Johann Georg Hamann
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Johann Georg Hamann (1730-08-27 – 1788-06-21) was a German philosopher of the Counter-Enlightenment and a main proponent of the Sturm und Drang movement.
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- Poetry is the mother-tongue of the human race.
- Sämtliche Werken, ed. Josef Nadler (Vienna: Verlag Herder, 1949-1957), vol. II, p. 197
- Every phenomenon of nature was a word, — the sign, symbol and pledge of a new, mysterious, inexpressible but all the more intimate union, participation and community of divine energies and ideas. Everything the human being heard from the beginning, saw with its eyes, looked upon and touched with its hands was a living word; for God was the word.
- Sämtliche Werken, ed. Josef Nadler (1949-1957), vol. III, p. 32
- The philosophers have always given truth a bill of divorce, by separating what nature has joined together and vice versa.
- Sämtliche Werken, ed. Josef Nadler (1949-1957), vol. III, p. 40
- Without language we would have no reason, without reason no religion, and without these three essential aspects of our nature, neither mind nor bond of society.
- Sämtliche Werken, ed. Josef Nadler (1949-1957), vol. III, p. 231
- Not only the entire ability to think rests on language... but language is also the crux of the misunderstanding of reason with itself.
- Sämtliche Werken, ed. Josef Nadler (1949-1957), vol. III, p. 286
- If only I was as eloquent as Demosthenes, I would have to do no more than repeat a single word three times. Reason is language — Logos; I gnaw on this marrowbone and will gnaw myself to death over it. It is still always dark over these depths for me: I am still always awaiting an apocalyptic angel with a key to this abyss.
- Briefwechsel, ed. Arthur Henkel (Wiesbaden/Frankfurt: Insel Verlag, 1955-1975), vol. V, p. 177
- Through a vicious circle of pure reason skepsis itself becomes dogma.
- Briefwechsel, ed. Arthur Henkel (1955-1975), vol. V, p. 432
- Few authors understand themselves, and a proper reader must not only understand his author but also be able to see beyond him.
- Briefwechsel, ed. Arthur Henkel (1955-1975), vol. VI, p. 22
- Self knowledge begins with the neighbor, the mirror, and just the same with true self-love; that goes from the mirror to the matter.
- Briefwechsel, ed. Arthur Henkel (1955-1975), vol. VI, p. 281
- Being, belief and reason are pure relations, which cannot be dealt with absolutely, and are not things but pure scholastic concepts, signs for understanding, not for worshipping, aids to awaken our attention, not to fetter it.
- Briefwechsel, ed. Arthur Henkel (1955-1975), vol. VII, p. 165
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- All idle talk about reason is mere wind; language is its organon and criterion.
- A writer who is in a hurry to be understood today or tomorrow runs the danger of being misunderstood the day after tomorrow.
