Johann Gottfried Herder Quotes on Time
Johann Gottfried Herder was one of the founders of modern historical thinking, and the quotes gathered here show how he understood time. For Herder no age stands alone: no one is in his age alone, he builds on the preceding one, which becomes the foundation of the future, so that human history forms a continuous, developing whole. He argued for genuine progress and development across time, though, he cautioned, in a higher sense than people have commonly imagined it, not as simple linear improvement but as organic growth modelled on nature. Herder also acknowledged the darker forces that shape human affairs, naming time and chance the two grand tyrants of the Earth. Drawn largely from his philosophy of history, these passages present time as the medium of a connected, generational development rather than a sequence of isolated moments.
Quotes
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“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 -
“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”
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 ! -
“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 .”
Am sorgfältigsten, mein Freund, meiden Sie die Autorschaft darüber. Zu früh oder unmäßig gebraucht, macht sie den Kopf wüste und das Herz leer, wenn sie auch sonst keine üblen Folgen gäbe. Ein Mensch, der die Bibel nur lieset, um sie zu erläutern, lieset sie wahrscheinlich übel, und wer jeden Gedanken, der ihm aufstößt, durch Feder und Presse versendet, hat sie in kurzer Zeit alle versandt, und wi -
“in Suzanne L. Marchand - German Orientalism in the Age of Empire. Religion, Race, and Scholarship-Cambridge University Press (2009)”
In his later work, in particular, he voices considerable animus against British colonization in India; in his 1803 preface to a new edition of Forster’s Sakuntala, he says that “English rhyme schemes suit Indian poetry as searing-hot water acts on the sweet blooms of the Mallika, which singe and destroy them (as the English do the Hindus themselves),” and deplores the fact that “‘this cultural and -
“Herder, quoted in Poliakov, L. (1974). The Aryan myth : a history of racist and nationalist ideas in Europe p 186”
Wikiquote -
“The two grand tyrants of the Earth, Time and Chance .”
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 Ioannis D. Evrigenis and Daniel Pellerin, p. v”
Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man(1784-91)