Heinrich Heine Quotes

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.

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

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

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.

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

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...

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

The deepest truth blooms only from the deepest love.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

The gazelles so gentle and clever Skip lightly in frolicsome mood.

Woman is at once apple and serpent.

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

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

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

You cannot feed the hungry on statistics.

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.

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

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.

A brainiac notices everything, an ignoramus comments about everything.

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

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

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.

Perfumes are the feelings of flowers.

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

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

Where words leave off, music begins.

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.

Newness hath an evanescent beauty.

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.

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

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

He only profits from praise who values criticism.

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.

As the moon's fair image quaketh In the raging waves of ocean, Whilst she, in the vault of heaven, Moves with silent peaceful motion.

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.

God will pardon me. It is His trade.

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

Don't send a poet to London.

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

Pretty women without religion are like flowers without perfume.

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

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.

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.

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