Heinrich Heine
37 quotes
Biography
"Where words leave off, music begins."
"Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings."
"We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged"
"Perfumes are the feelings of flowers."
"First, I thought, almost despairing,This must crush my spirit now;Yet I bore it, and am bearing-Only do not ask me how."
"A pine tree standeth lonelyIn the North on an upland bare;It standeth whitely shroudedWith snow, and sleepeth there.It dreameth of a Palm treeWhich far in the East alone,In the mournful silence standethOn its ridge of burning stone."
"At first I was almost about to despair, I thought I never could bear it — but I did bear it. The question remains: how?"
"Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen."
"Every woman is the gift of a world to me."
"Don't send a poet to London."
"He who will establish himself on a certain height must yield according to circumstances, like the weather-cock on a church-spire, which, though it be made of iron, would soon be broken by the storm-wind if it remained obstinately immovable, and did not understand the noble art of turning to every wind. But a great man will never so far contradict his own feelings as to see, or, it may be, increase, with cold-blooded indifference, the misfortunes of his fellow country-men."
"Christianity is an idea, and as such is indestructible and immortal, like every idea."
"Mark this well, you proud men of action: You are nothing but the unwitting agents of the men of thought who often, in quiet self-effacement, mark out most exactly all your doings in advance."
"Die Menschen in jener alten Zeit hatten Überzeugungen, wir Neueren haben nur Meinungen, und es gehört etwas mehr als eine bloße Meinung dazu, um so einen gotischen Dom aufzurichten."
"If one has no heart, one cannot write for the masses."
"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."
"The future smells of Russian leather, of blood, of godlessness and of much whipping. I advise our grandchildren to come into the world with very thick skin on their backs."
"No talent, but a character."
"One should forgive one's enemies, but not before they are hanged."
"Rossini! divino Maestro!"
"Bien sûr, il me pardonnera; c'est son métier. [Of course he [God] will forgive me; that's his job.]"
"If the Romans had been obliged to learn Latin, they would never have found time to conquer the world."
"What an awful book the Corpus Juris is, this Bible of selfishness! I've always found the Roman code as detestable as the Romans themselves. These robbers want to safeguard their swag, and they seek to protect by law what they have plundered with the sword; hence the robber became a combination of the most odious kind, soldier and lawyer in one. Truly, we owe the theory of property, which was formerly a fact only, to these Roman thieves; and the much vaunted Roman Law on which all our present-day legislations and state institutions are based is nothing but the development of this theory in all its pernicious implications, in spite of the fact that this Law is diametrically opposed to religion, morals, common humanity and reason."
"Great genius takes shape by contact with another great genius, but less by assimilation than by friction."
"The music at a wedding procession always reminds me of the music of soldiers going into battle."