Christian Morgenstern Quotes

Home isn't where our house is, but wherever we are understood.

The hidden child wants to be able to participate and to co-create in art, rather than being simply an admiring viewer.

The first principle of child-rearing is to choose a good mother.

There is a ghost That eats hankerchiefs; It keeps you company On all your travels.

In every man there is a hidden child which is called the urge to create and he prefers as play things and serious things not the miniature ships, recreated in the minutest detail, but the walnutshell with a bird feather as mast and sail and a pebble as the captain. He also wants to be able to participate and to co-create in art, rather than being simply an admiring viewer. For this "child in man" is the immortal creator within him.

That which must not, can not be.

A true artist never portrays to please, but to show.

My method is to find a word with a gesture.

Humor is the contemplation of the finite from the point of view of the infinite.

Often I am struck in amazement about a word: I suddenly realize that the complete arbitrariness of our language is but a part of the arbitrariness of our own world in general.

Enthusiasm is the most beautiful word on earth.

Chess truly uncovers whether or not someone has imagination and takes initiative.

There are often some hundred times, a thousand times, before you can really see it for the first time.

Woe to humanity, should only a single animal have a seat in the Last Judgement.

To me, the term 'middle-class' connotes a safe, comfortable, middle-of-the road policy. Above all, our language is 'middle-class' in the middle of our road. To drive it to one side or the other or even off the road, is the noblest task of the future.

In every work of art, the artist himself is present.

If I did not love what is present, if I could not cling to this enormous, safe parachute, I would long since have fallen into the abyss.