Martin Heidegger Quotes
Martin Heidegger was a 20th-century German philosopher whose 1927 work Being and Time (Sein und Zeit) is one of the most influential texts of contemporary continental philosophy. He developed an ontology of Dasein, the being for whom being is a question, and analyses of authenticity, anxiety, and being-toward-death that decisively shaped existentialism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, and deconstruction. The quotes below are attributed to Martin Heidegger, organized by topic.
Browse Martin Heidegger by topic
Martin Heidegger on Death
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Attributed to Martin Heidegger:
“Being-toward-death is essentially anxiety.”
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“Warum ist überhaupt Seiendes und nicht vielmehr Nichts? Das ist die Frage.”
Why are there beings at all, and why not rather nothing? That is the question. | What is Metaphysics? (1929), p. 110 | Cf. Gottfried Leibniz , De rerum originatione radicali (1697)ː " cur aliquid potius extiterit quam nihil .
Martin Heidegger on Knowledge
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Attributed to Martin Heidegger:
“Thinking begins only when we have come to know that reason, glorified for centuries, is the most stiff-necked adversary of thought.”
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Attributed to Martin Heidegger:
“Why are there beings at all, instead of nothing?”
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“The grandeur of man is measured according to what he seeks and according to the urgency by which he remains a seeker.”
Basic Questions of Philosophy: Selected "Problems" of "Logic" ( Grundfragen der Philosophie: Ausgewählte "Probleme" der "Logik" (1984), translated by Richard Rojcewicz and André Schuwer, Indiana University Press, 1994, ISBN 0253004381 , p. 7) -
“Basic Questions of Philosophy: Selected "Problems" of "Logic" ( Grundfragen der Philosophie: Ausgewählte "Probleme" der "Logik" (1984), translated by Richard Rojcewicz and André Schuwer, Indiana University Press, 1994, ISBN 0253004381 , p. 7)”
The grandeur of man is measured according to what he seeks and according to the urgency by which he remains a seeker. -
“The desire to philosophize from the standpoint of standpointlessness, as a purportedly genuine and superior objectivity, is either childish, or, as is usually the case, disingenuous.”
The Essence of Truth, 1931-32 -
“Transcendence constitutes selfhood.”
Essence of Ground (1929) -
“Essence of Ground (1929)”
Transcendence constitutes selfhood. -
“Why are there beings at all, and why not rather nothing? That is the question.”
Warum ist überhaupt Seiendes und nicht vielmehr Nichts? Das ist die Frage. -
“Cf. Gottfried Leibniz , De rerum originatione radicali (1697)ː " cur aliquid potius extiterit quam nihil .”
Warum ist überhaupt Seiendes und nicht vielmehr Nichts? Das ist die Frage.
Martin Heidegger on Life
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“Everyone is the other, and no one is himself.”
Stambaugh translation -
Attributed to Martin Heidegger:
“Every man is born as many men and dies as a single one.”
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Attributed to Martin Heidegger:
“The possible ranks higher than the actual.”
Martin Heidegger on Mind
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“Language is the house of Being.”
Die Sprache ist das Haus des Seins. -
Attributed to Martin Heidegger:
“We never come to thoughts. They come to us.”
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“The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking.”
Das Bedenklichste in unserer bedenklichen Zeit ist, dass wir noch nicht denken.
Martin Heidegger on Nature
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“Man is not the lord of beings. Man is the shepherd of Being.”
Letter on Humanism (1947)
Martin Heidegger on Truth
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“The Essence of Truth, 1931-32”
The desire to philosophize from the standpoint of standpointlessness, as a purportedly genuine and superior objectivity, is either childish, or, as is usually the case, disingenuous.
Things actually not said by Martin Heidegger
A number of widely-shared lines are circulated as Martin Heidegger but are in fact from someone else. Did Martin Heidegger say these? No. Each entry below pairs the line with the person who actually wrote it.
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Did Martin Heidegger say this? No.
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
The image originates with the abolitionist Unitarian minister Theodore Parker in an 1853 sermon: 'I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one... And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.' Martin Luther King Jr. compressed Parker's longer formulation into the now-familiar version and used it repeatedly from 1958 onward.