Heinrich Heine Quotes

From every Englishman emanates a kind of gas, the deadly choke-damp of boredom. ~ 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

Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them. ~ 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

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

Thought is invisible nature. ~ 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

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. ~ 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

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

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

All our contemporary philosophers perhaps without knowing it are looking through eyeglasses that Baruch Spinoza polished. Spinoza was a philosopher who earned his livelihood by grinding lenses. ~ Heinrich Heine

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

…near them grow dreamlike fairy-tale flowers whose leaves stir in the moonlight. ~ Heinrich Heine

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

The people have no ear, either for rhythm or music, and their unnatural passion for pianoforte playing and singing is thus all the more repulsive. There is nothing on earth more terrible than English music, except English painting. ~ Heinrich Heine

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

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

Pretty women without religion are like flowers without perfume. ~ Heinrich Heine

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

Known for his prose as for his poetry. The subsequent fame of his verse is due in part to the many composers who set poems, especially those in the Book of Songs, to music. Hence his early, lyrical verse became known at the expense of his later, predominantly satirical verse, and his verse has in turn overshadowed his prose. Yet Heine's prose is as rich in humour, satire, wit, lyricism, and ~ Heinrich Heine

The same fact that Boccaccio offers in support of religion might be adduced in behalf of a republic: It exists in spite of its ministers. ~ Heinrich Heine

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

This was but a prelude; where books are burnt human-beings will be burnt in the end ~ 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

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

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. ~ Heinrich Heine

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

Those who begin by burning books will end by burning people. ~ Heinrich Heine

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

A pine tree standeth lonely
In the North on an upland bare;
It standeth whitely shrouded
With snow, and sleepeth there.
It dreameth of a Palm tree
Which far in the East alone,
In the mournful silence standeth
On its ridge of burning stone. ~ Heinrich Heine

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

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. ~ Heinrich Heine

When the heroes go off the stage, the clowns come on. ~ Heinrich Heine

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

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

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

Christianity is an idea, and as such is indestructible and immortal, like every idea. ~ 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

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

God will forgive me; that's his business. ~ 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

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

The spring's already at the gate With looks my care beguiling; The country round appeareth straight A flower-garden smiling. ~ Heinrich Heine

I consider it a degradation and a stain on my honor to submit to baptism in order to qualify myself for state employment in Prussia. ~ 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

He that marries is like the dogs who was married to the Adriatic. He knows not what there is in that which he marries; mayhap treasures and pearls, mayhap monsters and tempests, await him. ~ Heinrich Heine

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

People in those old times had convictions; we moderns only have opinions. And it needs more than a mere opinion to erect a Gothic cathedral. ~ Heinrich Heine

Christianity - and that is its greatest merit - has somewhat mitigated that brutal German love of war, but it could not destroy it. Should that subduing talisman, the Cross, be shattered, the frenzied madness of the ancient warriors, that insane Berserk rage of which Nordic bards have spoken and sung so often, will once more burst into flame. This talisman [the cross] is fragile, and the day will come when it will collapse miserably. Then ... a play will be performed in Germany which will make the French Revolution look like an innocent idyll. ~ 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

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

Woman is at once apple and serpent. ~ Heinrich Heine

It is there, where they burn books, that eventually they burn people. ~ Heinrich Heine

A brainiac notices everything, an ignoramus comments about everything. ~ Heinrich Heine

He only profits from praise who values criticism. ~ Heinrich Heine

The lotus flower is troubled
At the sun's resplendent light;
With sunken head and sadly
She dreamily waits for the night. ~ Heinrich Heine

Tell me who first did kisses suggest? It was a mouth all glowing and blest; It kissed and it thought of nothing beside. The fair month of May was then in its pride, The flowers were all from the earth fast springing, The sun was laughing, the birds were singing. ~ Heinrich Heine

Every age thinks its battle the most important of all. ~ 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

I do not murmur, even if my heart break. ~ Heinrich Heine

Communism possesses a language which every people can understand - its elements are hunger, envy, and death. ~ Heinrich Heine

We know only that our entire existence is forced into new paths and disrupted, that new circumstances, new joys and new sorrows await us, and that the unknown has its uncanny attractions, alluring and at the same time anguishing. ~ Heinrich Heine

They loved each other, but neither
Would venture to speak thereof;
They glared at each other like enemies
And wanted to die of love. ~ Heinrich Heine

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

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. ~ 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

Silence can be defined as conversation with an Englishman ~ Heinrich Heine

Experience is a good school. But the fees are high ~ Heinrich Heine

You cannot feed the hungry on statistics. ~ Heinrich Heine

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

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

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. ~ Heinrich Heine

In the image of the lion made He kittens small and curious. ~ 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

Our sweetest hopes rise blooming. And then again are gone, They bloom and fade alternate, And so it goes rolling on. I know it, and it troubles My life, my love, my rest, My heart is wise and witty, And it bleeds within my breast. ~ Heinrich Heine

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

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

Since the Exodus, freedom has always spoken with a Hebrew accent. ~ Heinrich Heine

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

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

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

The butterfly long loved the beautiful rose, And flirted around all day; While round him in turn with her golden caress, Soft fluttered the sun's warm ray ... I know not with whom the rose was in love, But I know that I loved them all. The butterfly, rose, and the sun's bright ray, The star and the bird's sweet call. ~ Heinrich Heine

The sun's sweet ray is hovering discovered. ~ 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

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. ~ Heinrich Heine

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

I have a most peaceable disposition. My desires are for a modest hut, a thatched roof, but a good bed, good food, very fresh milk and butter, flowers in front of my window and a few pretty trees by my door. And should the good Lord wish to make me really happy, he will allow me the pleasure of seeing about six or seven of my enemies hanged upon those trees. ~ Heinrich Heine

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Oh, what lies there are in kisses. ~ Heinrich Heine

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

I have sown Dragon's teeth and reaped only fleas. ~ Heinrich Heine

Atheism is the last word of theism. ~ Heinrich Heine

God will pardon me. It is His trade. ~ Heinrich Heine

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. ~ 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

Perfumes are the feelings of flowers. ~ Heinrich Heine