Heine Heinrich Quotes & Sayings

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

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

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. — Heinrich Heine

Laughter is wholesome. God is not so dull as some people make out. Did not He make the kitten to chase its tail. — Heinrich Heine

Wherever people burn books, there, finally, they will also burn people. — Heinrich Heine

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

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. — Heinrich Heine

In the image of the lion made He kittens small and curious. — Heinrich Heine

Oh fair, oh sweet and holy as dew at morning tide,
I gaze on thee, and yearnings, sad in my bosom hide. — Heinrich Heine

It is necessary for us to explain the involuntary repugnance we possess for the nature and personality of the Jews ... The Jews have never produced a true poet. Heinrich Heine reached the point where he duped himself into a poet, and was rewarded by his versified lies being set to music by our own composers. He was the conscience of Judaism, just as Judaism is the evil conscience of our modern civilization. — Richard Wagner

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

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. — Heinrich Heine

Christ rode on an ass, but now asses ride on Christ. — Heinrich Heine

The cloudlets are lazily sailing O'er the blue Atlantic sea; And mid the twilight there hovers A shadowy figure o'er me ... — Heinrich Heine

My heart resembles the ocean; has storm, and ebb and flow; and many a beautiful pearl lies hid in its depths below. — Heinrich Heine

It is an ancient story
Yet is it ever new. — Heinrich Heine

The nightingale appear'd the first, And as her melody she sang, The apple into blossom burst, To life the grass and violets sprang. — Heinrich Heine

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

Don't send a poet to London. — Heinrich Heine

The Bible is the great family chronicle of the Jews. — Heinrich Heine

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

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

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

Where books are burned in the end people will be burned too. — Heinrich Heine

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. — Heinrich Heine

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

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! — Heinrich Heine

The negro king desired to be portrayed as white. But do not laugh at the poor African; for every man is but another negro king, and would like to appear in a color different from that with which Fate has bedaubed him. — Heinrich Heine

At Dresden on the Elbe, that handsome city,
Where straw hats, verses, and cigars are made,
They've built (it well may make us feel afraid,)
A music club and music warehouse pretty. — Heinrich Heine

As the stars are the glory of the sky, so great men are the glory of their country, yea, of the whole earth. The hearts of great men are the stars of earth; and doubtless when one looks down from above upon our planet, these hearts are seen to send forth, a silvery light just like the stars of heaven. — Heinrich Heine

Literary history is the great morgue where all seek the dead ones whom they love, or to whom they are related. — Heinrich Heine

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

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. — Heinrich Heine

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

And over the pond are sailing Two swans all white as snow; Sweet voices mysteriously wailing Pierce through me as onward they go. They sail along, and a ringing Sweet melody rises on high; And when the swans begin singing, They presently must die. — Heinrich Heine

Photography is a witness against the mistaken opinion that art is an imitation of nature. — Heinrich Heine

Music is a strange thing. I would almost say it is a miracle. — Heinrich Heine

But oh! the Latin!-Madame, you can really have no idea of what a mess it is. The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin. Lucky dogs! they already knew in their cradles the nouns ending in im. I on the contrary had to learn it by heart, in the sweat of my brow ... — Heinrich Heine

I live, which is the main point. — Heinrich Heine

The swan in the pool is singing, And up and down doth he steer, And, singing gently ever, Dips under the water clear. — Heinrich Heine

The Blossoms and leaves in plenty From the apple tree fall each day; The merry breezes approach them, And with them merrily play. — Heinrich Heine

God will pardon: That's His business. — Heinrich Heine

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, — Slavoj Zizek

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

Das war ein vorspeil nur; That was only a prelude; dort wo man Buecher verbrennt, Where one burns books, vebrennt man auch am Ende One will also burn people Menchen. Eventually. — Heinrich Heine

Sweet May lies fresh before us, To life the young flowers leap, And through the Heaven's blue o'er us The rosy cloudlets sweep. — Heinrich Heine

In the marvelous month of May when all the buds were bursting, then in my heart did love arise. In the marvelous month of May when all the birds were singing, then did I reveal to her my yearning and longing. — Heinrich Heine

A blaspheming Frenchman is a spectacle more pleasing to the Lord than a praying Englishman. — Heinrich Heine

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. — Heinrich Heine

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. — Heinrich Heine

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

Reason exercises merely the function of preserving order, is, so to say, the police in the region of art. In life it is mostly a cold arithmetician summing up our follies. — Heinrich Heine

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

Out of my own great woe I make my little songs. — Heinrich Heine

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. — Heinrich Heine

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. — Heinrich Heine

Where they burn books, at the end they also burn people — Heinrich Heine

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. — Heinrich Heine

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. — Heinrich Heine

She resembles the Venus de Milo: she is very old, has no teeth, and has white spots on her yellow skin. — Heinrich Heine

Perfumes are the feelings of flowers. — Heinrich Heine

Seriousness shows itself more majestically when laughter leads the way. — Heinrich Heine

Twelve Dancings are dancing, and taking no rest, And closely their hands together are press'd; And soon as a dance has come to a close, Another begins, and each merrily goes. — Heinrich Heine

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

Every age thinks its battle the most important of all. — Heinrich Heine

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? — Heinrich Heine

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

Where words leave off, music begins. — Heinrich Heine

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

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

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

He who fears to venture as far as his heart urges and his reason permits, is a coward; he who ventures further than he intended to go, is a slave. — Heinrich Heine

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. — Heinrich Heine

It is only kindred griefs that draw forth our tears, and each weeps really for himself. — Heinrich Heine

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

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

At noon I feel as though I could devour all the elephants of Hindostan, and then pick my teeth with the spire of Strasburg cathedral; in the evening I become so sentimental that I would fain drink up the Milky Way without reflecting how indigestible I should find the little fixed stars, and by night there is the Devil himself broke loose in my head and no mistake. — Heinrich Heine

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

Our souls must become expanded by the contemplation of Nature's grandeur, before we can fully comprehend the greatness of man. — Heinrich Heine

Oh, they loved dearly: their souls kissed, they kissed with their eyes, they were both but one single kiss. — Heinrich Heine

The beauteous eyes of the spring's fair night With comfort are downward gazing. — Heinrich Heine

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

Thought precedes action as lighting does thunder. — Heinrich Heine

Where they burn books they will in the end burn people too — Heinrich Heine

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. — Heinrich Heine

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. — Heinrich Heine

Where words cease, there music begins. — Heinrich Heine

Like a great poet, nature produces the greatest results with the simplest means. There are simply a sun, flowers, water, and love. — Heinrich Heine

The Wedding March always reminds me of the music played when soldiers go into battle. — Heinrich Heine

As masters of the bond market, the Rothschilds were already more feared than loved. Reactionaries on the Right lamented the rise of a new form of wealth, higher-yielding and more liquid than the landed estates of Europe's aristocratic elites. As Heinrich Heine discerned, there was something profoundly revolutionary about the financial system the Rothschilds were creating: — Niall Ferguson

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

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 — Alan Elsner

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

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

The deepest truth blooms only from the deepest love. — Heinrich Heine

Ask me not what I have, but what I am. — Heinrich Heine

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 ... — Heinrich Heine

The eyes of spring, so azure, Are peeping from the ground; They are the darling violets, That I in nosegays bound. — Heinrich Heine

Who destroys books? Cities, churches, dictators and fanatics. Their fingers itch to build a pyre and strike the match. On 10 May 1933, students gathered in Berlin to dance around a bonfire of 25,000 volumes of 'un-German' books. They burned, amongst many others, Bertolt Brecht, Otto Dix, Heinrich Heine, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce and H.G. Wells. They destroyed them because the contents were too dangerous. — Linda Grant

You should only attempt to borrow from those who have but few of this world's goods, as their chests are not of iron, and they are, besides, anxious to appear wealthier than they really are. — Heinrich Heine