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Quotes by German Authors
"The essence of religion consists in the feeling of an absolute dependence."
"Logic will get you from A to Z, imagination will get you everywhere."
"A politician divides mankind into two classes: tools and enemies."
"My kids are not known, and I think that is very important. So far they have lived a normal life, and will continue to do so. I feel they should have the possibility to live a free life without the burden of fame I have created."
"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 test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children."
"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."
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
"National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity and baseness of mankind take in every country. Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right."
"Music is the pleasure the human mind experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting."
"If my soldiers were to begin to think, not one of them would remain in the army."
"The human voice is the most beautiful instrument of all, but it is the most difficult to play."
"Everyone who has ever built anywhere a "new heaven" first found the power thereto in his own hell."
"Today we are searching for things in nature that are hidden behind the veil of appearance... We look for and paint this inner, spiritual side of nature."
"The reason why I have survived as long as I have survived is what my friends, comrades and supporters thought was an extraordinarily cautious approach."
"I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen."
"If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life - and only then will I be free to become myself."
"Only one man ever understood me, and he didn't understand me."
"Any ground subtracts its own hue from the colors which it carries and therefore influences."
"I am the Roman Emperor, and am above grammar."
"To contrast national solidarity and international cooperation as two opposites seems foolish to me."
"It is to be hoped that the leaders of this movement will place the nation above the party."
"A god who let us prove his existence would be an idol."
"Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite!"
"We must prepare the ground for creativity. And if this also gives rise later to success in the economic sense, success in terms of Euros and Cents, this will by no means reduce my joy."
"The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity."
"We want our buildings to work like a machine that will create a pleasurable environment."
"Education is the art of making man ethical."
"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."
"They make glorious shipwreck who are lost in seeking worlds."
"Philosophy is properly home-sickness; the wish to be everywhere at home."
"The trouble with lying and deceiving is that their efficiency depends entirely upon a clear notion of the truth that the liar and deceiver wishes to hide."
"He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted."
"I wish I had had a great disappointment, a real one."
"Experience praises the most happy the one who made the most people happy."
"The formulation of the problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill."
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