The Essence of Truth Quotes

“This saying is as old as Western philosophy itself, giving expression to that fundamental experience and orientation of ancient man from which philosophy begins; ἀ-λήθεια, unhiddenness, into which philosophy seeks to bring the hidden, is nothing arbitrary, and is especially not a property of a proposition or sentence, nor is it a so-called ‘value’. It is rather that reality, that occurrence [Geschehen], into which only that path (ἡ ὁδóϛ) leads of which another of the oldest philosophers likewise says: ‘it runs outside the ordinary path of men’, ἀπ´ ἀνθρώπων ἐκτὸϛ πάτου ἐστίυ (Parmenides, Fr. 1, 27).”
― Martin Heidegger, The Essence of Truth: On Plato's Cave Allegory and Theaetetus

“There is much talk nowadays of blood and soil [Blut und Boden] as frequently invoked powers. Literati, whom one comes across even today, have already seized hold of them. Blood and soil are certainly powerful and necessary, but they are not a sufficient condition for the Dasein of a people.”
― Martin Heidegger, Vom Wesen der Wahrheit

“After everything we have said it is worth considering whether, if we immediately demand a propositional explanation of the highest idea, we are proceeding in a truly Platonic manner. If we ask in this way we already deviate from the path of authentic questioning. But inquiry into the idea of the good generally proceeds along this false track. One straightaway wants to know what the good is, just like one wants to know the shortest route to the market place. The idea of the good cannot be interrogated in this uncomprehending way at all. It is thus no wonder if through this way of questioning we do not receive an answer, i.e. if our claim upon the intelligibility of this idea of the good, as something to be measured in terms of our ruling self-evidences, is from the very beginning decisively repulsed. Here we recognize – how often – that questioning also has its rank-order.”
― Martin Heidegger, The Essence of Truth: On Plato's Cave Allegory and Theaetetus

“Whatever happens with historical human beings comes in each case from a decision about the
essence of truth that happened long ago and is never up to humans alone. Through this decision the lines
are always already drawn regarding what, in the light of the established essence of truth, is sought after
and established as true and likewise what is thrown away and passed over as untrue.”
― Martin Heidegger, The Essence of Truth

“Initially we understand nothing at all, and for this reason we ask.”
― Martin Heidegger, The Essence of Truth: On Plato's Cave Allegory and Theaetetus