Heinrich Heine quotes - page 4

Money bequeathed to my wife "on the express condition that she remarry. I want at least one person to be truly bereaved by my death." (Heinrich Heine)
Rossini, divine master. View quote
Heinrich Heine
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. View quote
Heinrich Heine
Of course God will forgive me; that's His job. View quote
Heinrich Heine
Human misery is too great for men to do without faith. View quote
Heinrich Heine
You're lovely as a flower, So pure and fair to see; I look at you, and sadness Comes stealing over me. View quote
Heinrich Heine
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. View quote
Heinrich Heine
What! Think you that my flashes show me Only in lightnings to excel? Believe me, friends, you do not know me, For I can thunder quite as well. View quote
Heinrich Heine
Oaks shall be rent; the Word shall shatter - Yea, on that fiery day, the Crown, Even the palace walls shall totter, And domes and spires come crashing down. View quote
Heinrich Heine
Do not smile at my advice -- the advice of a dreamer who warns you against Kantians, Fichteans, and philosophers of nature. Do not smile at the visionary who anticipates the same revolution in the realm of the visible as has taken place in the spiritual. Thought precedes action as lightning precedes thunder. German thunder is of true Germanic character; it is not very nimble, but rumbles along ponderously. Yet, it will come and when you hear a crashing such as never before has been heard in the world's history, then you know that the German thunderbolt has fallen at last. At that uproar the eagles of the air will drop dead, and lions in the remotest deserts of Africa will hide in their royal dens. A play will be performed in Germany which will make the French Revolution look like an innocent idyll. View quote
Heinrich Heine
Bien sûr, il me pardonnera; c'est son métier. [Of course he [God] will forgive me; that's his job. ]. (Heinrich Heine)
Be entirely tolerant or not at all; follow the good path or the evil one. To stand at the crossroads requires more strength than you possess. View quote
Heinrich Heine
Society is a republic. When an individual endeavors to lift himself above his fellows, he is dragged down by the mass, either by means of ridicule or of calumny. No one shall be more virtuous or more intellectually gifted than others. Whoever, by the irresistable force of genius, rises above the common herd is certain to be ostracized by society, which will pursue him with such merciless derision and detraction that at last he will be compelled to retreat into the solitude of his thoughts. View quote
Heinrich Heine
Those who begin by burning books will end by burning people. View quote
Heinrich Heine
While we are indifferent to our good qualities, we keep on deceiving ourselves in regard to our faults, until we come to look on them as virtues. View quote
Heinrich Heine
It is an ancient story Yet is it ever new. View quote
Heinrich Heine
It must require an inordinate share of vanity and presumption, too, after enjoying so much that is good and beautiful on earth, to ask the Lord for immortality in addition to it all. View quote
Heinrich Heine
I do not murmur, even if my heart break. View quote
Heinrich Heine
In politics, as in life, we must above all things wish only for the attainable. View quote
Heinrich Heine
I have a most peaceable disposition. My desires are for a modest hut, a thatched roof, but a good bed, good food, very fresh milk and butter, flowers in front of my window and a few pretty trees by my door. And should the good Lord wish to make me really happy, he will allow me the pleasure of seeing about six or seven of my enemies hanged upon those trees. View quote
Heinrich Heine
The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin. (Heinrich Heine)
I cannot explain the sadness That's fallen on my breast. An old, old fable haunts me, And will not let me rest. View quote
Heinrich Heine
I believe in progress; I believe that happiness is the goal of humanity, and I cherish a higher idea of the Divine Being than those pious folk who suppose that man was created only to suffer. View quote
Heinrich Heine
The duration of religions has always been dependent on human need for them. Christianity has been a blessing for suffering humanity during eighteen centuries ; it has been providential, divine, holy. All that it has done in the interest of civilisation, curbing the strong and strengthening the weak, binding together the nations through a common sympathy and a common tongue, and all else that its apologists have urged in its praise all this is as nothing compared with that great consolation it has bestowed on man. Eternal praise is due to the symbol of that suffering God, the Saviour with the crown of thorns, the crucified Christ, whose blood was as a healing balm that flowed into the wounds of humanity. The poet especially must acknowledge with reverence the terrible sublimity of this symbol. View quote
Heinrich Heine
I owe my conversion simply to the reading of a book. View quote
Heinrich Heine