The most passionate, consistent, extreme and implacable enemy of the Enlightenment and ... all forms of rationalism ... was Johann Georg Hamann. His influence, direct and indirect, upon the romantic revolt against universalism and scientific method ... was considerable and perhaps crucial.
—Isaiah Berlin (b. 1909)
In like manner, what good heed, nature forms in us! She pardons no mistakes. Her yea is yea, and her nay, nay.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
I am not so foolish as to declaim against forms. forms are as essential as bodies; but to exalt particular forms, to adhere to one form a moment after it is outgrown, is unreasonable, and it is alien to the spirit of Christ.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)