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Why are there beings at all, instead of Nothing?

Martin Heidegger

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Martin Heidegger
Age: 86 †
Born: 1889
Born: September 26
Died: 1976
Died: May 26
Philosopher
Poet
University Teacher
Meßkirch
Heidegger
Nothing
Existentialism
Philosophical
Beings
Instead
Philosophy

More quotes by Martin Heidegger

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Language is the house of Being. In its home man dwells. Those who think and those who create with words are the guardians of this home.
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What was Aristotle’s life?’ Well, the answer lay in a single sentence: ‘He was born, he thought, he died.’ And all the rest is pure anecdote.
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Every man is born as many men and dies as a single one.
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We should never allow our fears or the expectations of others to set the frontiers of our destiny.
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So long as we represent technology as an instrument, we remain held fast in the will to master it.
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This characteristic of Dasein's being this that it is is veiled in its whence and whither.
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What is peddled about nowadays as philosophy, especially that of N.S. [National Socialism], but has nothing to do with the inner truth and greatness of that movement [namely the encounter between global technology and modern humanity] is nothing but fishing in that troubled sea of values and totalities.
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Nietzsche ... does not shy from conscious exaggeration and one-sided formulations of his thought, believing that in this way he can most clearly set in relief what in his vision and in his inquiry is different from the run-of-the-mill.
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The senses do not enable us to cognize any entity in its Being they merely serve to announce the ways in which 'external' Things within-the-world are useful or harmful for human creatures encumbered with bodies....they tell us nothing about entities in their Being.
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In everything well known something worthy of thought still lurks.
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A giving which gives only its gift, but in the giving holds itself back and withdraws, such a giving we call sending.
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If in Nietzsche's thinking the prior tradition of Western thought is gathered and completed in a decisive respect, then the confrontation with Nietzsche becomes one with all Western thought hitherto.
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Understanding of being is itself a determination of being of Da-sein.
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To think is to confine yourself to a single thought that one day stands still like a star in the world's sky.
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Pessimism negates the existing world. Yet its negating is ambiguous. It can simply will decay and nothingness, but it can also renounce what exists and thus open a path for a new formation of the world.
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Being is only Being for Dasein.
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Tell me how you read and I'll tell you who you are.
Martin Heidegger
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The small are always dependent on the great they are small precisely because they think they are independent. The great thinker is one who can hear what is greatest in the work of other greats and who can transform it in an original manner.
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We name time when we say: every thing has its time. This means: everything which actually is, every being comes and goes at the right time and remains for a time during the time allotted to it. Every thing has its time.
Martin Heidegger
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In no way can it be uttered, as can other things, which one can learn. Rather, from out of a full, co-existential dwelling with the thing itself - as when a spark, leaping from the fire, flares into light - so it happens, suddenly, in the soul, there to grow, alone with itself.
Martin Heidegger