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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."
"Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it."
"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."
"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."
"Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory."
"Everybody wants to eat at the government's table, but nobody wants to do the dishes."
"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)."
"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."
"Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws."
"Architecture begins where engineering ends."
"I always felt that a scientist owes the world only one thing, and that is the truth as he sees it."
"Creativity is intelligence having fun."
"The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution."
"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."
"It may be true, that men, who are mere mathematicians, have certain specific shortcomings, but that is not the fault of mathematics, for it is equally true of every other exclusive occupation."
"Sleep is good, death is better; but of course, the best thing would to have never been born at all."
"A politician divides mankind into two classes: tools and enemies."
"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"."
"You never fail until you stop trying."
"I go the way that Providence dictates with the assurance of a sleepwalker."
"The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable: through the embracing of one of its beings."
"The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a dark night."
"The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive."
"This happiness consisted of nothing else but the harmony of the few things around me with my own existence, a feeling of contentment and well-being that needed no changes and no intensification."
"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."
"In heaven, all the interesting people are missing."
"We cannot appeal to the conscience of the world when our own conscience is asleep."
"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful."
"It is impossible to suffer without making someone pay for it; every complaint already contains revenge."
"If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself."
"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."
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