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Quotes by German Authors

"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving."

"But I'm an adventurer. I like invention, I like discovery."

"We have almost succeeded in leveling all human activities to the common denominator of securing the necessities of life and providing for their abundance."


"Relinquishing apparent national sovereignty does not have to entail a loss of national sovereignty, but can actually be a benefit."

"No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life. There may be countless trails and bridges and demigods who would gladly carry you across; but only at the price of pawning and forgoing yourself. There is one path in the world that none can walk but you. Where does it lead? Don't ask, walk!"

"And children are still the way you were ...as a child, sad and happy in just the same way and if you think of your childhood, you once again live among them, among the solitary children, and the grownups are nothing, and their dignity has no value."

"Man is a masterpiece of creation if for no other reason than that, all the weight of evidence for determinism notwithstanding, he believes he has free will."

"Like a great poet, Nature knows how to produce the greatest effects with the most limited means."

"The responsibility of commanding the invasion fell to me, and the task was assigned to my Army Group."

"We prefer synthetic rather than natural materials. Natural products are almost too valuable. Wood is much harder to produce than metal. And metal is recyclable, while wood isn't."

"I had thought about landing in the Kremlin, but there wasn't enough space."

"The law is not thrust upon man; it rests deep within him, to waken when the call comes."

"Nobody should try to play comedy unless they have a circus going on inside."

"It isn't easy to accept that suffering can also be beautiful... it's difficult. It's something you can only understand if you dig deeply into yourself."

"The human body is essentially something other than an animal organism."


"Whether that coherence obtains universally is a question that need not be answered here since only those parts where the coherence has actually been found become part of Science."

"I began the study of medicine, impelled by a desire for knowledge of facts and of man. The resolution to do disciplined work tied me to both laboratory and clinic for a long time to come."

"Of course, with the increasing number of aeroplanes one gains increased opportunities for shooting down one's enemies, but at the same time, the possibility of being shot down one's self increases."

"Secrecy involves a tension which, at the moment of revelation, finds its release."

"It is extremely difficult for a Jew to be converted, for how can he bring himself to believe in the divinity of - another Jew?"

"When you are aware that you are thinking, that awareness is not part of thinking. It is a different dimension of consciousness. It is that awareness that says "I AM"."

"The core of my personality consists of many selves."

"There is a rollicking kindness that looks like malice."

"The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force."


"He who observes etiquette but objects to lying is like someone who dresses fashionably but wears no vest."

"Too fair to worship, too divine to love."


"Nowadays, however, we recognize that simultaneously with the typical case of a chemical reaction a typical case of catalytic effect had been studied which constitutes a limiting case."

"We always have time enough, if we will but use it aright."

"O how incomprehensible everything was, and actually sad, although it was also beautiful. One knew nothing. One lived and ran about the earth and rode through forests, and certain things looked so challenging and promising and nostalgic: a star in the evening, a blue harebell, a reed-green pond, the eye of a person or a cow. And sometimes it seemed that something never seen yet long desired was about to happen, that a veil would drop from it all, but then it passed, nothing happened, the riddle remained unsolved, the secret spell unbroken, and in the end one grew old and looked cunning . . . or wise . . . and still one knew nothing perhaps, was still waiting and listening."

"Power over others is weakness disguised as strength."

"The fly ought to be used as the symbol of impertinence and audacity for whilst all other animals shun man more than anything else and run away even before he comes near them the fly lights upon his very nose."

"Whenever Christ calls us, his call leads us to death."


"One cannot develop taste from what is of average quality but only from the very best."

"The greatest intellectual capacities are only found in connection with a vehement and passionate will."

"Animals are in possession of themselves; their soul is in possession of their body. But they have no right to their life, because they do not will it."
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