Heinrich Heine

“God will pardon me..that's His line of work. last words of Heinrich Heine”

“I take pride in never being rude to anyone on this earth, which contains a great number of unbearable villains who set upon you to recount their sufferings and even recite their poems.”

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

“The history of Immanuel Kant's life is difficult to portray, for he had neither life nor history. He led a mechanical, regular, almost abstract bachelor existence in a little retired street of Königsberg, an old town on the north-eastern frontier of Germany. I do not believe that the great clock of the cathedral performed in a more passionless and methodical manner its daily routine than did its townsman, Immanuel Kant. Rising in the morning, coffee-drinking, writing, reading lectures, dining, walking, everything had its appointed time, and the neighbors knew that it was exactly half-past three o'clock when Kant stepped forth from his house in his grey, tight-fitting coat, with his Spanish cane in his hand, and betook himself to the little linden avenue called after him to this day the "Philosopher's Walk." Summer and winter he walked up and down it eight times, and when the weather was dull or heavy clouds prognosticated rain, the townspeople beheld his servant, the old Lampe, trudging anxiously behind Kant with a big umbrella under his arm, like an image of Providence.What a strange contrast did this man's outward life present to his destructive, world-annihilating thoughts! In sooth, had the citizens of Königsberg had the least presentiment of the full significance of his ideas, they would have felt far more awful dread at the presence of this man than at the sight of an executioner, who can but kill the body. But the worthy folk saw in him nothing more than a Professor of Philosophy, and as he passed at his customary hour, they greeted him in a friendly manner and set their watches by him.”

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

“There, where one burns books, one in the end burns men.”

“Wann, endlich, wird diese Seite auch für deutsche Leser benutzerfreundlich? kann doch nicht so schwer sein.”

“Durch die Eisenbahn wird Raum getötet, und es bleibt nur noch die Zeit übrig.”

“Jede Zeit ist eine Sphinx, die sich in den Abgrund stürzt, sobald man ihr Rätsel gelöst hat.”

“I am no longer a divine biped. I am no longer the freest German after Goethe, as Ruge named me in healthier days. I am no longer the great hero No. 2, who was compared with the grape-crowned Dionysius, whilst my colleague No. 1 enjoyed the title of a Grand Ducal Weimarian Jupiter. I am no longer a joyous, somewhat corpulent Hellenist, laughing cheerfully down upon the melancholy Nazarenes. I am now a poor fatally-ill Jew, an emaciated picture of woe, an unhappy man.”

“XXIII.Warum sind denn die Rosen so blaß,O sprich, mein Lieb, warum?Warum sind denn im grünen GrasDie blauen Veilchen so stumm?Warum singt denn mit so kläglichem LautDie Lerche in der Luft?Warum steigt denn aus dem BalsamkrautHervor ein Leichenduft?Warum scheint denn die Sonn’ auf die Au’So kalt und verdrießlich herab?Warum ist denn die Erde so grauUnd öde wie ein Grab?Warum bin ich selbst so krank und so trüb’,Mein liebes Liebchen, sprich?O sprich, mein herzallerliebstes Lieb,Warum verließest du mich?”

“When the leeches have sucked enough blood, one simply has to sprinkle some salt on their backs and they fall off – But you, my friend, how can I get rid of you? Your despairing cousin”

“I once saw many flowers blooming Upon my way, in indolence I scorned to pick them in my going And passed in proud indifference. Now, when my grave is dug, they taunt me; Now, when I'm sick to death in pain, In mocking torment still they haunt me, Those fragrant blooms of my disdain.”

“He only profits from praise who values criticism.”

“Christianity - and that is its greatest merit - has somewhat mitigated that brutal Germanic 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 is fragile, and the day will come when it will collapse miserably. Then the ancient stony gods will rise from the forgotten debris and rub the dust of a thousand years from their eyes, and finally Thor with his giant hammer will jump up and smash the Gothic cathedrals. ... Do not smile at the visionary who anticipates the same revolution in the realm of the visible as has taken place in the spiritual. Thought precedes action as lightning precedes thunder. German thunder is of true Germanic character; it is not very nimble, but rumbles along ponderously. Yet, it will come and when you hear a crashing such as never before has been heard in the world's history, then you know that the German thunderbolt has fallen at last. At that uproar the eagles of the air will drop dead, and lions in the remotest deserts of Africa will hide in their royal dens. A play will be performed in Germany which will make the French Revolution look like an innocent idyll. (1834)”

“Ich las das langweilige Buch, schlief darüber ein, im Schlafe träumteich, weiter zu lesen, erwachte vor Langeweile, und das dreimal.”

“The music at a wedding procession always reminds me of the music of soldiers going into battle.”

“Lo, sleep is good, better is death--in soothThe best of all were never to be born.”

“A pine tree standeth lonelyIn the North on an upland bare;It standeth whitely shroudedWith snow, and sleepeth there.It dreameth of a Palm treeWhich far in the East alone,In the mournful silence standethOn its ridge of burning stone.”

“But that age … exerts on usAn almost terrible charm,Like the memory of things seenAnd a life lived in dreams.”

“Still is the night, it quiets the streets down,In that window my love would appear;She's long since gone away from this town,But this house where she lived still remains here.A man stands here too, staring up into space,And wrings his hands with the strength of his pain:It chills me, when I behold his pale faceFor the moon shows me my own features again!You spirit double, you specter with my faceWhy do you mock my love-pain soThat tortured me here, here in this placeSo many nights, so long ago?”

“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.”

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

“Perfumes are the feelings of flowers.”

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

“Es una historia vieja que siempre sigue siendo nueva y, a quien le pasa, el corazón se le parte en dos.”

“With his nightcaps and the tatters of his dressing-gown he patches up the gaps in the structure of the universe.”

“I have sown Dragon's teeth and reaped only fleas.”

“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.”

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

“Iron helmets will not save/Even heroes from the grave/Good man's blood will drain away/While the wickid win the day.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“Lieb Liebchen, leg ‘s Händchen aufs Herze mein; -Ach, hörst du, wie’s pochet im Kämmerlein,Da hauset ein Zimmermann schlimm und arg,Der zimmert mir einen Totensarg.Es hämmert und klopfet bei Tag und bei Nacht;Es hat mich schon längst um den Schlaf gebracht.Ach! sputet Euch, Meister Zimmermann,Damit ich balde schlafen kann.”

“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.”

“آن‌جا که کتاب‌ها را می‌سوزانند، بلاخره مردم را هم می‌سوزانند.”

“I wept in my dreams. I dreamed you lay in the grave;I awoke, and the tearsstill 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 stillthe flow of my tears streams on. ”

“I fell asleep reading a dull book, and I dreamed that I was reading on, so I awoke from sheer boredom. ”

“The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin.”

“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. ”

“Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.”

“Kalau orang sudah mulai membakar buku-buku, akhirnya mereka akan membakar manusia.”

“I live, which is the main point.”

“Das war ein Vorspiel nur; dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen."(Almansor)”

“Where words leave off, music begins.”

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

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

“Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.”