Heinrich heine Inspirational Quotes

It is an ancient story Yet is it ever new.

The night comes stealing o'er me, And clouds are on the sea; While the wavelets rustle before me With a mystical melody.

Silence can be defined as conversation with an Englishman

It is a common phenomenon that just the prettiest girls find it so difficult to get a man.

There is no Sixth Commandment in art. The poet is entitled to lay his hands on whatever material he finds necessary for his work.

Human misery is too great for men to die without faith.

On the waves of the brook she dances by, The light, the lovely dragon-fly; She dances here, she dances there, The shimmering, glimmering flutterer fair. And many a foolish young beetle's impressed By the blue gauze gown in which she is dressed; They admire the enamel that decks her bright, And her elegant waist so slim and slight.

Whether a revolution succeeds or fails people of great hearts will always be sacrificed to it.

Matrimony; the high sea for which no compass has yet been invented.

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.

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

The swan, like the soul of the poet, By the dull world is ill understood.

It is extremely difficult for a Jew to be converted, for how can he bring himself to believe in the divinity of - another Jew?

Each violet peeps from its dwelling to gaze at the bright stars above.

The men of the past had convictions, while we moderns have only opinions.

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.

Perfumes are the feelings of flowers, and as the human heart, imagining itself alone and unwatched, feels most deeply in the night-time, so seems it as if the flowers, in musing modesty, await the mantling eventide ere they give themselves up wholly to feeling...

I bequeath all my property to my wife on the condition that she remarry immediately. Then there will be at least one man to regret my death.

A brainiac notices everything, an ignoramus comments about everything.

Life is the greatest of blessings and death the worst of evils.... all great, powerful souls love life.

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

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.

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

Poverty sits by the cradle of all our great men and rocks all of them to manhood.

Money is the god of our time, and Rothschild is his prophet.

Where words leave off, music begins.

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.

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

The propaganda of communism possesses a language which every people can understand. Its elements are simply hunger, envy, death.

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.

The fountain of love is the rose and the lily, the sun and the dove.

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...

With the rose the butterfly's deep in love, A thousand times hovering round; But round himself, all tender like gold, The sun's sweet ray is hovering found.

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

Thought is invisible nature.

I do not know the meaning of my sadness; there is an old fairy tale that I cannot get out of my mind.

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.

Like a great poet, Nature produces the greatest results with the simplest means. These are simply a sun, trees, flowers, water and love. Of course, if the spectator be without the last, the whole will present but a pitiful appearance, and in that case, the sun is merely so many miles in diameter, the trees are good for fuel, the flowers are classified by stamens, and the water is simply wet.

I live! Red life boils in my veins, earth yields beneath my feet, in the glow of love I embrace trees and statues, and they live in my embrace. Every woman is to me the gift of a world. I revel in the melody of her countenance, and with a single glance of my eye I can enjoy more than others with their every limb through all their lives.

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.

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

Nature, like a true poet, abhors abrupt transitions.

In action, the English have the advantage enjoyed by free men always entitled to free discussion: of having a ready judgment on every question. We Germans, on the other hand, are always thinking. We think so much that we never form a judgment.

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

Silence is the essential condition of happiness.

The sun's sweet ray is hovering discovered.

In blissful dream, in silent night, There came to me, with magic might, With magic might, my own sweet love, Into my little room above.

Sweet May hath come to love us, Flowers, trees, their blossoms don; And through the blue heavens above us The very clouds move on.

There is only one writer in whom I find something that reminds me of the directness of style which is found in the Bible. It is Shakespeare.

Don't send a poet to London.

Like a great poet, Nature produces the greatest results with the simplest means. These are simply a sun, trees, flowers, water and love.

Good Luck is a giddy maid, Fickle and restless as a fawn; She smooths your hair; and then the jade Kisses you quickly, and is gone.

Sleep is lovely, death is better still, not to have been born is of course the miracle.

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.

The violets prattle and titter, And gaze on the stars high above.

A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.

The artist is the child in the popular fable, every one of whose tears was a pearl.

I live, which is the main point.

Terrible as is war, it yet displays the spiritual grandeur of man daring to defy his mightiest hereditary enemy--death.

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.

Thought precedes action as lighting does thunder.

High in the air rises the forest of oaks, high over the oaks soar the eagle, high over the eagle sweep the clouds, high over the clouds gleam the stars... high over the stars sweep the angels.

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.

Like a great poet, Nature knows how to produce the greatest effects with the most limited means.

In these times we fight for ideas and newspapers are our fortress.

Wherever books are burned, human beings are destined to be burned too.

I care little in the existence of a heaven or hell; self respect does not allow me to guide my acts with an eye toward heavenly salvation or hellish punishment. I pursue the good in life because it is beautiful and attracts me; and shun the bad because it is ugly and repulsive. All our acts should originate from the spring of unselfish love, whether there be a continuation after death or not.

God will forgive me the foolish remarks I have made about Him just as I will forgive my opponents the foolish things they have written about me, even though they are spiritually as inferior to me as I to thee, O God!

What lies lurk in kisses.

Never let a fool kiss you, or a kiss fool you. Oh, what lies there are in kisses!

I have never seen an ass who talked like a human being, but I have met many human beings who talked like asses.

He only profits from praise who values criticism.

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.

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.

Christ rode on an ass, but now asses ride on Christ.

The sea appears all golden. Beneath the sun-lit sky.

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.

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.

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

The Bible is the great family chronicle of the Jews.

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.

I will not say that women have no character; rather, they have a new one every day.

No compass has ever been invented for the high seas of matrimony.

Religion cannot sink lower than when somehow it is raised to a state religion ... It becomes then an avowed mistress.

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

All special charters of freedom must be abrogated where the universal law of freedom is to flourish.

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

Phychical pain is more easily borne than physical; and if I had my choice between a bad conscience and a bad tooth, I should choose the former.

The years keep coming and going, Men will arise & depart; Only one thing is immortal: The love that is in my heart.

And the dancing has begun now, And the Dancings whirl round gaily In the waltz's giddy mazes, And the ground beneath them trembles.

But a day must come when the fire of youth will be quenched in my veins, when winter will dwell in my heart, when his snow flakes will whiten my locks, and his mists will dim my eyes. Then my friends will lie in their lonely grave, and I alone will remain like a solitary stalk forgotten by the reaper.

Woman is at once apple and serpent.

The deepest truth blooms only from the deepest love.

Genius: 1. to believe your own thought. To believe that what is true for you is ultimately true. 2. a sledgehammer. 3. the fruit of labour and thought. 4. soul. 5. the ability to put into effect what is in your mind. 6. something one can become.

You cannot feed the hungry on statistics.

Freedom is a new religion, the religion of our time.

Perhaps already I am dead, And these perhaps are phantoms vain; - These motley phantasies that pass At night through my disordered brain. Perhaps with ancient heathen shapes, Old faded gods, this brain is full; Who, for their most unholy rites, Have chosen a dead poet's skull.

I do not murmur, even if my heart break.

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

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

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.

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

Perfumes are the feelings of flowers.

Those who begin by burning books will end by burning people.

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

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

Out of my great sorrows, I make little songs.

God will pardon: That's His business.

Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.

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, especially when it has been multiplied by the press.

Ask me not what I have, but what I am.

Music is a strange thing. I would almost say it is a miracle. For it stands halfway between thought and phenomenon, between spirit and matter.

In vain would I seek to discover Why sad and mournful am I, My thoughts without ceasing brood over A tale of the time gone by.

Newness hath an evanescent beauty.

Man,--the aristocrat amongst the animals.

Everywhere that a great soul gives utterance to its thoughts, there also is a Golgotha.

When the heroes go off the stage, the clowns come on.

Every age thinks its battle the most important of all.

Atheism is the last word of theism

Whenever books are burned, men also in the end are burned.

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

God will forgive me. It's his job.