70 Heinrich Heine Quotes

Heinrich Heine quotes

1. Out of my own great woe I make my little songs.

2. Ich weiss nicht, was soll es bedeuten, Dass ich so traurig bin; Ein Marchen aus alten Zeiten, Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn.

3. Du bist wie eine Blume, So hold und schon und rein; Ich schau dich an, und Wehmut Schleicht mir ins Herz hinein.

4. At first I was almost about to despair, I thought I never could bear it - but I did I bear it. The question remains: how?

5. Dort, wo man Bucher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.

6. Every woman is the gift of a world to me.

7. Don't send a poet to London.

8. 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.

9. Christianity is an idea, and as such is indestructible and immortal, like every idea.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. If one has no heart, one cannot write for the masses.

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. No talent, but a character.

16. Ordinarily he is insane, but he has lucid moments when he is only stupid.

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

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

19. Rossini! divino Maestro!

20. Bien sur, il me pardonnera; c'est son metier. [Of course he will forgive me; that's his job.]

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

22. Great genius takes shape by contact with another great genius, but less by assimilation than by friction.

23. My songs, they say, are poisoned. How else, love, could it be? Thou hast, with deadly magic, Poured poison into me.

24. Oh what lies there are in kisses! And their guile so well prepared! Sweet the snaring is; but this is Sweeter still, to be ensnared.

25. 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.

26. 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.

27. Experience is a good school. But the fees are high.

28. When words leave off, music begins.

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

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

31. The fundamental evil of the world arose from the fact that the good Lord has not created money enough.

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

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

34. In earlier religions the spirit of the time was expressed through the individual and confirmed by miracles. In modern religions the spirit is expressed through the many and confirmed by reason.

35. You cannot feed the hungry on statistics.

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

37. Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak and to speak well are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.

38. True eloquence consists in saying all that is necessary, and nothing but what is necessary.

39. Heine says that a true autobiography is almost an impossibility, and that man is bound to lie about himself.

1. Where books are burnt, men finish up being burnt too.

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

3. Human misery is too great for men to do without faith.

4. Every age has its problem, by solving which humanity is helped forward.

5. The beauteous dragonfly's dancing By the waves of the rivulet glancing; She dances here and she dances there, The glimmering, glittering flutterer fair. Full many a beetle with loud applause Admires her dress of azure gauze, Admires her body's bright splendour, And also her figure so slender...

6. 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.

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

8. Nothing is more futile than theorizing about music. No doubt there are laws, mathematically strict laws, but these laws are not music; they are only its conditions? The essence of music is revelation.

9. A lonely fir-tree is standing On a northern barren height; It sleeps, and the ice and snow-drift Cast round it a garment of white.

10. Thought is invisible nature.

11. The dragon-fly is dancing,— Is on the water glancing, She flits about with nimble wing, The flickering, fluttering, restless thing. Besotted chafers all admire Her light-blue, gauze-like, neat attire; They laud her blue complexion, And think her shape perfection...

12. There is one thing on earth more terrible than English music, and that is English painting.

13. He is noble who both feels and acts nobly.

14. Immortality—dazzling idea! who first imagined thee! Was it some jolly burgher of Nuremburg, who with night-cap on his head, and white clay pipe in mouth, sat on some pleasant summer evening before his door, and reflected in all his comfort, that it would be right pleasant, if, with unextinguishable pipe, and endless breath, he could thus vegetate onwards for a blessed eternity? Or was it a lover, who in the arms of his loved one, thought the immortality-thought, and that because he could think and feel naught beside!—Love! Immortality!

15. The same fact that Boccaccio offers in support of religion might be adduced in behalf of a republic: "It exists in spite of its ministers.

16. No author is a man of genius to his publisher.

17. Music played at weddings always reminds me of the music played for soldiers before they go into battle.

18. The men of action are, after all, only the unconscious instruments of the men of thought.

19. Tell me who first did kisses suggest? It was a mouth all glowing and blest; It kissed and it thought of nothing beside. The fair month of May was then in its pride, The flowers were all from the earth fast springing, The sun was laughing, the birds were singing.

20. The lotus flower is troubled At the sun's resplendent light; With sunken head and sadly She dreamily waits for the night.

21. Nature, like a true poet, abhors abrupt transitions.

22. If thou lookest on the lime-leaf, Thou a heart's form will discover; Therefore are the lindens ever Chosen seats of each fond lover.

23. He only profits from praise who values criticism.

24. If you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe.

25. 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.

26. Thinking of Germany in the night robs me of my sleep.

27. The sun's sweet ray is hovering discovered.

28. The Portuguese, Dutch and English have been for a long time year after year, shipping home the treasures of India in their big vessels. We Germans have been all along been left to watch it. Germany would do likewise, but hers would be treasures of spiritual knowledge.

29. 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.

30. God will pardon: That's His business.

31. I call'd the devil, and he came, And with wonder his form did I closely scan; He is not ugly, and is not lame, But really a handsome and charming man. A man in the prime of life is the devil, Obliging, a man of the world, and civil; A diplomatist too, well skill'd in debate, He talks quite glibly of church and state.