24 Quotes by Johann Gottfried Herder

To think what is true, to sense what is beautiful and to want what is good, hereby the spirit finds purpose of a life in reason.

It can hardly be possible, that Nature should have given us a tongue, in order that the gratification of a few papillae on it should be the aim of a laborious life, or the cause of wretchedness to others.

We live in a world we ourselves create.

Without inspiration the best powers of the mind remain dormant. There is a fuel in us which needs to be ignited with sparks.

Whoever perseveres will be crowned.

Calmly take what ill betideth; Patience wins the crown at length: Rich repayment him abideth Who endures in quiet strength. Brave the tamer of the lion; Brave whom conquered kingdoms praise; Bravest he who rules his passions, Who his own impatience sways.

Each nationality contains its centre of happiness within itself, as a bullet the centre of gravity.

A poet is the creator of the nation around him, he gives them a world to see and has their souls in his hand to lead them to that world.

The savage who loves himself, his wife and child with quiet joy and glows with limited activity of his tribe as for his own life is in my opinion a more real being than that cultivated shadow who is enraptured with the shadow of the whole species.