German Philosopher Quotes

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900) was a German philosopher. His writing included critiques of religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy, and science, using a distinctive style and displaying a fondness for aphorism. Nietzsche's influence remains substantial within and beyond philosophy, notably in existentialism and postmodernism. Nietzsche began his career as a philologist before turning to philosophy. At the age of 24 he became Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Basel, but resigned in 1879 due to health problems, which would plague him for most of his life. In 1889 he exhibited symptoms of a serious mental illness, living out his remaining years in the care of his mother and sister until his death in 1900. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Poetry is the mother-tongue of the human race. ~ Johann G. Hamann

Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings
always darker, emptier and simpler. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism.. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

THERE ARE TWO THINGS that don't have to mean anything, one is music and the other is laughter. ~ Immanuel Kant

In the interview, Roger reflected how the German philosopher Nietzsche said a man can undergo torture if he knows the why of his life. But I, here at Dachau, learned something far greater. I learned to know the Who of my life. He was enough to sustain me then, and is enough to sustain me still ~ Ken Dignan

MONAD, n. The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter (see Molecule). The monad has body without bulk, and mind without manifestation - containing all the powers and possibilities needful to his evolution into a German philosopher . ~ Ambrose Bierce

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said, "Writers should use common words to say uncommon things." When ~ Mary Embree

And involuntarily I compared the childish sarcasm, the religious sarcasm of Voltaire with the irresistible irony of the German philosopher whose influence is henceforth ineffaceable. ~ Guy De Maupassant

Friedrich Nietzsche, the German philosopher, said that what he resented in most Christians was what he perceived as a constant underlying resentment: (1) a denied resentment toward God for demanding sacrifice, (2) toward others for not appreciating our sacrifice, (3) sacrificing as much as we sacrifice, (4) and a resentment toward others for not having to do it! ~ Richard Rohr

There was a German philosopher who is very well known, his name was Immanuel Kant, and he said there are two things that don't have to mean anything, one is music and the other is laughter. Don't have to mean anything that is, in order to give us deep pleasure. ~ John Cage

Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of resurrection. - ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER, German philosopher ~ Bernd Heinrich

I suggest this passage from the German "philosopher" (this passage was detected, translated, and reviled by Karl Popper): Sound is the change in the specific condition of segregation of the material parts, and in the negation of this condition; merely an abstract or an ideal ideality, as it were, of that specification. But this change, accordingly, is itself immediately the negation of the material specific subsistence; which is, therefore, real ideality of specific gravity and cohesion, i.e. - heat. The heating up of sounding bodies, just as of beaten and or rubbed ones, is the appearance of heat, originating conceptually together with sound. Even a Monte Carlo engine could not sound as random as the great philosophical master thinker (it would take plenty of sample runs to get the mixture of "heat" and "sound." People call that philosophy and frequently finance it with taxpayer subsidies! ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Thus Spoke Zarathustra (German: Also sprach Zarathustra, sometimes translated Thus Spake Zarathustra), subtitled A Book for All and None (Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen), is a written work by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, composed in four parts between 1883 and 1885. Much of the work deals with ideas such as the "eternal recurrence of the same", the parable on the "death of God", and the "prophecy" of the Overman, which were first introduced in The Gay Science.
Described by Nietzsche himself as "the deepest ever written", the book is a dense and esoteric treatise on philosophy and morality, featuring as protagonist a fictionalized Zarathustra. A central irony of the text is that the style of the Bible is used by Nietzsche to present ideas of his which fundamentally oppose Judaeo-Christian morality and tradition. ~ Lao Tzu

The natural scientists of the previous age knew less than we do and believed they were very close to the goal: we have taken very great steps in its direction and now discover we are still very far away from it. With the most rational philosophers an increase in their knowledge is always attended by an increased conviction of their ignorance. ~ Georg C. Lichtenberg

We hear a great deal about the German "Fatherland" - we like the sound. But the word "Father" is the whole of it. The "land" is nothing: the "Father" is key to the music. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

I scored a movie called 'Endangered Species'. I worked on another movie called 'Staying Alive'. A German film called 'Fire and Ice'. ~ Gary Wright

One must be oneself very little of a philosopher not to feel that the finest privilege of our reason consists in not believing in anything by the impulsion of a blind and mechanical instinct, and that it is to dishonour reason to put it in bonds as the Chaldeans did. Man is born to think for himself. ~ Denis Diderot

The more closely [the German army] converged on [Stalingrad], the narrower became their scope for tactical manoeuvre as a lever in loosening resistance. By contrast, the narrowing of the frontage made it easier for the defender to switch his local reserves to any threatened point on the defensive arc. ~ B.H. Liddell Hart

My algebra was relatively poor. I found it very difficult to use equations that substituted numbers - to which I had a synesthetic and emotional response - for letters, to which I had none. It was because of this that I decided not to continue math at Advanced level, but chose to study history, French and German instead. ~ Daniel Tammet

The great man of science, unless he is also a philosopher, ... deserves the title of genius as little as the man of action. ~ Otto Weininger

Most influential of all is the philosopher Stanley Cavell, and a younger generation of philosophers who have attempted to follow his pioneering work in thinking about literature philosophically. ~ Philip Kitcher

DON Luigi Giussani used to quote this example from Bruce Marshall's novel To Every Man a Penny. The protagonist of the novel, the abbot Father Gaston, needs to hear the confession of a young German soldier whom the French partisans are about to sentence to death. The soldier confesses his love of women and the numerous amorous adventures he has had. The young priest explains that he has to repent to obtain forgiveness and absolution. The soldier answers, "How can I repent? It was something that I enjoyed, and if I had the chance I would do it again, even now. How can I repent?" Father Gaston, who wants to absolve the man who has been marked by destiny and who's about to die, has a stroke of inspiration and asks, "But are you sorry that you are not sorry?" The young man answers impulsively, "Yes, I am sorry that I am not sorry." In other words, he apologizes for not repenting. The door was opened just a crack, allowing absolution to come in ... . ~ Pope Francis

In the front room, a two-story flutter, love notes from the German Frau's first marriage barely tethered to a structure so it shifted in the wind, one tiny home movie projected on each. A sculpture of marriage, marriage come alive.
Lancelot felt tears start to his eyes. It was so exactly right. The Germans saw the gleam, and both of them--like budgerigars on their perch--sidled up and hugged Lancelot around the waist. ~ Lauren Groff

Germany is the place where when Hitler was the prime minister and supreme commander, he burned over six million Jews. This is because Hitler and all German people knew that Israelis are not people who are working in the interest of the world and that is why they burned the Israelis alive with gas in the soil of Germany. ~ Idi Amin

Most contemporary philosophers are conservative and eager to keep their jobs. ~ Mario Bunge

Few developments central to the history of art have been so misrepresented or misunderstood as the brief, brave, glorious, doomed life of the Bauhaus - the epochally influential German art, architecture, crafts, and design school that was founded in Goethe's sleepy hometown of Weimar in 1919. ~ Martin Filler

Among German historians, there's really not much debate about whether or not Hitler was a social Darwinist. He clearly was drawing on Darwinian ideas. ~ Richard Weikart

Confidence makes you strong, not proud.
Composure makes you tough, not timid.
Courage makes you bold, not arrogant.
Prudence makes you practical, not intolerant.
Respect makes you honorable, not weak.
Humility makes you modest, not spineless.
Silence makes you prudent, not feeble.
Meekness makes you gentle, not helpless.
Kindness makes you caring, not vulnerable.
Charity makes you compassionate, not spineless.
Mercy makes you sympathetic, not fragile.
Patience makes you cautious, not powerless.
Piety makes you noble, not bigoted.
Loyalty makes you trustworthy, not foolish.
Justice makes you fair, not vengeful.
Integrity makes you strong, not stern.
Chastity makes you disciplined, not narrow.

Wealth makes you prominent, not selfish.
Power makes you influential, not self centered.
Honor makes you important, not narcissistic.
Fame makes you privileged, not spoiled.
Servitude makes you respectable, not sycophantic.
Self-control makes you dignified, not self-righteous.
Discipline makes you focused, not obsessed.
Imagination makes you special, not odd.
Pleasure makes you happy, not corruptible.
Goodness makes you saintly, not narrow.
Faith makes you spiritual, not obstinate.
Love makes you mystical, not religious.
God makes you transcendent, not ordinary. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

My friends often tell me how very German I still am. ~ Claudia Schiffer

It was Russia, January 5, 1943, and just another icy day. Out among the city and snow, there were dead Russians and Germans everywhere. Those who remained were firing into the blank pages in front of them. Three languages interwove. The Russian, the bullets, the German. ~ Markus Zusak

Philosophers of science have repeatedly demonstrated that more than one theoretical construction can always be placed upon a given collection of data. ~ Thomas Kuhn

Every choice we make is a testament to our autonomy, to our sense of self-determination. Almost every social, moral, or political philosopher in the Western tradition since Plato has placed a premium on such autonomy. And each new expansion of choice gives us another opportunity to assert our autonomy, and this display our character. ~ Barry Schwartz

Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep/ Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind. ~ William Wordsworth

The truth is, everyone likes to look down on someone. If your favorites are all avant-garde writers who throw in Sanskrit and German, you can look down on everyone. If your favorites are all Oprah Book Club books, you can at least look down on mystery readers. Mystery readers have sci-fi readers. Sci-fi can look down on fantasy. And yes, fantasy readers have their own snobbishness. I'll bet this, though: in a hundred years, people will be writing a lot more dissertations on Harry Potter than on John Updike. Look, Charles Dickens wrote popular fiction. Shakespeare wrote popular fiction - until he wrote his sonnets, desperate to show the literati of his day that he was real artist. Edgar Allan Poe tied himself in knots because no one realized he was a genius. The core of the problem is how we want to define "literature". The Latin root simply means "letters". Those letters are either delivered - they connect with an audience - or they don't. For some, that audience is a few thousand college professors and some critics. For others, its twenty million women desperate for romance in their lives. Those connections happen because the books successfully communicate something real about the human experience. Sure, there are trashy books that do really well, but that's because there are trashy facets of humanity. What people value in their books - and thus what they count as literature - really tells you more about them than it does about the book. ~ Brent Weeks

The fact that German anti-Semitism and anticapitalism spring from the same root is of great importance for the understanding of what has happened there, but this is rarely grasped by foreign observers. ~ Friedrich Hayek

Developments since the rise of National Socialism make it probable that the continent will be freed from its Jewish destroyers of people and exploiters forever, and the German example after the German victory in World War II will also serve to bring about the destruction of the Jewish world tormentors on other continents. ~ Julius Streicher

Was that what it was all about? To know everything - the ultimate quest of the philosopher, to comprehend the universe from the highest heaven down to the dirt upon the Earth. And Wolfdon desired to go there too, wherever "there" might be. ~ Mary-Jean Harris

On my bad days, I sometimes wonder what philosophers are for. ~ Jerry Fodor

America for Me

'Tis fine to see the Old World and travel up and down
Among the famous palaces and cities of renown,
To admire the crumblyh castles and the statues and kings
But now I think I've had enough of antiquated things.

So it's home again, and home again, America for me!
My heart is turning home again and there I long to be,
In the land of youth and freedom, beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.

Oh, London is a man's town, there's power in the air;
And Paris is a woman's town, with flowers in her hair;
And it's sweet to dream in Venice, and it's great to study Rome;
But when it comes to living there is no place like home.

I like the German fir-woods in green battalions drilled;
I like the gardens of Versailles with flashing foutains filled;
But, oh, to take your hand, my dear, and ramble for a day
In the friendly western woodland where Nature has her sway!

I know that Europe's wonderful, yet something seems to lack!
The Past is too much with her, and the people looking back.
But the glory of the Present is to make the Future free--
We love our land for what she is and what she is to be.

Oh, it's home again, and home again, America for me!
I want a ship that's westward bound to plough the rolling sea,
To the blessed Land of Room Enough, beyond the ocean bars,
Where th ~ Henry Van Dyke

People can be teachers and idiots; they can be philosophers and idiots; they can be politicians and idiots ... in fact I think they have to be ... a genius can be an idiot. The world is largely run for and by idiots; it is no great handicap in life and in certain areas is actually a distinct advantage and even a prerequisite for advancement. ~ Iain Banks

Grandeur ... consists in form, and not in size: and to the eye of the philosopher, the curve drawn on a paper two inches long, is just as magnificent, just as symbolic of divine mysteries and melodies, as when embodied in the span of some cathedral roof. ~ Charles Kingsley

Ah, you Americans. A hundred different churches and one kind of gravy. ~ German Cook In The Seminary Dining Room

A person who thinks about "why" is a philosopher. ~ Debasish Mridha

Meine mutige Kämpferin. Fight death with all you have. ~ Mya Robarts

Mastery of the German language and the acceptance of our legal system has to become part of the criteria for naturalization. ~ Alice Schwarzer