Letter on Humanism Quotes

“Die Sprache ist das Haus des Seins. In ihrer Behausung wohnt der Mensch. Die Denkenden und Dichtenden sind die Wächter dieser Behausung. Ihr Wachen ist das Vollbringen der Offenbarkeit des Seins, insofern sie diese durch ihr Sagen zur Sprache bringen und in der Sprache aufbewahren.”
― Martin Heidegger, Letter on Humanism

“Man is the shepherd of Being.”
― Martin Heidegger, Letter on Humanism

“Every valuing, even when it values positively, is a subjectivizing. It does not let beings: be. Rather, valuing lets being: be valid – solely as the objects of its doing.”
― Martin Heidegger, Letter on Humanism

“Prestare attenzione a ciò che con-viene al dire pensante non implica solo che noi ogni volta meditiamo su che cosa dire dell'essere e su come dirlo. Resta altrettanto essenziale riflettere se si possa dire ciò che è da pensare, fino a che punto lo si possa dire, in quale attimo della storia dell'essere, in quale dialogo con questa storia, e in base a quale pretesa. Le tre cose menzionate in una mia precedente lettera sono determinate, nella loro reciproca connessione, dalla legge della con-venienza del pensiero della storia dell'essere: il rigore della meditazione, la cura del dire, la parsimonia delle parole.”
― Martin Heidegger, Letter on Humanism

“Expelled from the truth of Being, man everywhere circles around himself as the animal rationale.”
― Martin Heidegger, Letter on Humanism

“But the essence of man consists in his being more than merely human, if this is represented as ‘being a rational creature.’ ‘More’ must not be understood here additively, as if the traditional definition of man were indeed to remain basic, only elaborated by means of an existentiell postscript. The "more" means: more originally and therefore more essentially in terms of his essence. But here something enigmatic manifests itself: man is in thrownness. This means that man, as the ek-sisting counter-throw [Gegenwurf] of Being, is more than animal rationale precisely to the extent that he is less bound up with man conceived from subjectivity. Man is not the lord of beings. Man is the shepherd of Being. Man loses nothing in this ‘less’; rather, he gains in that he attains the truth of Being. He gains the essential poverty of the shepherd, whose dignity consists in being called by Being itself into the preservation of Being's truth. The call comes as the throw from which the thrownness of Da-sein derives. In his essential unfolding within the history of Being, man is the being whose Being as ek-sistence consists in his dwelling in the nearness of Being. Man is the neighbor of Being”
― Martin Heidegger, Letter on Humanism

“El deseo de una ética se vuelve tanto más apremiante cuanto más aumenta, hasta la desmesura, el desconcierto el hombre, tanto el manifiesto como el que permanece oculto.”
― Martin Heidegger, Letter on Humanism

“Only so far as man, ek-sisting into the truth of Being, belongs to Being can there come from Being itself the assignment of those directives that must become law and rule for man. In Greek, to assign is nemein. Nomos is not only law but more originally the assignment contained in the dispensation of Being. Only the assignment is capable of dispatching man into Being. Only such dispatching is capable of supporting and obligating. Otherwise all law remains merely something fabricated by human reason. More essential than instituting rules is that man find the way to his abode in the truth of Being. This abode first yields the experience of something we can hold on to. The truth of Being offers a hold for all conduct. "Hold" in our language means protective heed. Being is the protective heed that holds man in his ek-sistent essence to the truth of such protective heed-in such a way that it houses eksistence in language. Thus language is at once the house of Being and the home of human beings. Only because language is the home of the essence of man can historical mankind and human beings not be at home in their language, so that for them language becomes a mere container for their sundry preoccupations.

But now in what relation does the thinking of Being stand to theoretical and practical behavior? It exceeds all contemplation because it cares for the light in which a seeing, as theoria, can first live and move. Thinking attends to the clearing of Being in that it puts its saying of Being into language as the home of ek-sistence. Thus thinking is a deed. But a deed that also surpasses all praxis. Thinking towers above action and production, not through the grandeur of its achievement and not as a consequence of its effect, but through the humbleness of its inconsequential accomplishment”
― Martin Heidegger, Letter on Humanism

“[I]n the name ‘being-in-the-world,’ ‘world’ does not in any way imply earthly as opposed to heavenly being, nor the ‘worldly’ as opposed to the ‘spiritual.’ For us ‘world’ does not at all signify beings or any realm of beings but the openness of Being. Man is, and is man, insofar as he is the ek-sisting one. He stands out into the openness of Being. Being itself, which as the throw has projected the essence of man into ‘care,’ is as this openness. Thrown in such fashion, man stands ‘in’ the openness of Being. ‘World’ is the clearing of Being into which man stands out on the basis of his thrown essence. ‘Being-in-the-world’ designates the essence of ek-sistence with regard to the cleared dimension out of which the ‘ek-’ of ek-sistence essentially unfolds. Thought in terms of ek-sistence, ‘world’ is in a certain sense precisely ‘the beyond’ within existence and for it. Man is never first and foremost man on the hither side of the world, as a ‘subject,’ whether this is taken as ‘I’ or ‘We.’ Nor is he ever simply a mere subject which always simultaneously is related to objects, so that his essence lies in the subject-object relation. Rather, before all this, man in his essence is ek-sistent into the openness of Being, into the open region that clears the ‘between’ within which a ‘relation’ of subject to object can ‘be”
― Martin Heidegger, Letter on Humanism

“Yet Being—what is Being? It is It itself. The thinking that is to come must learn to experience that and to say it. "Being"—that is not God and not a cosmic ground. Being is farther than all beings and is yet nearer to man than every being, be it a rock, a beast, a work of art, a machine, be it an angel or God. Being is the nearest. Yet the near remains farthest from man. Man at first clings always and only to beings. But when thinking represents beings as beings it no doubt relates itself to Being. In truth, however, it always thinks only of beings as such; precisely not, and never, Being as such. The "question of Being" always remains a question about beings. It is still not at all what its elusive name indicates: the question in the direction of Being. Philosophy, even when it becomes "critical" through Descartes and Kant, always follows the course of metaphysical representation. It thinks from beings back to beings with a glance in passing toward Being. For every departure from beings and every return to them stands already in the light of Being”
― Martin Heidegger, Letter on Humanism