Unlike seeing, where one can look away, one cannot 'hear away' but must listen ... hearing implies already belonging together in such a manner that one is claimed by what is being said.

We cannot understand without wanting to understand, that is, without wanting to let something be said...Understanding does not occur when we try to intercept what someone wants to say to us by claiming we already know it.

I basically only read books that are over 2,000 years old.

The process of translating comprises in its essence the whole secret of human understanding of the world and of social communication.

It is the tyranny of hidden prejudices that makes us deaf to what speaks to us in tradition.

The more language is a living operation, the less we are aware of it. Thus it follows from the self-forgetfulness of language that its real being consists in what is said in it.

History does not belong to us; we belong to it.