences. A person, who reads only to print, to all probability reads amiss; and he, who sends away through the pen and the press every thought, the moment it occurs to him, will in a short time have sent all away, and will become a mere journeyman of the printing-office, a compositor.

Was in dem Herzen andrer von Uns lebt,
Ist unser wahrestes und tiefstes Selbst.

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

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

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

Die Natur des Menschen bleibt immer dieselbe; im zehntausendsten Jahr der Welt wird er mit Leidenschaften geboren, wie er im zweiten derselben mit Leidenschaften geboren ward, und durchläuft den Gang seiner Thorheiten zu einer späten, unvollkommenen, nutzlosen Weisheit. Wir gehen in einem Labyrinth umher, in welchem unser Leben nur eine Spanne abschneidet; daher es uns fast gleichgültig sein kann, ob der Irrweg Entwurf und Ausgang habe.

Jeder liebt sein Land, seine Sitten, seine Sprache, sein Weib, seine Kinder, nicht weil sie die besten auf der Welt, sondern weil sie die bewährten Seinigen sind, und er in ihnen sich und seine Mühe selbst liebt.

It is therefore indisputable, that the Brahman had educated their people towards a certain gentleness, moderation and purity, or, at the very least, had strengthened them in these virtues, so that, conversely, to them the Europeans often appeared dirty, drunken and raving. Their bearing and language are spontaneous and graceful, their relations are peaceful, their bodies are clean, and their way of life is simple and harmless. Children are raised in a mild manner, yet they nevertheless are not lacking in knowledge, nor even less in quiet industry and the fine, though imitative, arts; even the lowest tribes learn to read, write and count. Therefore, since the Brahman were for millennia the educators of the youth, they have provided an unequivocal service to humanity.

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!

Whate'er of us lives in the hearts of others
Is our truest and profoundest self.