Johann Gottfried Herder Quotes on Nature
Johann Gottfried Herder, a central figure of the German counter-Enlightenment, understood nature as a dynamic, developing whole, and the quotes gathered here reflect that view. For Herder nature is never static: nothing in Nature stands still, everything strives and moves forward, revealing a progression of forward-striving forces through all of creation. He drew an analogy between this natural development and human history, each age building on the one before. Herder also stressed how deeply human beings shape their own world, holding that we live in a world we ourselves create, and he gave the harder truths of existence their due, naming time and chance the two grand tyrants of the Earth. Drawn largely from his philosophy of history, these passages present nature as the model of growth, striving, and development.
Quotes
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Attributed to Johann Gottfried Herder:
“Without language we have no reason, no reason without language.”
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Attributed to Johann Gottfried Herder:
“Each nation has its own inner center of happiness, just as every sphere has its own center of gravity.”
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Attributed to Johann Gottfried Herder:
“Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to listen to them can learn the truth.”
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“We live in a world we ourselves create.”
Wir leben immer in einer Welt, die wir uns selbst bilden. -
“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 !”
This Too a Philosophy of History for the Formation of Humanity" [" Auch eine Philosophie zur Geschichte der Menscheit "] (1774), as translated by Michael N. Forster, in Johann Gottlieb von Herder: Philosophical Writings (2002), edited by Michael N. Forster, p. 299 -
“Nowhere on earth does the rose of happiness blossom without thorns; but what bursts forth out of these thorns is everywhere and in various guises the transient, yet beautiful rose of man’s joy in living .”
Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man(1784-91) | Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind , Bk. 8, Ch. 5; as quoted in Johann Gottfried Herder : Another Philosophy of History and Selected Political Writings (2004), edited and translated by -
“…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.”
Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man(1784-91) | Book 5, as cited in Frank Teichmann (tr. Jon McAlice), "The Emergence of the Idea of Evolution in the Time of Goethe" -
“The two grand tyrants of the Earth, Time and Chance .”
Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man(1784-91)