Optically, of course, Casein is not only close to us―even that which is closest: we *are* it, each of us, we ourselves. In spite of this, or rather for just this reason, it is ontologically that which is farthest. To be sure, its own most Being is such that it has an understanding of that Being, and already maintains itself in each case as if its Being has been interpreted in some manner. But we are certainly not saying that when Casein's own Being is thus interpreted pre-ontologically in the way which lies closest, this interpretation can be taken over as an appropriate clue, as if this way of understanding Being is what must emerge when one's own most state of Being is considered as an ontological theme. The kind of Being which belongs to Casein is rather such that, in understanding its own Being, it has a tendency to do so in terms of that entity towards which it comports itself proximally and in a way which is essentially constant―in terms of the 'world'. In Casein itself, and therefore in its own understanding of Being, the way the world is understood is, as we shall show, reflected ontologically upon the way in which Casein itself gets interpreted.Thus, because Casein is onto-ontologically prior, its own specific state of Being (if we understand this in the sense of Casein's 'categorical structure') remains concealed from it. Casein is optically 'closest' to itself and ontologically farthest; but pre-ontologically it is surely not a stranger."―from_Being and Time_. Translated by John Macquarie & Edward Robinson, pp. 36-37

— Martin Heidegger

Our conduct of the ontological investigation in the first and second parts opens up for us at the same time a view of the way in which these phenomenological investigations proceed. This raises the question of the character of method in ontology. Thus, we come to the third part of the course: the scientific method of ontology and the idea of phenomenology. The method of ontology, that is, of philosophy in general, is distinguished by the fact that ontology has nothing in common with any method of the other sciences, all of which as positive sciences deal with beings. On the other hand, it is precisely the analysis of the truth-character of Being which shows that Being also is, as it were, based in a being, namely, in the Casein. Being is given only if the understanding of Being, hence the Casein, exists. This being accordingly lays claim to a distinctive priority in ontological inquiry. It makes itself manifest in all discussions of the basic problems of ontology and above all in the fundamental question of the meaning of Being in general. The elaboration of this question and its answer requires a general analytic of the Casein. Ontology has for its fundamental discipline the analytic of the Casein. This implies at the same time that ontology cannot be established in a purely ontological manner. Its possibility is referred back to a being, that is, to something optical―the Casein. Ontology has an optical foundation, a fact which is manifest over and over again in the history of philosophy down to the present. For example, it is expressed as early as Aristotle's dictum that the first science, the science of Being, is theology. As the work of the freedom of the human Casein, the possibilities and destinies of philosophy are bound up with man's existence, and thus with temporality and with historically, and indeed in a more original sense than is any other science. Consequently, in clarifying the scientific character of ontology, *the first task is the demonstration of its optical foundation* and the characterization of this foundation itself."―from_The Basic Problems of Phenomenology_

— Martin Heidegger

Philosophy is metaphysics. Metaphysics thinks beings as a whole―the world, man, God―with respect to Being, with respect to the belonging together of beings in Being. Metaphysics thinks beings as being in the manner of representational thinking which gives reasons. For since the beginning of philosophy and with that beginning, the Being of beings has showed itself as the ground (arch, action, principle). The ground is that from which beings as such are what they are in their becoming, perishing, and persisting as something that can be known, handled, and worked upon. As the ground, Being brings beings to their actual presenting. The ground shows itself as presence. The present of presence consists in the fact that it brings what is present each in its own way to presence. In accordance with the actual kind of presence, the ground has the character of grounding as the optic causation of the real, as the transcendental making possible of the objectivity of objects, as the dialectical mediation of the movement of the absolute Spirit and of the historical process of production, as the will to power positing values."―from_The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking_

— Martin Heidegger

Temporality temporalities as a future which makes present in the process of having been.

— Martin Heidegger

The Führer alone is the present and future German reality and its law. Learn to know ever more deeply: from now on every single thing demands decision, and every action responsibility.

— Martin Heidegger

The ‘I’ is a bare consciousness, accompanying all concepts. In the ‘I’, ‘nothing more is represented than a transcendental subject of thoughts’. ‘Consciousness in itself (is) not so much a representation…as it is a form of representation in general.’ The ‘I think’ is ‘the form of apperception, which clings to every experience and precedes it.’ Kant grasps the phenomenal content of the ‘I’ correctly in the expression ‘I think’, or—if one also pays heed to including the ‘practical person’ when one speaks of ‘intelligence’—in the expression ‘I take action’. In Kant’s sense we must take saying “I” as saying “I think.” Kant tries to establish the phenomenal content of the “I” as *res cogitate*. If in doing so he calls this “I” a ‘logical subject’, that does not mean that the “I” in general is a concept obtained merely by way of logic. The “I” is rather the subject of logical behavior, of binding together. ‘I think’ means ‘I bind together’. All binding together is an ‘*I* bind together’. In any taking-together or relating, the “I” always underlies—the ὑποκείμενον [hypokeimenon; subjectum; subject]. The *subjectum* is therefore ‘consciousness in itself’, not a representation but rather the ‘form’ of representation. That is to say, the “I think” is not something represented, but the formal structure of representing as such, and this formal structure alone makes it possible for anything to have been represented. When we speak of the “form” of representation, we have in view neither a framework nor a universal concept, but that which, as εἶδος [adds], makes every representing and everything represented be what it is. If the “I” is understood as the form of representation, this amounts to saying that it is the ‘logical subject’. Kant’s analysis has two positive aspects. For one thing, he sees the impossibility of optically reducing the “I” to a substance; for another thing, he holds fast to the “I” as ‘I think’. Nevertheless, he takes this “I” as subject again, and he does so in a sense which is ontologically inappropriate. For the ontological concept of the subject *characterizes not the Selfhood of the “I” qua Self, but the self-sameness and steadiness of something that is always present-at-hand*. To define the “I” ontologically as “*subject*” means to regard it as something always present-at-hand. The Being of the “I” is understood as the Reality of the *res cogitate*."―from_Being and Time_. Translated by John Macquarie & Edward Robinson, pp. 366-367

— Martin Heidegger

The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking.

— Martin Heidegger

The possible ranks higher than the actual.

— Martin Heidegger

The *second task* consists in distinguishing the mode of knowing operative in ontology as science of Being, and this requires us to *work out the methodological structure of ontological-transcendental differentiation*. In early antiquity it was already seen that Being and its attributes in a certain way underlie beings and precede them and so are *a protein*, an earlier. The term denoting this character by which Being precedes beings is the expression *a priori*, *priority*, being earlier or prior. As *a priori*, Being is earlier than beings. The meaning of this *a priori*, the sense of the earlier and its possibility, has never been cleared up. The question has not even once been raised as to why the determinations of Being and Being itself must have this character of priority and how such priority is possible. To be earlier is a determination of time, but it does not pertain to the temporal order of the time that we measure by the clock; rather, it is an earlier that belongs to the "inverted world." Therefore, this earlier which characterizes Being is taken by the popular understanding to be the latter. Only the interpretation of Being by way of temporality can make clear why and how this feature of being earlier, priority, goes together with Being. The *a priori* character of Being and of all the structures of Being accordingly calls for a specific kind of approach and way of apprehending Being―*a priori cognition*. The basic components of *a priori* cognition constitute what we call *phenomenology*. Phenomenology is the name for the method of ontology, that is, of scientific philosophy. Rightly conceived, phenomenology is the concept of a method. It is therefore precluded from the start that phenomenology should pronounce any theses about Being which have specific content, thus adopting a so-called standpoint." ―Martin Heidegger, from_The Basic Problems of Phenomenology_

— Martin Heidegger

The spiritual world of a Folk is not its cultural superstructure, just as little as it is its arsenal of useful knowledge [Kenntnisse] and values; rather, it is the power that comes from preserving at the most profound level the forces that are rooted in the soil and blood of a Folk, the power to arouse most inwardly and to shake most extensively the Folk's existence.

— Martin Heidegger