Each nationality contains its centre of happiness within itself, as a bullet the centre of gravity.
Johann Gottfried HerderRead
Thus we build on the ice, thus we write on the waves of the sea; the waves roaring pass away, the ice melts, and away goes our palace, like our thoughts.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the transient nature of both human creations and thoughts.
Johann Gottfried Herder emphasizes the impermanence of our endeavors and ideas by comparing them to structures built on unstable foundations—ice and waves. Just as these physical forms are destined to disappear, so too are our thoughts and creations, prompting a reflection on the fleeting nature of existence and the significance of embracing the moment.
Themes
ImpermanenceThoughtsTransienceCreationExistence
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on the nature of art, this quote can illustrate the fleetingness of artistic expression.
More from Johann Gottfried Herder
All quotes →So says the most ancient book of the Earth; thus it is written on its leaves of marble, lime, sand, slate, and clay: ... that our Earth has fashioned itself, from its chaos of substances and powers, through the animating warmth of the creative spirit, to a peculiar and original whole, by a series of preparatory revolutions, till at last the crown of its creation, the exquisite and tender creature man, was enabled to appear.
Johann Gottfried HerderRead
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
Johann Gottfried HerderRead
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.
Johann Gottfried HerderRead
Those that embrace the entire universe with love, for the most part love nothing, but their narrow selves.
Johann Gottfried HerderRead
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