Johann Georg Hamann Quotes

The mind God is looking for in man is a doubting, questioning mind, not a dogmatic mind; dogmatic reasoning is wrong reasoning. Dogmatic reason ties a huge rock to a man’s foot and stops him forever from advancing.

Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.

I am aware that a philosopher's ideas are not subject to the judgment of ordinary persons, because it is his endeavour to seek the truth in all things, to the extent permitted to human reason by God.

I respect faith, but doubt is what gives you an education.

Religion asks you to believe things without questioning, and technology and science always encourage you to ask hard questions and why it is important in science and technology. So I was always interested in science and technology.

The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.

Rightly defined philosophy is simply the love of wisdom.

I love to doubt as well as know.

Science stands for rational thought, faith for superstition and unreason.

All human knowledge takes the form of interpretation.

The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything.

I often wish... that I could rid the world of the tyranny of facts. What are facts but compromises? A fact merely marks the point where we have agreed to let investigation cease.

Truth is the object of philosophy, but not always of philosophers.

A philosophical problem has the form: I don't know my way about.

Some like to understand what they believe in. Others like to believe in what they understand.

Faith is a poison that paralyzes the mind. In all the days of your life, seek knowledge!

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them.

Examine by every means each thing how it is clear, neither putting greater faith in anything seen than in what is heard, nor in a thundering sound more than in the clear assertions of the tongue, nor keep from trusting any of the other members in which there lies means of knowledge, but know each thing in the way in which it is clear.

It’s critical that we know what we believe, no matter what we feel...that we know what is true, no matter what we see.

In doubting we come to inquiry; by inquiry we perceive the truth.

If faith is what you have to go on, if faith is the link between your beliefs and the world at large, your beliefs are very likely to be wrong. Beliefs can be right or wrong. If you believe you can fly, that belief is only true if indeed you can fly. Somebody who thinks he can fly, and is wrong about it, will eventually discover there's a problem with his view of the world.

I can only regard with bewilderment an educated man who is also religious

What can give us more sure knowledge than our senses? How else can we distinguish between the true and the false?

You want the truth, of course. You want me to put two and two together. But two and two doesn’t necessarily get you the truth. Two and two equals a voice outside the window. Two and two equals the wind. The living bird is not its labeled bones.

The moment philosophy supposes it can find a final and comprehensive solution, it ceases to be inquiry and becomes either apologetics or propaganda.