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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."

"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity."

"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes her laws."

"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious."

"Under peaceful conditions, the warlike man attacks himself."

"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."

"Everybody wants to eat at the government's table, but nobody wants to do the dishes."

"Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory."

"Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws."

"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"."


"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."

"The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a dark night."

"Creativity is intelligence having fun."

"Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it."

"I always felt that a scientist owes the world only one thing, and that is the truth as he sees it."

"A politician divides mankind into two classes: tools and enemies."

"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."

"The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive."


"Architecture begins where engineering ends."

"You never fail until you stop trying."

"It is impossible to suffer without making someone pay for it; every complaint already contains revenge."

"Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value."

"In heaven, all the interesting people are missing."

"The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable: through the embracing of one of its beings."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Sleep is good, death is better; but of course, the best thing would to have never been born at all."

"I go the way that Providence dictates with the assurance of a sleepwalker."

"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."

"If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself."

"Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them."

"Mathematics is a game played according to certain simple rules with meaningless marks on paper."

"Man does not strive for happiness, only the Englishman does that."
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