E. T. A. Hoffmann Quotes

"However, their father said, "I handed the Nutcracker over to Marie's particular care, and since I see that he needs it just now, she can do as she likes with him, and no one else is to interfere. What's more, I am really surprised that Fritz would expect a soldier wounded in battle to go straight back on active service. As a good military man, he ought to know that you don't draw the wounded up on parade!

So true it is, that even the shortest step out of the immediate circle of one's best friends, is equal, in effect, to the remotest separation.

The magic of music is so strong, getting stronger, it should break any shackle of another art.

Perchance, dear reader, you will then believe that nothing is stranger and madder than actual life, and that this is all that the poet can conceive, as it were in the dull reflection of a dimly polished mirror.

...the best conclusion I was able to reach was that what we instinctively call imagination is in reality nothing less than the symbolic knowledge of that secret thread which weaves itself through our life knotted fast in all its windings, and without which we would surely be lost. But with this knowledge I realised too that this secret power also rules over us, for these same threads can be forcibly torn apart and leave us at the mercy of the dark fiend who is always ready to claim us as his own.

"It may be, after all," said the Student Anselmus to himself, "that the superfine stomachic liqueur, which I took somewhat freely in Monsieur Conradi's, might really be the cause of all these shocking phantasms, which tortured me so at Archivarius Lindhorst's door."

With the confidence and peace of mind native to true genius, I lay my life story before the world, so that the reader may learn how to educate himself to be a great tomcat, may recognize the full extent of my excellence, may love, value, honour and admire me- and worship me a little.

Should anyone be audacious enough to think of casting doubt on the sterling worth of this remarkable book, let him reflect that he is dealing with a tomcat possessed of intellect, understanding, and sharp claws.

You will learn of the relationship between the various strange destinies which plunged you at one moment into a higher realm of miraculous visions and at the next into the most commonplace of worlds. It is said that the miraculous has vanished from the earth, but I do not believe it. The miracles are still there, for even if we are no longer willing to call by that name the most wonderful aspects of our daily life, because we have managed to deduce from a succession of events a law of cyclic recurrence, nevertheless there often passes through that cycle a phenomenon which puts all our wisdom to shame, and which, in our stupid obstinacy, we refuse to believe because we are unable to comprehend it.

It was obvious from their expressions that they believed the wellbeing of R.’s inhabitants was endangered by my youth. The visit was very enjoyable, but the horror of the previous night still clung to me.

Je mehr Kultur, desto weniger Freiheit, das ist ein wahres Wort.

I wished I could read in their shrivelled faces and watery eyes, I wished I could hear in the bad French which came half through their pinched lips and half through their pointed noses, how the old ladies had got at least on to good terms with the uncanny beings which haunted the castle.

Swans don’t eat marzipan,” Fritz broke in quite roughly, “and Godfather Drosselmeier can’t make a whole park. Actually, we get little out of his toys. They’re promptly taken away from us. So I much prefer what Mama and Papa give us. We can keep their presents nicely and do whatever we like with them.

Who knows, dear Godfather, if you were spruced up like my dear Nutcracker, and if you had on such lovely, shiny ankle boots, who knows if you wouldn’t be as beautiful as he?

...Music turns the handle of terror, tremulousness, dread, and pain and awakens that infinite yearning that is the very essence of romanticism.