Emil Ludwig Quotes

The decision to kiss for the first time is the most crucial in any love story. It changes the relationship of two people much more strongly than even the final surrender; because this kiss already has within it that surrender.

His effect, in complete contrast to Mussolini's... he juggles with mystical notions such as Honor, Blood, and Soil, and thus wraps his audience in that cloud of mysticism which the Germans love far more than mere prosaic logic.

William the Second was not equal to Fate’s crucial moments.

Die Entscheidung, sich zum ersten Mal zu küssen, ist die wichtigste in jeder Liebesbeziehung. Es verändert die Beziehung von zwei Menschen wesentlich stärker als letzendlich die Kapitulation; denn dieser Kuss trägt die Kapitulation schon in sich.

Hitler's aim was to attract attention to himself. ...[H]e personally arranged all the lighting effects and spotlights, as well as his entry into a hall with fanfares. He trained crowds to salute with the right arm, taught them his songs, and transformed the audience from an apathetic mass into active collaborators in his festivities.

When so markedly egotistic a nature dominates a realm, the consequences can be nothing but catastrophic; and we are heading straight for a period which will decide whether the age or the Emperor is the stronger. I am afraid it will not be he.

Hitler's technique of oratory is largely the result of... mass psychology... He declared to his small, new party that everything depended on fascinating the crowd. Above all... restore to the German people, deprived of an army, their flags, bands and songs. ...He invented every emblem himself, except the swastika, designed his own flag, and prescribed every collar and button for the slowly-growing party troops.

Wealth, as such, impressed him deeply; his unromantic spirit respected this modern form of power—riches, no matter how acquired, were a sufficient attraction.

A sacred duty is imposed by Heaven on us Christian Kings and Emperors—to uphold the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings.

The logic of the machine checkmates its constructor and makes him its slave.

In the course of five years’ visits the Emperor had roused English feeling against Germany; by his conduct towards his uncle he had offended the Court, by that towards Salisbury the Cabinet; by his prattle he had annoyed society, by his menaces the Press, by his indiscretions the man in the street, who read of them in the papers.

The Germans, who love order more than freedom, and whose ruling passion is obedience, rejoiced in their release from an uncomfortable equality into new ranks of superiors and inferiors. This is the second source of Hitler's success.

When Lyncker at about this time took over the Military Cabinet, the Emperor said to him in a pathetically pleading tone: “But, dear Lyncker, you won’t bring me nothing but musty papers, will you? Now and again some funny little story or another!” This is a shocking example of his aversion from anything practical, for the speaker was a man of fifty, who still was called the young Emperor.

Our policy”—so Brandenburg pronounces—“was a petty one, dictated partly by uneasiness, partly by greed and considerations of prestige. Once more, great perdurable things were forgotten in trivialities.

The Emperor wanted to attract the adherents of the new doctrines by protecting the status of the working-man; he addressed the as “Ihr” and “Du,” fancied himself in the part of father of his people, was anxious to distribute privileges without himself abjuring any—in short, he wanted “popular absolutism,” after the fashion of Frederick the Great. Only he forgot that a century had gone by since then.