Heinrich Von Kleist Quotes & Sayings

Does that mean", I said in some bewilderment, "that we must eat again of the tree of knowledge in order to return to the state of innocence?"
"Of course", he said, "but that's the final chapter in the history of the world. — Heinrich Von Kleist

In M
, an important town in northern Italy, the widowed Marquise of O
, a lady of unblemished reputation and the mother of several well-brought-up children, inserted the following announcement in the newspapers: that she had, without knowledge of the cause, come to find herself in a certain situation; that she would like the father of the child she was expecting to disclose his identity to her; that she was resolved, out of consideration to her family, to marry him. — Heinrich Von Kleist

The kiss and the bite are such close cousins that in the heat of love they are too readily confounded — Heinrich Von Kleist

I write only because I cannot stop. — Heinrich Von Kleist

To live in a place where I am not, and in a time that is either past or not yet come. — Heinrich Von Kleist

The resolve rising in her soul to die with me drew me I cannot tell you how powerfully, irresistibly to her bosom. Do you remember that I often asked you would you die with me? - But you always said no - A whirlpool of never before experienced happiness has seized hold of me and I cannot deny that her grave is dearer to me than the beds of all the empresses in the world. - Oh, my dear friend, may God soon call you to that better world where we shall all with the love of the angels embrace one another again.
- Adieu. — Heinrich Von Kleist

But paradise is locked and bolted ...
We must make a journey around the world to see if a back door has perhaps been left open. — Heinrich Von Kleist

Misconceptions are unavoidable now that we've eaten of the Tree of Knowledge. But Paradise is locked and bolted, and the cherubim stands behind us. We have to go on and make the journey round the world to see if it is perhaps open somewhere at the back. — Heinrich Von Kleist

We see that in the organic world, to the same degree that reflection gets darker and weaker, grace grows ever more radiant and dominant. But just as two lines intersect on one side of a point, and after passing through infinity, suddenly come together again on the other side; or the image in a concave mirror suddenly reappears before us after drawing away into the infinite distance, so too, does grace return once perception, as it were, has traversed the infinite
such that it simultaneously appears the purest in human bodily structures that are either devoid of consciousness or which possess an infinite consciousness, such as in the jointed manikin or the god. — Heinrich Von Kleist

In Santiago, the capital of the kingdom of Chile, at the moment of the great earthquake of 1647 in which many thousands lost their lives, a young Spaniard called Jeronimo Rugera was standing beside one of the pillars in the prison to which he had been committed on a criminal charge, and he was about to hang himself. — Heinrich Von Kleist