"Not a single man on earth knows from his own experience the how and where of his birth, only from tradition, which is often very uncertain"
- E. T. A. Hoffmann
About this Quote
This quote by E. T. A. Hoffmann speaks with the unpredictability of our origins. It recommends that no one can truly know the information of their own birth, as it is something that is only given through custom. This suggests that the info we receive about our own birth is frequently unreliable and unsure. It is a pointer that our understanding of our own history is minimal and that we need to be open to the possibility that our understanding of our own past may be insufficient. Hoffmann's quote also talks to the concept that our own identity is something that is continuously progressing and that our understanding of our own history is continuously being shaped by the stories we inform ourselves. Ultimately, this quote acts as a suggestion that our own history is something that is continuously in flux which we must be open to the possibility that our understanding of our own past may be incomplete.
This quote is written / told by E. T. A. Hoffmann between January 24, 1776 and June 25, 1822. He/she was a famous Critic.
The author also have 7 other quotes.
"Homer's whole language, the language in which he lived, the language that he breathed, because he never saw it, or certainly those who formed his tradition never saw it, in characters on the pages. It was all on the tongue and in the ear"
"Monty Python crowd; half of them came from Cambridge, and half of them came from Oxford. But, there seems to be this jewel, this sort of two headed tradition of doing comedy, of doing sketches, and that kind of thing"
"I don't really know of the Jewish tradition of comedy, only the Jewish tradition of not keeping your mouth shut. Complaining about all that is hard, unfair or ridiculous in life-having strong feelings, and not being able to suppress them. That, to me, is Jewish"
"Jackass: The Movie is great. I think it's in the tradition of physical comedy, which I'm really interested in. Its relationship to gravity, and how gravity acts on the body"
"However, I began to submit poems to British magazines, and some were accepted. It was a great moment to see my first poems published. It felt like entering a tradition"
"I say it is indispensable to look ahead of and behind oneself in the present. If there is such a thing as tradition, and I believe there is, it can only exist in the sense of the most profound movements of culture"
