Dasein Quotes

“Hiding my half existence behind the opaque walls of my skull, concealing it like a shameful disease, I did not consider the simple fact that the same thing could be occurring under other skullcaps, in other locked rooms.”
― Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, Autobiography of a Corpse

“Ich ging in die Wälder, weil ich bewusst leben wollte.
Ich wollte das Dasein auskosten. Ich wollte das Mark des Lebens einsaugen!
Und alles fortwerfen, das kein Leben barg, um nicht an meinem Todestag Innezuwerden, daß ich nie gelebt hatte.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“Timpul este un "cum" . Cînd ne întrebăm ce este timpul, nu trebuie să ne agăţăm grăbiţi de un răspuns ( de genul "asta sau asta este timpul" ), care să conţină mereu un "ce" . Să nu privim către răspuns, ci să repetăm întrebarea. Ce s-a întîmplat cu întrebarea ? S-a modificat. întrebarea "Ce este timpul ?" a devenit întrebarea "Cine este timpul ?". Mai exact : sîntem noi înşine timpul ? Sau, şi mai exact : sînt eu timpul meu ? Cu aceasta m-am apropiat cel mai mult de el şi, dacă înţeleg corect întrebarea, atunci o dată cu ea totul devine serios. Prin urmare, asemenea interogare este modul cel mai adecvat de a accede şi de a mă raporta la timp, ca la unul ce este "de fiecare dată al meu: Dasein-ul este atunci cel problematic.”
― Martin Heidegger, The Concept of Time

“It is not only temporality that is concealed although something like time always announces itself; even more well-known phenomena, like that of transcendence, the phenomena of world and being-in-the-world, are covered over. Nevertheless, they are not completely hidden, for the Dasein knows about something like ego and other. The concealment of transcendence is not a total unawareness but, what is much more fateful, a misunderstanding, a faulty interpretation. Faulty interpretations, misunderstandings, put much more stubborn obstacles in the way of authentic cognition than a total ignorance. However, these faulty interpretations of transcendence, of the basic relationship of Dasein to beings and to itself, are no mere defects of thought or acumen. They have their reason and their necessity in the Dasein's own historical existence. In the end, these faulty interpretations must be made, so that the Dasein may reach the path to the true phenomena by correcting them.”
― Martin Heidegger, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology

“Heidegger’s concept for the kind of being we ourselves are is Dasein. Literally it means ‘being-there’.We are the sort of beings who are there, in the world. What characterizes Dasein is that its existence is a concern for it in its existence.”
― Lars Fr. H. Svendsen, A Philosophy of Boredom

“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

“It is wrong to oppose to objects an isolated ego-subject, without seeing in the Dasein the basic constitution of being-in-the-world; but it is equally wrong to suppose that the problem is seen in principle and progress made toward answering it if the solipsism of the isolated ego is replaced by a solipsism en deux in the I-thou relationship. As a relationship between Dasein and Dasein this has its possibility only on the basis of being-in-the-world. Put otherwise, being-in-the-world is with equal originality both being-with and being-among.”
― Martin Heidegger, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology

“Prin Dasein înţelegem fiinţarea în fiinţa sa pe care o cunoaştem ca viaţă umană; adică acea fiinţare care, în faptul de-a-fi-de-fiecare-dată, ce este propriu fiinţei sale, suntem fiecare dintre noi înşine, pe care fiecare dintre noi o are în vedere în enunţul fundamental "eu sunt". Enunţul "eu sunt" este adevăratul enunţ despre fiinţă, despre caracterul de Dasein al omului. Această fiinţare este în faptul-de-a-fi-de-fiecare-dată ca "de fiecare dată al meu".”
― Martin Heidegger, The Concept of Time

“Now, what if Others were encapsulated in Things, in a way that Being towards Things were not ontologically severable, in Heidegger's terms, from Being towards Others? What if the mode of Dasein of Others were to dwell in Things, and so forth? In the same light, then, what if the Thing were a Dublette of the Self, and not what is called the Other? Or more radically still, what if the Self were in some fundamental way becoming a Xerox copy, a duplicate, of the Thing in its assumed essence?”
― Avital Ronell

“For it is clear, on the one hand, that have you been familiar with these things for a long time—whatever you wish to signify when you utter "being"—and, before this we used to believe it, but now we have been perplexed.”
― Plato, Sophist

“For it is clear, on the one hand, that you have been familiar with these things for a long time —whatever you wish to signify when you utter "being"— and, before this we used to believe it, but now we have been perplexed.”
― Plato, Sophist

“Why do we say that time passes away, when we do not say with just as much emphasis that it arises?”
― Martin Heidegger, Being and Time

“Once I was clever, I was speaking.. then I was wiser, I was learning.. but now I’m silent and now I am “Being”!”
― Huseyn Raza

“Asking the question of being is one of the essential and fundamental conditions for the awakening of spirit and hence for an originary world of historical Dasein. It is indispensable if the peril of world-darkening [Weltverdüsterung] is to be forestalled and if our Volk at the center of the West is to take on its historical mission.”
― Martin Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics

“My point... is of course not that solipsism is true; it's just that truth, reference, and the rest of the semantic notions aren't psychological categories. What they are is: they're modes of Dasein. I don't know what Dasein is, but I'm sure that there's lots of it around, and I'm sure that you and I and Cincinnati have all got it. What more do you want?”
― Jerry A. Fodor, RePresentations: Philosophical Essays on the Foundations of Cognitive Science

“As ek-sisting, man sustains Da-sein in that he takes the Da, the clearing of Being, into "care.”
― Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings

“Die Dinge geschehen eben, und ich suche, wie Millionen Menschen vor mir, in ihnen einen Sinn, weil meine Eitelkeit nicht gestatten will, zuzugeben, daß der ganze Sinn eines Geschehnisses in ihm selbst liegt. Kein Käfer, den ich achtlos zertrete, wird in diesem, für ihn traurigen Ereignis einen geheimnisvollen Zusammenhang von universeller Bedeutung sehen. Er war in dem Augenblick unter meinem Fuß, als ich niedertrat; Wohlbehagen im Licht, ein kurzer schriller Schmerz und Nichts. Nur wir sind dazu verurteilt, einer Bedeutung nachzujagen, die es nicht geben kann. Ich weiß nicht, ob ich mich jemals mit dieser Erkenntnis abfinden werde. Es ist schwer, einen uralten eingefleischten Größenwahn abzulegen. Ich bedaure die Tiere, und ich bedaure die Menschen, weil sie ungefragt in dieses Leben geworfen werden. Vielleicht sind die Menschen bedauernswerter, denn sie besitzen genausoviel Verstand, um sich gegen den natürlichen Ablauf der Dinge zu wehren. Das hat sie böse und verzweifelt werden lassen und wenig liebenswert. Dabei wäre es möglich gewesen, anders zu leben. Es gibt keine vernünftigere Regung als Liebe. Sie macht dem Liebenden und dem Geliebten das Leben erträglicher. Nur, wir hätten rechtzeitig erkennen sollen, daß dies unsere einzige Möglichkeit war, unsere einzige Hoffnung auf ein besseres Leben. Für ein unendliches Heer von Toten ist die einzige Möglichkeit des Menschen für immer vertan. Immer wieder muß ich daran denken. Ich kann nicht verstehen, warum wir den falschen Weg einschlagen mußten. Ich weiß nur, daß es zu spät ist.”
― Marlen Haushofer, Die Wand by Marlen Haushofer