Heinrich Heine Quotes

Where words leave off, music begins.

We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged

Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.

Perfumes are the feelings of flowers.

Ordinarily he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid.

In dark ages people are best guided by religion, as in a pitch-black night a blind man is the best guide; he knows the roads and paths better than a man who can see. When daylight comes, however, it is foolish to use blind, old men as guides.

There are more fools in the world than there are people.

The more i get to know people, the more i like dogs.

Experience is a good school. But the fees are high

Lo, sleep is good, better is death--in sooth The best of all were never to be born.

Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.

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

I live, which is the main point.

Sleep is good, death is better; but of course, the best thing would to have never been born at all.

I fell asleep reading a dull book, and I dreamed that I was reading on, so I awoke from sheer boredom.

Where they burn books, at the end they also burn people

First, I thought, almost despairing, This must crush my spirit now; Yet I bore it, and am bearing- Only do not ask me how.

All I really want is enough to live on, a little house in the country... and a tree in the garden with seven of my enemies hanging in it.

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.

Mine is a most peaceable disposition. My wishes are: a humble cottage with a thatched roof, but a good bed, good food, the freshest milk and butter, flowers before my window, and a few fine trees before my door; and if God wants to make my happiness complete, he will grant me the joy of seeing some six or seven of my enemies hanging from those trees. Before death I shall, moved in my heart, forgive them all the wrong they did me in their lifetime. One must, it is true, forgive one's enemies-- but not before they have been hanged.

God will forgive me. It's his job." Heine said this on his deathbed (1856). Hilarious. He must have thought that up years before and counted the seconds to use it.

Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings. — Heinrich Heine, German poet

This was but a prelude; where books are burnt human-beings will be burnt in the end

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.

The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin.

Never to have been born is best But if we must see the light, the next best Is quickly returning whence we came. When youth departs, with all its follies, Who does not stagger under evils? Who escapes them? Sophocles' Sleep is good, death is better; but of course, The best would be never to have been born at all. Heinrich Heine2

The stones here speak to me, and I know their mute language. Also, they seem deeply to feel what I think. So a broken column of the old Roman times, an old tower of Lombardy, a weather-beaten Gothic piece of a pillar understands me well. But I am a ruin myself, wandering among ruins.

I take pride in never being rude to anyone on this earth, which contains a great number of unbearable villains who set upon you to recount their sufferings and even recite their poems.

Every period of time is a sphinx that throws itself into the abyss as soon as its riddle has been solved.

Whatever tears one may shed, in the end one always blows one's nose.

Heinrich Heine so loosened the corsets of the German language that today every little salesman can fondle her breasts.

The music at a wedding procession always reminds me of the music of soldiers going into battle.

One should forgive one's enemies, but not before they are hanged.

And yonder sits a maiden, The fairest of the fair, With gold in her garment glittering, And she combs her golden hair.

A pine tree standeth lonely In the North on an upland bare; It standeth whitely shrouded With snow, and sleepeth there. It dreameth of a Palm tree Which far in the East alone, In the mournful silence standeth On its ridge of burning stone.

They loved each other, but neither Would venture to speak thereof; They glared at each other like enemies And wanted to die of love.

He only profits from praise who values criticism.

The real madness probably is not another thing that the wisdom itself that, tired of discovering the shames of the world, has taken the intelligent resolution to become mad

Iron helmets will not save/ Even heroes from the grave/ Good man's blood will drain away/ While the wickid win the day.

Όπου καίνε βιβλία, σύντομα θα κάψουν και ανθρώπους!

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

It is there, where they burn books, that eventually they burn people.

I have sown Dragon's teeth and reaped only fleas.

In dark ages people are best guided by religion, as in a pitch-black night a blind man is the best guide; he knows the roads and paths better than a man who can see. When daylight comes, however, it is foolish to use blind old men as guides. —HEINRICH HEINE, GEDANKEN UND EINFALLE

With his nightcaps and the tatters of his dressing-gown he patches up the gaps in the structure of the universe.

But that age … exerts on us An almost terrible charm, Like the memory of things seen And a life lived in dreams.

Where one burns books, there one eventually burns people.

Seriousness shows itself more majestically when laughter leads the way.

God will pardon me..that's His line of work. last words of Heinrich Heine

There, where one burns books, one in the end burns men. —Heinrich Heine

When the leeches have sucked enough blood, one simply has to sprinkle some salt on their backs and they fall off – But you, my friend, how can I get rid of you? Your despairing cousin

So we keep asking, over and over Until a handful of earth Stops our mouths- But is that an answer?

There, where one burns books, one in the end burns men.

as in Heinrich Heine’s (a contemporary of Kierkegaard’s) well-known saying that one should value above everything else ‘freedom, equality and crab soup’. ‘Crab soup’ stands here for all the small pleasures in the absence of which we become (mental, if not real) terrorists,

I once saw many flowers blooming Upon my way, in indolence I scorned to pick them in my going And passed in proud indifference. Now, when my grave is dug, they taunt me; Now, when I'm sick to death in pain, In mocking torment still they haunt me, Those fragrant blooms of my disdain.

The weather-cock on the church spire, though made of iron, would soon be broken by the storm-wind if it did not understand the noble art of turning to every wind.

When words leave off, music begins.

The arrow belongs not to the archer when it has once left the bow; the word no longer belongs to the speaker when it has once passed his lips.

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.

The German Censors —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— Idiots —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— ——

Heinrich Heine, en algún momento de su vida había dicho que "Allí donde se queman libros se acaba por quemar a los hombres" de una manera premonitoria y dramática. "Los libros deben ser instrumentos peligrosos, muy peligrosos, más que un fusil o un cañón, si provocan esas reacciones

Aufmunternd sprach ich: »Ihr lieben Leut', Ihr müßt nicht jammern und flennen; Troja war eine bessere Stadt Und mußte doch verbrennen.

Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen

Christianity - and that is its greatest merit - has somewhat mitigated that brutal Germanic love of war, but it could not destroy it. Should that subduing talisman, the cross, be shattered, the frenzied madness of the ancient warriors, that insane Berserk rage of which Nordic bards have spoken and sung so often, will once more burst into flame. This talisman is fragile, and the day will come when it will collapse miserably. Then the ancient stony gods will rise from the forgotten debris and rub the dust of a thousand years from their eyes, and finally Thor with his giant hammer will jump up and smash the Gothic cathedrals. ... 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. (1834)

At first I was almost for giving in; I thought I never could bear it. Yet, in spite of all, I’ve borne it— Only ask me not how. —HEINRICH HEINE QUOTATION, KEPT ON SISI’S DESK CHAPTER 13 Moravia, Austria-Hungary Summer 1885 “Let’s see now.

If the Romans had been obliged to learn Latin, they would never have found the time to conquer the world.

Kalau orang sudah mulai membakar buku-buku, akhirnya mereka akan membakar manusia.

For the Greeks, beauty is truth; for the Hebrews, truth is beauty.

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

And if the little flowers knew how deeply wounded my heart is They would weep with me to heal my pain. —“AND IF THE LITTLE FLOWERS KNEW” BY HEINRICH HEINE, MUSIC BY ROBERT SCHUMANN

Lieb Liebchen, leg ‘s Händchen aufs Herze mein; - Ach, hörst du, wie’s pochet im Kämmerlein, Da hauset ein Zimmermann schlimm und arg, Der zimmert mir einen Totensarg. Es hämmert und klopfet bei Tag und bei Nacht; Es hat mich schon längst um den Schlaf gebracht. Ach! sputet Euch, Meister Zimmermann, Damit ich balde schlafen kann.

Sie liebten sich beide, doch keiner Wollt es dem andern gestehn; Sie sahen sich an so feindlich, Und wollten vor Liebe vergehn. Sie trennten sich endlich und sahn sich Nur noch zuweilen im Traum; Sie waren längst gestorben, Und wußten es selber kaum.

There are many voices Hitler would quiet, especially those who are Jewish.” Mr. Evans slid the new book reverently beside the others. “It is the duty of the rest of the world to ensure they will never be silenced.” He tapped a yellow spine with Almansor in gilt at its top. “‘Where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people as well.’ Heinrich Heine isn’t Jewish, but his ideals go against what Hitler believes.

Ich las das langweilige Buch, schlief darüber ein, im Schlafe träumte ich, weiter zu lesen, erwachte vor Langeweile, und das dreimal.

Gott wird mir verzeihen, das ist sein Beruf.

One must, it is true, forgive one's enemies-- but not before they have been hanged.

Fatal ist mir das Lumpenpack, Das, um die Herzen zu rühren, Den Patriotismus trägt zur Schau Mit allen seinen Geschwüren.

Чтобы победить самые тяжёлые страдания, есть два средства: это опиум и работа.

Still is the night, it quiets the streets down, In that window my love would appear; She's long since gone away from this town, But this house where she lived still remains here. A man stands here too, staring up into space, And wrings his hands with the strength of his pain: It chills me, when I behold his pale face For the moon shows me my own features again! You spirit double, you specter with my face Why do you mock my love-pain so That tortured me here, here in this place So many nights, so long ago?

آن‌جا که کتاب‌ها را می‌سوزانند، بلاخره مردم را هم می‌سوزانند.

عازفةُ الهارب الصغيرة، تُغنّي تغنّي؛ الإحساس صادقٌ والصوت مفتعلٌ، غير أنّي - وياللعجب، كنتُ مطمئنا تماما لعزفها

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

Jede Zeit ist eine Sphinx, die sich in den Abgrund stürzt, sobald man ihr Rätsel gelöst hat.

Какво е любовта – зъбобол на сърцето.

That was but a prelude; where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people as well.

Christianity — and that is its greatest merit — has somewhat mitigated that brutal German love of war, but it could not destroy it. Should that subduing talisman, the Cross, be shattered, the frenzied madness of the ancient warriors, that insane Berserk rage of which Nordic bards have spoken and sung so often, will once more burst into flame. This talisman [the cross] is fragile, and the day will come when it will collapse miserably. Then . . . a play will be performed in Germany which will make the French Revolution look like an innocent idyll.

The history of Immanuel Kant's life is difficult to portray, for he had neither life nor history. He led a mechanical, regular, almost abstract bachelor existence in a little retired street of Königsberg, an old town on the north-eastern frontier of Germany. I do not believe that the great clock of the cathedral performed in a more passionless and methodical manner its daily routine than did its townsman, Immanuel Kant. Rising in the morning, coffee-drinking, writing, reading lectures, dining, walking, everything had its appointed time, and the neighbors knew that it was exactly half-past three o'clock when Kant stepped forth from his house in his grey, tight-fitting coat, with his Spanish cane in his hand, and betook himself to the little linden avenue called after him to this day the "Philosopher's Walk." Summer and winter he walked up and down it eight times, and when the weather was dull or heavy clouds prognosticated rain, the townspeople beheld his servant, the old Lampe, trudging anxiously behind Kant with a big umbrella under his arm, like an image of Providence. What a strange contrast did this man's outward life present to his destructive, world-annihilating thoughts! In sooth, had the citizens of Königsberg had the least presentiment of the full significance of his ideas, they would have felt far more awful dread at the presence of this man than at the sight of an executioner, who can but kill the body. But the worthy folk saw in him nothing more than a Professor of Philosophy, and as he passed at his customary hour, they greeted him in a friendly manner and set their watches by him.

Like a great poet, nature knows how to produce the greatest effects with the utmost economy of means: nothing but sun, trees, flowers, water, and love. Of course, if the latter is absent from the beholder’s heart, the whole landscape will be an unpleasing sight; then the sun is merely so many miles in diameter, and the trees provide good firewood, and the flowers are classified according to the number of their stamens, and the water is wet.

Ревността наподобява повече завист, отколкото да е плод на някаква любов. А завистта е дребнав, пълзящ порок, в повечето случаи неоправдан и безпочвен. Ако има основателен повод за ревност, то тогава е излишно да се говори за любов. Само хората са толкова придирчиви. Пеперудата не пита цветето: "Друг целувал ли те е вече?". И цветето не пита: "Задиряла ли си друго цвете?

I am no longer a divine biped. I am no longer the freest German after Goethe, as Ruge named me in healthier days. I am no longer the great hero No. 2, who was compared with the grape-crowned Dionysius, whilst my colleague No. 1 enjoyed the title of a Grand Ducal Weimarian Jupiter. I am no longer a joyous, somewhat corpulent Hellenist, laughing cheerfully down upon the melancholy Nazarenes. I am now a poor fatally-ill Jew, an emaciated picture of woe, an unhappy man.

XXIII. Warum sind denn die Rosen so blaß, O sprich, mein Lieb, warum? Warum sind denn im grünen Gras Die blauen Veilchen so stumm? Warum singt denn mit so kläglichem Laut Die Lerche in der Luft? Warum steigt denn aus dem Balsamkraut Hervor ein Leichenduft? Warum scheint denn die Sonn’ auf die Au’ So kalt und verdrießlich herab? Warum ist denn die Erde so grau Und öde wie ein Grab? Warum bin ich selbst so krank und so trüb’, Mein liebes Liebchen, sprich? O sprich, mein herzallerliebstes Lieb, Warum verließest du mich?

So long as my heart is full of love and the heads of my fellow-men are full of folly, I shall never lack something to write about.

Wherever a great soul utters its thoughts, there is Golgatha.

Mine is a most peaceable disposition. My wishes are: a humble dwelling with a thatched roof, but a good bed, good food, milk and butter of the freshest, flowers at my window, and a few fine tall trees before my door; and if God wants to make my happiness complete, he will grant me the joy of seeing some six or seven of my enemies hanging from those trees. Before death I shall, moved in my heart, forgive them all the wrong they did to me in their lifetimes. One must, it is true, forgive one’s enemies—but not before they have been hanged.

Valentine’s concept of introversion includes traits that contemporary psychology would classify as openness to experience (“thinker, dreamer”), conscientiousness (“idealist”), and neuroticism (“shy individual”). A long line of poets, scientists, and philosophers have also tended to group these traits together. All the way back in Genesis, the earliest book of the Bible, we had cerebral Jacob (a “quiet man dwelling in tents” who later becomes “Israel,” meaning one who wrestles inwardly with God) squaring off in sibling rivalry with his brother, the swashbuckling Esau (a “skillful hunter” and “man of the field”). In classical antiquity, the physicians Hippocrates and Galen famously proposed that our temperaments—and destinies—were a function of our bodily fluids, with extra blood and “yellow bile” making us sanguine or choleric (stable or neurotic extroversion), and an excess of phlegm and “black bile” making us calm or melancholic (stable or neurotic introversion). Aristotle noted that the melancholic temperament was associated with eminence in philosophy, poetry, and the arts (today we might classify this as opennessto experience). The seventeenth-century English poet John Milton wrote Il Penseroso (“The Thinker”) and L’Allegro (“The Merry One”), comparing “the happy person” who frolics in the countryside and revels in the city with “the thoughtful person” who walks meditatively through the nighttime woods and studies in a “lonely Towr.” (Again, today the description of Il Penseroso would apply not only to introversion but also to openness to experience and neuroticism.) The nineteenth-century German philosopher Schopenhauer contrasted “good-spirited” people (energetic, active, and easily bored) with his preferred type, “intelligent people” (sensitive, imaginative, and melancholic). “Mark this well, ye proud men of action!” declared his countryman Heinrich Heine. “Ye are, after all, nothing but unconscious instruments of the men of thought.” Because of this definitional complexity, I originally planned to invent my own terms for these constellations of traits. I decided against this, again for cultural reasons: the words introvert and extrovert have the advantage of being well known and highly evocative. Every time I uttered them at a dinner party or to a seatmate on an airplane, they elicited a torrent of confessions and reflections. For similar reasons, I’ve used the layperson’s spelling of extrovert rather than the extravert one finds throughout the research literature.

He always maintained that we fear something because we recognize it as fearsome through rational inferences, and that only the reason had any power; the heart had none. While I ate well and drank well, he kept demonstrating to me the advantages of reason... In striving after the positive, the poor man had argued away all life's splendour, all the sunbeams, all the faith and all the flowers, leaving nothing but the cold, positive grave.

Guter Rat Laß dein Grämen und dein Schämen! Werbe keck und fordre laut, Und man wird sich dir bequemen, Und du führest heim die Braut. Wirf dein Gold den Musikanten, Denn die Fiedel macht das Fest; Küsse deine Schwiegertanten, Denkst du gleich: Hol euch die Pest! Rede gut von einem Fürsten, Und nicht schlecht von einer Frau; Knickre nicht mit deinen Würsten, Wenn du schlachtest eine Sau. Ist die Kirche dir verhaßt, Tor, Desto öfter geh hinein; Zieh den Hut ab vor dem Pastor, Schick ihm auch ein Fläschchen Wein. Fühlst du irgendwo ein Jücken, Kratze dich als Ehrenmann; Wenn dich deine Schuhe drücken, Nun, so zieh Pantoffeln an. Hat versalzen dir die Suppe Deine Frau, bezähm die Wut, Sag ihr lächelnd: Süße Puppe, Alles was du kochst ist gut. Trägt nach einem Schal Verlangen Deine Frau, so kauf ihr zwei; Kauf ihr Spitzen, goldne Spangen Und Juwelen noch dabei. Wirst du diesen Rat erproben, Dann, mein Freund! genießest du Einst das Himmelreich dort oben, Und du hast auf Erden Ruh.

There are many voices Hitler would quiet, especially those who are Jewish.” Mr. Evans slid the new book reverently beside the others. “It is the duty of the rest of the world to ensure they will never be silenced.” He tapped a yellow spine with Almansor in gilt at its top. “‘Where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people as well.’ Heinrich Heine isn’t Jewish, but his ideals go against what Hitler believes.” Mr. Evans pushed the safe door closed with an ominous bang. “This war is about far more than blackouts and food rationing, Miss Bennett.” She swallowed. People were dying to save books, to prevent ideas and people from being snuffed out.

The ancient, tremulous woman who was sitting behind the stove opposite the big cupboard may have sat there for a quarter of a century, and her thoughts and feelings are closely interwoven with every corner of the stove and every carving on the cupboard. And the stove and cupboard are alive, for part of a human soul has entered into them.

Denk ich an Deutschland in der Nacht, Dann bin ich um den Schlaf gebracht, Ich kann nicht mehr die Augen schließen, Und meine heißen Tränen fließen. Die Jahre kommen und vergehn! Seit ich die Mutter nicht gesehn, Zwölf Jahre sind schon hingegangen; Es wächst mein Sehnen und Verlangen. Mein Sehnen und Verlangen wächst. Die alte Frau hat mich behext, Ich denke immer an die alte, Die alte Frau, die Gott erhalte! Die alte Frau hat mich so lieb, Und in den Briefen, die sie schrieb, Seh ich, wie ihre Hand gezittert, Wie tief das Mutterherz erschüttert. Die Mutter liegt mir stets im Sinn. Zwölf lange Jahre flossen hin, Zwölf lange Jahre sind verflossen, Seit ich sie nicht ans Herz geschlossen. Deutschland hat ewigen Bestand, Es ist ein kerngesundes Land, Mit seinen Eichen, seinen Linden, Werd' ich es immer wiederfinden. Nach Deutschland lechzt ich nicht so sehr, Wenn nicht die Mutter dorten wär; Das Vaterland wird nie verderben, Jedoch die alte Frau kann sterben. Seit ich das Land verlassen hab, So viele sanken dort ins Grab, Die ich geliebt -- wenn ich sie zähle, So will verbluten meine Seele. Und zählen muß ich -- Mit der Zahl Schwillt immer höher meine Qual; Mir ist, als wälzten sich die Leichen, Auf meine Brust -- Gottlob! Sie weichen! Gottlob! Durch meine Fenster bricht Französisch heitres Tageslicht; Es kommt mein Weib, schön wie der Morgen Und lächelt fort die deutschen Sorgen.