Heinrich Heine Quotes

People in those old times had convictions; we moderns only have opinions. And it needs more than a mere opinion to erect a Gothic cathedral.

Seriousness shows itself more majestically when laughter leads the way.

Wild, dark times are rumbling toward us, and the prophet who wishes to write a new apocalypse will have to invent entirely new beasts, and beasts so terrible that the ancient animal symbols of St. John will seem like cooing doves and cupids in comparison.

Every man, either to his terror or consolation, has some sense of religion.

When I am with my sweetheart kind,
A happy youth am I;
So great the wealth within my mind,
I the whole world could buy.
But when her swanlike arms I quit,
In that sad hour of pain,
Away my boasted wealth doth flit,
And I am poor again.

"Das war ein Vorspiel nur; dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen."

(Almansor)

Von allen Welten, die der Mensch erschaffen hat, ist die der Bücher die Gewaltigste

The moon, too, hid herself
Behind the clouds that darkly came over her;
High up roarèd the sea,
And then triumphantly stood in the heavens
The stars all-eternal.

Where books are burned, they will, in the end, burn people, too.

"Ich hatte einst ein schönes Vaterland.
Der Eichenbaum
Wuchs dort so hoch, die Veilchen nickten sanft.
Es war ein Traum.

Das küßte mich auf deutsch, und sprach auf deutsch
(Man glaubt es kaum,
Wie gut es klang) das Wort: "Ich liebe dich!"
Es war ein Traum."

…near them grow dreamlike fairy-tale flowers whose leaves stir in the moonlight.

I wept in my dreams.
I dreamed you lay in the grave;
I awoke, and the tears
still poured down my cheeks.

I wept in my dreams,
I dreamed you had left me;
I awoke and I went on weeping
long and bitterly.

I wept in my dreams,
I dreamed you were still kind to me;
I awoke, and still
the flow of my tears streams on.

Hence the one-sided errors—ces erreurs d'idée fixe—which we cannot escape when we stand too near to one or the other party; either deceives, yet does it unaware, and we confide most willingly in those who think as we do. But if we are by chance of such indifferent nature that we, without special predilection, keep in continual intercourse with all, then we are bewildered by the perfect self-confidence of either party, and our judgement is neutralised in the most depressing manner.

Ah, among the unhappiest blunders a man makes is this, that he childishly misjudges the value of the gifts that nature bestows on him most easily, and, contrariwise, considers most precious the endowments that come hardest. The precious stone buried in the earth's entrails, the pearl hidden in the ocean depths — these are what people regard as the greatest treasures; but they would look down on them if nature strewed them underfoot like pebbles and seashells. We are casual about our own excellences; we try to deceive ourselves about out weaknesses so long that we end up taking them for eminent virtues. Once, after a concert by Paganini, when I confronted the master with passionate praises for his violin playing, he interrupted me with these words: 'But today how did you like my bows, my genuflections?

You cannot feed the hungry on statistics.