Selected Writings on Aesthetics Quotes

“In the forest of sensible objects that surrounds me, I find my way to becoming master of the chaos of the sensations assailing me only by separating objects from others, by giving them outline, dimensions, and form; in short, by creating unity in diversity and vividly and confidently designating these objects with the stamp of my inner sense, as if this were a seal of truth. Our whole life, then, is to a certain extent poetics: we do not see images but rather create them. The Divinity has sketched them for us on a great panel of light, from which we trace their outlines and paint the images in the soul using a finer brush than that of the rays of light. For the image that is projected on the retina of your eye is not the idea that you derive from its object; it is merely a product of your inner sense, a work of art created by your soul’s faculty of perception.”
― Johann Gottfried Herder, Selected Writings on Aesthetics