top of page
.png){kind=small}
Quotes by German Authors
"I don't pay good wages because I have a lot of money; I have a lot of money because I pay good wages."
"Any fool can know. The point is to understand."
"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes her laws."
"Under peaceful conditions, the warlike man attacks himself."
"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity."
"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious."
"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
"The craving for equality can express itself either as a desire to pull everyone down to our own level (by belittling them, excluding them, tripping them up) or as a desire to raise ourselves up along with everyone else (by acknowledging them, helping them, and rejoicing in their success)."
"The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution."
"Truth is a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, anthropomorphisms, in short a sum of human relations which have been subjected to poetic and rhetorical intensification, translation and decoration; truths are illusions of which we have forgotten that they are illusions, metaphors which have become worn by frequent use and have lost all sensuous vigour. Yet we still do not know where the drive to truth comes from, for so far we have only heard about the obligation to be truthful which society imposes in order to exist"from, "On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense"."
"The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a dark night."
"Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws."
"A politician divides mankind into two classes: tools and enemies."
"In heaven, all the interesting people are missing."
"Creativity is intelligence having fun."
"Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it."
"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hopes of reward after death."
"You never fail until you stop trying."
"It is impossible to suffer without making someone pay for it; every complaint already contains revenge."
"My world has just become perfect, midnight is also noonday, pain is also joy, a curse is also a blessing, the night is also a sun " be gone, or you will learn: a wise man is also a fool."
"To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness."
"Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them."
"The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable: through the embracing of one of its beings."
"Mathematics is a game played according to certain simple rules with meaningless marks on paper."
"Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors."
"Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value."
"I stood up as best I could to their disgusting stupidity and brutality, but I did not, of course, manage to beat them at their own game. It was a fight to the bitter end, one in which I was not defending ideals or beliefs but simply my own self."
"Architecture begins where engineering ends."
"Mathematics knows no races or geographic boundaries; for mathematics, the cultural world is one country."
"I go the way that Providence dictates with the assurance of a sleepwalker."
"If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself."
"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."
"Everybody wants to eat at the government's table, but nobody wants to do the dishes."
"A German is someone who cannot tell a lie without believing it himself."
"An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: What does happen is that the opponents gradually die out."
"Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory."
"The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom."
"Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing."
"Sleep is good, death is better; but of course, the best thing would to have never been born at all."
"Truly, it is in darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest of all to us."
"A solitary, unused to speaking of what he sees and feels, has mental experiences which are at once more intense and less articulate than those of a gregarious man."
bottom of page