Friedrich Hölderlin quotes

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. (Friedrich Hölderlin)

Being at one is god-like and good, but human, too human, the maniaWhich insists there is only the One, one country, one truth, and one way.

Friedrich Hölderlin

You seek life, and a godly fire Gushes and gleams for you out of the earth, As, with shuddering long, you Hurl yourself down to the flames of the Etna. So by a queen's wanton whim Pearls were dissolved in wine- heed her not! What folly, poet, to cast your riches Into that bright and bubbling cup! Yet still are you holy to me, as the might of the earth That bore you away, audaciously perishing! And I would follow the hero into the depths Did love not hold me.

Friedrich Hölderlin

Before either of us knew it, we belonged to each other.

Friedrich Hölderlin

I call on Fate to give me back my soul.

Friedrich Hölderlin

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

Friedrich Hölderlin

What is the wisdom of a book compared with the wisdom of an angel?

Friedrich Hölderlin

He who has thought most deeply loves what is most alive.

Friedrich Hölderlin

We are nothing; what we search for is everything.

Friedrich Hölderlin

What is all that men have done and thought over thousands of years, compared with one moment of love. But in all Nature, too, it is what is nearest to perfection, what is most divinely beautiful!

Friedrich Hölderlin

It was not delight, not wonder that arose among us, it was the peace of heaven. (Friedrich Hölderlin)

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

Friedrich Hölderlin

You have a head and a heart? Reveal only one of them, I say; If you reveal both at once, doubly they'll damn you, for both.

Friedrich Hölderlin

Wir sind nichts; was wir suchen ist alles. (We are nothing; what we search for is everything.)

Friedrich Hölderlin

Wherein lies the danger, grows also the saving power.

Friedrich Hölderlin

What is all that men have done and thought over thousands of years, compared with one moment of love. But in all Nature, too, it is what is nearest to perfection, what is most divinely beautiful! There all stairs lead from the threshold of life. From there we come, to there we go.

Friedrich Hölderlin