James Wood, comp. Dictionary of Quotations. 1899.
Heine
A great genius takes shape by contact with another great genius, but less by assimilation than by friction.
All strong men love life.
Der ist edel, / Welcher edel fühlt und handelt—He is noble who feels and acts nobly.
Die Wahrheit schwindet von der Erde / Auch mit der Treu’ ist es vorbei. / Die Hunde wedeln noch und stinken / Wie sonst, doch sind sie nicht mehr treu—Truth is vanishing from the earth, and of fidelity is the day gone by. The dogs still wag the tail and smell the same as ever, but they are no longer faithful.
Die Welt ist dumm, die Welt ist blind, / Wird täglich abgeschmackter—The world is stupid, the world is blind, becomes daily more absurd.
Freedom is a new religion—the religion of our time.
Hat man die Liebe durchgeliebt / Fängt man die Freundschaft an—After love friendship (lit. when we have lived through love we begin friendship).
He is noble who feels and acts nobly.
He who never in his life was foolish was never a wise man.
History shows that the majority of the men who have done anything great have passed their youth in seclusion.
In politics, as in life, we must above all things wish only for the attainable.
In these times we fight for ideas, and newspapers are our fortresses.
It is only kindred griefs that draw forth our tears, and each weeps really for himself.
Like a great poet, Nature produces the greatest results with the simplest means, here are simply a sun, flowers, water, and love.
Literary history is the great morgue where all seek the dead ones whom they love, and to whom they are related.
Lyrical poetry is much the same in every age, as the songs of the nightingales in every spring-time.
Man, the aristocrat amongst the animals.
Matrimony, the high sea for which no compass has yet been invented.
Mein Herz gleicht ganz dem Meere, / Hat Sturm und Ebb’ und Flut, / Und manche schöne Perle / In seiner Tiefe ruht—My heart altogether resembles the sea; it has its storms, its ebbs and floods, and far down in its quiet depths rests many a shining pearl.
Men carry the head erect indeed, yet how mean and cringing are the thoughts within.
Money is the god of our time, and Rothschild is his prophet.
My heart resembles the ocean; has storm, and ebb, and flow; / And many a beautiful pearl / Lies hid in its depths below.
Nicht draussen im Strudel verrauschender Lust / Erwarte, das Glück dir zu finden: / Die Seligkeit wohnt in der eigenen Brust, / Hier musst du sie ewig begründen!—Think not to find thy happiness out there in the whirl of riotous pleasure. Thy blessedness dwells in thy own breast; here must thou for ever establish it.
Nie kommt das Unglück ohne sein Gefolge—Misfortune never comes without his retinue.
No author is a man of genius to his publisher.
Our souls must become expanded by the contemplation of Nature’s grandeur before we can fully comprehend the greatness of man.
“Philistine” must have originally meant, in the mind of those who invented the nickname, a strong, dogged, unenlightened opponent of the children of the light.
Poverty sits by the cradle of all our great men, and rocks them up to manhood.
Silence is the chaste blossom of love.
Souls must become expanded by the contemplation of Nature’s grandeur before they can first comprehend the greatness of man.
The Bible is the great family chronicle of the Jews.
The heart is like the sea, is subject to storms, ebb-tide and flood, and in its depths is many a precious pearl.
The people once belonged to the kings; now the kings belong to the people.
To be wholly loved with the whole heart, one must be suffering.
Und da keiner wollte leiden, / Dass der andre für ihn zahle / Zahlte keiner von den beiden—And as neither would allow the other to pay for him, neither paid at all.
Und scheint die Sonne noch so schön, / Am Ende muss sie untergehen—And though the sun still shines so brightly, in the end it must go down.
Verwelkt, entblättert, zertreten sogar / Von rohen Schicksalsfüssen— / Mein Freund, das ist auf Erden las Los / Von allem Schönen und Süssen—To wither away, be disleaved, be trodden to dust even by the rude feet of Fate, that, friend, is the lot on earth of everything that is beautiful and sweet.
Whether a revolution succeeds or fails, men of great hearts will always be sacrificed to it.
While we are indifferent to our good qualities, we keep on deceiving ourselves in regard to our faults, until we come to look upon them as virtues.