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Martin Heidegger Quotes

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Famous Martin Heidegger Quotes

“..."Nature" is not to be understood as that which is just present-at-hand, nor as the power of Nature. The wood is a forest of timber, the mountain a quarry of rock; the river is water-power, the wind is wind 'in the sails'. As the 'environment' is discovered, the 'Nature' thus discovered is encountered too. If its kind of Being as ready-to-hand is disregarded, this 'Nature' itself can be discovered and defined simply in its pure presence-at-hand. But when this happens, the Nature which 'stirs and strives', which assails us and enthralls us as landscape, remains hidden. The botanist's plants are not the flowers of the hedgerow; the 'source' which the geographer establishes for a river is not the 'springhead in the dale'.”

PhilosophyScience
Book:Being and Time
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“Man is the shepherd of Being. Man loses nothing in this "less"; rather, he gains in that he attains the truth of Being. He gains the essential poverty of the shepherd, whose dignity consists in being called by Being itself into the preservation of Being's truth. The call comes as the throw from which the thrownness of Da-sein derives. In his essential unfolding within the history of Being, man is the being whose Being as ek-sistence consists in his dwelling in the nearness of Being. Man is the neighbor of Being.”

PovertyDignityNeighborBeingShepherdDa SeinEk SistenceThrownness
Book:Basic Writings
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“A building, a Greek temple, portrays nothing. It simply stands there in the middle of the rock-cleft valley. The building encloses the figure of the god, and in this concealment lets it stand out into the holy precinct through the open portico. By means of the temple, the god is present in the temple. This presence of the god is in itself the extension and delimitation of the precinct as a holy precinct. The temple and its precinct, however, do not fade away into the indefinite. It is the temple-work that first fits together and at the same time gathers around itself the unity of those paths and relations in which birth and death, disaster and blessing, victory and disgrace, endurance and decline acquire the shape of destiny for human being.”

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Book:Basic Writings
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“Being' cannot be derived from higher concepts by definition, nor can it be presented through lower ones. But does this imply being no longer offers a problem? Not at all. We can infer only that 'Being' cannot have the character of an entity. Thus we cannot apply to Being the concept of 'definition' as presented in traditional logic, [...] which, within certain limits, provides a justifiable way of characterizing 'entities'.”

PhilosophyLogicMetaphysics
Book:Being and Time
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“What is the motive for this ‘fugitive’ way of saying “I”? It is motivated by Dasein’s falling; for as falling, it *flees* in the face of itself into the “they.” When the “I” talks in the ‘natural’ manner, this is performed by the they-self. What expresses itself in the ‘I’ is that Self which, proximally and for the most part, I am *not* authentically. When one is absorbed in the everyday multiplicity and the rapid succession [*Sich-jagen] of that with which one is concerned, the Self of the self-forgetful “I am concerned” shows itself as something simple which is constantly selfsame but indefinite and empty. Yet one *is* that with which one concerns oneself. In the ‘natural’ ontical way in which the “I” talks, the phenomenal content of the Dasein which one has in view in the "I" gets overlooked; but this gives *no justification for our joining in this overlooking of it*, or for forcing upon the problematic of the Self an inappropriate ‘categorial’ horizon when we Interpret the “I” ontologically. Of course by thus refusing to follow the everyday way in which the “I” talks, our ontological Interpretation of the ‘I’ has by no means *solved* the problem; but it has indeed *prescribed the direction* for any further inquiries. In the “I,” we have in view that entity which one is in ‘being-in-the-world’. Being-already-in-a-world, however, as Being-alongside-the-ready-to-hand-within-the-world, means equiprimordially that one is ahead of oneself. With the ‘I’, what we have in view is that entity for which the *issue* is the Being of the entity that it is. With the ‘I’, care expresses itself, though proximally and for the most part in the ‘fugitive’ way in which the “I” talks when it concerns itself with something. The they-self keeps on saying “I” most loudly and most frequently because at bottom it *is not authentically* itself, and evades its authentic potentiality-for-Being. If the ontological constitution of the Self is not to be traced back either to an “I”-substance or to a ‘subject’, but if, on the contrary, the everyday fugitive way in which we keep on saying “I” must be understood in terms of our *authentic* potentiality-for-Being, then the proposition that the Self is the basis of care and constantly present-at-hand, is one that still does not follow. Selfhood is to be discerned existentially only in one’s authentic potentiality-for-Being-one’s-Self—that is to say, in the authenticity of Dasein’s Being *as care*. In terms of care the *constancy of the Self*, as the supposed persistence of the *subjectum*, gets clarified. But the phenomenon of this authentic potentiality-for-Being also opens our eyes for the *constancy of the Self*, in the double sense of steadiness and steadfastness, is the *authentic* counter-possibility to the non-Self-constancy which is characteristic of irresolute falling. Existentially, “*Self-constancy*” signifies nothing other than anticipatory resoluteness. The ontological structure of such resoluteness reveals the existentiality of the Self’s Selfhood." ―from_Being and Time_. Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, pp. 368-369”

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Author:Martin Heidegger
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“Dasein *is authentically itself* in the primordial individualization of the reticent resoluteness which exacts anxiety of itself. *As something that keeps *silent*, authentic *Being*-one’s-Self is just the sort of thing that does not keep on saying ‘I’; but in its reticence it ‘*is*’ that thrown entity as which it can authentically be. The Self which the reticence of resolute existence unveils is the primordial phenomenal basis for the question as to the Being of the ‘I’. Only if we are oriented phenomenally by the meaning of the Being of the authentic potentiality-for-Being-one’s-Self are we put in a position to discuss what ontological justification there is for treating substantiality, simplicity, and personality as characteristics of Selfhood. In the prevalent way of saying “I,” it is constantly suggested that what we have in advance is a Self-Thing, persistently present-at-hand; the ontological question of the Being of the Self must turn away from any such suggestion. *Care does not need to be founded in a Self. But existentiality, as constitutive for care, provides the ontological constitution of Dasein’s Self-constancy, to which there belongs, in accordance with the full structural content of care, its Being-fallen factically into non-Self-constancy*. When fully conceived, the care-structure includes the phenomenon of Selfhood. This phenomenon is clarified by Interpreting the meaning of care; and it is as care that Dasein’s totality of Being has been defined.” ―from_Being and Time_. Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, pp. 369-370”

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Author:Martin Heidegger
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“Who accomplishes the challenging setting-upon through which what we call the real is revealed as standing-reserve? Obviously, man. To what extent is man capable of such a revealing? Man can indeed conceive, fashion, and carry through this or that in one way or another. But man does not have control over unconcealment itself, in which at any given time the real shows itself or withdraws. The fact that the real has been showing itself in the light of Ideas ever since the time of Plato, Plato did not bring about. The thinker only responded to what addressed itself to him.”

TruthDestinyTechnologyManRevealingUnconcealmentChallenging ForthSetting UponStanding Reserve
Book:The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays
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“El ente existente “se” tiene a la vista tan sólo en la medida en que se ha hecho cooriginariamente transparente en su estar en medio del mundo y en el coestar con los otros, como momentos constitutivos de su existencia. A la inversa, la falta de transparencia del Dasein no proviene primaria ni únicamente de autoilusiones “egocéntricas”, sino también del desconocimiento del mundo. (Ser y tiempo - 1927)”

RealidadMundo
Book:Being and Time
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“It is phenomenologically absurd to speak of the phenomenon as if it were something behind which there would be something else of which it would be a phenomenon in the sense of the appearance which represents and expresses [this something else]. A phenomenon is nothing behind which there would be something else. More accurately stated, one cannot ask for something behind the phenomenon at all, since what the phenomenon gives is precisely that something in itself.”

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Author:Martin Heidegger
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“It is wrong to oppose to objects an isolated ego-subject, without seeing in the Dasein the basic constitution of being-in-the-world; but it is equally wrong to suppose that the problem is seen in principle and progress made toward answering it if the solipsism of the isolated ego is replaced by a solipsism en deux in the I-thou relationship. As a relationship between Dasein and Dasein this has its possibility only on the basis of being-in-the-world. Put otherwise, being-in-the-world is with equal originality both being-with and being-among.”

OntologyHeideggerSolipsismBeing WithDaseinI ThouBeing AmongBeing In The World
Book:The Basic Problems of Phenomenology
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“In order to be who we are, we human beings remain committed to and within the being of language, and can never step out of it and look at it from somewhere else. Thus we always see the nature of language only to the extent to which language itself has us in view, has appropriated us to itself. That we cannot know the nature of language—know it according to the traditional concept of knowledge defined in terms of cognition as representation—is not a defect, however, but rather an advantage by which we are favored with a special realm, that realm where we, who are needed and used to speak language, dwell as mortals.”

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Book:On the Way to Language
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“The moving force in Showing of Saying is Owning. It is what brings all present and absent beings each into their own, from where they show themselves in what they are, and where they abide according to their kind. This owning which brings them there, and which moves Saying as Showing in its showing we call Appropriation. It yields the opening of the clearing in which present beings can persist and from which absent beings can depart while keeping their persistence in the withdrawal.”

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Book:On the Way to Language
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“Man obviously is a being. As such he belongs to the totality of Being—just like the stone, the tree, or the eagle. But man's distinctive feature lies in this, that he, as the being who thinks, is open to Being, face to face with Being; thus man remains referred to Being and so answers to it. Man is essentially this relationship of responding to Being, and he is only this.”

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Book:Identity and Difference
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“Origen significa aquí aquello a partir de donde y por lo que una cosa es lo que es y tal como es. Qué es algo y cómo es, es lo que llamamos su esencia. El origen de algo es la fuente de su esencia. La pregunta por el origen de la obra de arte pregunta por la fuente de su esencia. »Según la representación habitual, la obra surge a partir y por medio de la actividad del artista. Pero ¿por medio de qué y a partir de dónde es el artista aquello que es? Gracias a la obra; en efecto, decir que una obra hace al artista significa que si el artista destaca como maestro en su arte es únicamente gracias a la obra. »El artista es el origen de la obra. La obra es el origen del artista. Ninguno puede ser sin el otro. Pero ninguno de los dos soporta tampoco al otro por separado. El artista y la obra son en sí mismos y recíprocamente por medio de un tercero que viene a ser lo primero, aquello de donde el artista y la obra de arte reciben sus nombres: el arte”

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Book:Off the Beaten Track
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“Saying is showing. In everything that speaks to us, in everything that touches us by being spoken and spoken about, in everything that gives itself to us in speaking, or awaits for us unspoken, but also in the speaking that we do ourselves, there prevails Showing which causes to appear what is present, and fade from appearance what is absent. Saying is in no way the linguistic expression added to the phenomena after they have appeared—rather, all radiant appearance and all fading away is grounded in the showing Saying. Saying sets all present beings free into their given presence, and brings what is absent into their absence. Saying pervades and structures the openness of that clearing which every appearance must seek out and every disappearance must leave behind, and in which every present or absent being must show, say, announce itself.”

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Book:On the Way to Language
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“The spiritual world of a Volk is not its cultural superstructure, just as little as it is its arsenal of useful knowledge [Kenntnisse] and values; rather, it is the power that comes from preserving at the most profound level the forces that are rooted in the soil and blood of a Volk, the power to arouse most inwardly and to shake most extensively the Volk's existence.”

SpiritVolkBlood And Soil
Book:The Self-Assertion of the German University
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“Within certain limits terminology is always arbitrary. But the definition of being-true as unveiling, making manifest, is not an arbitrary, private invention of mine; it only gives expression to the understanding of the phenomenon of truth, as the Greeks already understood it in a pre-scientific as well as philosophical understanding, even if not in every respect in an originally explicit way. Plato already says explicitly that the function of logos, of assertion, is deloun, making plain, or as Aristotle says more exactly with regard to the Greek expression of truth: aletheuein. Lanthanein means to be concealed: a- is the privative, so that a-letheuein is equivalent to: to pluck something out of its concealment, to make manifest or reveal. For the Greeks truth means: to take out of concealment, uncovering, unveiling.”

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Book:The Basic Problems of Phenomenology
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“But what about "time"? After all it is not a bundle in which past, future and present are wrapped up together. Time is not a cage in which the "no longer now," the "not yet now," and the "now" are cooped up together. How do matters stand with "time"? They stand thus: time goes. And it goes in that it passes away. The passing of time is, of course, a coming, but a coming which goes, in passing away. What comes in time never comes to stay, but to go. What comes in time always bears beforehand the mark of going past and passing away. This is why everything temporal is regarded simply as what is transitory.”

TimeTemporalityTransitoriness
Book:What is called thinking?
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“What we come across is only this - various tunings of thinking. Doubt and despair, on the one hand, blind obsession by untested principles, on the other, conflict with one another. Fear and anxiety are mixed with hope and confidence. Often and widely, it looks as though thinking were a kind of reasoning conception and calculation completely free of any kind of tuning. But even the coldness of calculation, even the prosaic sobriety of planning are traits of an attunement.”

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Book:What Is Philosophy?
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