Friedrich Hölderlin Quotes

Eagles live in the darkness,
And the sons of the Alps
Cross over the abyss without fear
On lightly-built bridges.
***
Growing weak on the separate mountains — Then give us calm waters;
Give us wings, and loyal minds
To cross over and return.

For too long has everything divine been utilized,
And all the heavenly powers, the kindly ones, thrown away,
Consumed for kicks by thankless,
Cunning men, who, when the exalted

One works in their fields, think they
Know the daylight and the Thunderer,
And their telescope might see them all and
Count and name all the stars in heaven;

But the Father covers our eyes with holy
Night so we might remain.
He loves no wildness! Our expanding
power will never force heaven.

Why do you like me more when I was prouder and wilder, more full of words, yet emptier?

Wherein lies the danger, grows also the saving power.

O man is a god when he dreams, a beggar when he thinks, and when enthusiasm is gone, he stands there like a wayward son whom the father has driven out of the house and regards the meager pennies that pity gave him for the journey.

Hälfte des Lebens

Mit gelben Birnen hänget
Und voll mit wilden Rosen
Das Land in den See,
Ihr holden Schwäne,
Und trunken von Küssen
Tunkt ihr das Haupt
Ins heilignüchterne Wasser.

Weh mir, wo nehm’ ich, wenn
Es Winter ist, die Blumen, und wo
Den Sonnenschein,
Und Schatten der Erde?
Die Mauern stehn
Sprachlos und kalt, im Winde
Klirren die Fahnen.

Now we were standing close to the summit's rim, gazing out into the endless East.

These fruits are ripe, dipped in fire,
Cooked and tested here on earth.

when i was a boy
a god often rescued me
from the shouts and the rods of men
and i played among trees and flowers
secure in their kindness
and the breezes of heaven
were playing there too.

and as you delight
the hearts of plants
when they stretch towards you
with little strength

so you delighted the heart in me
father Helios, and like Endymion
i was your favourite,
Moon. o all

you friendly
and faithful gods
i wish you could know
how my soul has loved you.

even though when i called to you then
it was not yet with names, and you
never named me as people do
as though they knew one another

i knew you better
than i have ever known them.
i understood the stillness above the sky
but never the words of men.

trees were my teachers
melodious trees
and i learned to love
among flowers.

i grew up in the arms of the gods.

The earth with yellow pears And overgrown with roses wild Upon the pond is bent, And swans divine, With kisses drunk You drop your heads In the sublimely sobering water. But where, with winter come, am I To find, alas, the floweres, and where The sunshine And the shadow of the world? Cold the walls stand And the wordless, in the wind The weathercocks are rattling.

Sólo en el niño reside la libertad.

Wo aber die Gefahr ist, wächst,
Das Rettende auch.
<blockquote>But where danger is,
salvation also blooms.</blockquote>

What has always made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it heaven.

in the union of nature, loyalty is no dream! We part only to be more intimately at one, more divinely at peace with all, with each other. We die so as to live.

Voll Verdienst, doch dichterisch,
wohnet der Mensch auf dieser Erde.