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Quotes by German Authors

"We really learn only from those books that we cannot judge. The author of a book that we were able to judge would have to learn from us."

"We know from daily life that we exist for other people first of all, for whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends."

"You are aware of only one unrest;Oh, never learn to know the other!Two souls, alas, are dwelling in my breast,And one is striving to forsake its brother.Unto the world in grossly loving zest,With clinging tendrils, one adheres;The other rises forcibly in questOf rarefied ancestral spheres.If there be spirits in the airThat hold their sway between the earth and sky,Descend out of the golden vapors thereAnd sweep me into iridescent life.Oh, came a magic cloak into my handsTo carry me to distant lands,I should not trade it for the choicest gown,Nor for the cloak and garments of the crown."

"Man's ultimate concern must be expressed symbolically, because symbolic language alone is able to express the ultimate."

"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."

"I would like to mention that I have flown the 262 first in May '43. At this time, the aircraft was completely secret. I first knew of the existence of this aircraft only early in '42 - even in my position. This aircraft didn't have any priority in design or production."

"So it's back once more, back up the slope.Why do they always ruin my ropewith their cuts?I felt so ready the other day,Had a real foretaste of eternityIn my guts.Spoonfeeding me yet another sipfrom life's cup.I don't want it, won't take any more of it.Let me throw up.Life is medium rare and good, I see,And the world full of soup and bread,But it won't pass into the blood for me,Just goes to my head.It makes me ill, though others it feeds;Do see that I must deny it!For a thousand years from now at leastI'm keeping a diet."


"We do not yet have the solutions to these questions, but the awareness that we live in an endangered world is present in more and more life situations."

"Gandhi, the greatest political genius of our time, has pointed the way. He was shown of what sacrifices people are capable once they have found the right way. His work for the liberation of India is a living testimony to the fact that a will governed by firm conviction is stronger than a seemingly invincible material power."

"Because everyone uses language to talk, everyone thinks they can talk about language."

"Being and time determine each other reciprocally, but in such a manner that neither can the former - Being - be addressed as something temporal nor can the latter - time - be addressed as a being."

"So I am getting a little bored with defining one type of film as American and the other European or from somewhere else because the division is no longer true."

"Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. I do not seek or conjecture either of them as if they were veiled obscurities or extravagances beyond the horizon of my vision; I see them before me and connect them immediately with the consciousness of my existence."

"But only he who, himself enlightened, is not afraid of shadows."

"The police officers, so far as discipline, organization, pay, and orders were concerned, came exclusively under the German Reich police system and were in no way connected with the administration of the Government General."

"Quentin Tarantino asked me to work with him but there is no way I am going to do that while Matthew Vaughn is working in film."

"If only these treasures were not so fragile as they are precious and beautiful."

"We convinced him quickly that the possibility of war was absolutely nil and continued our festivity. On the next day we were ordered to take the field."

"Let the devil catch you but by a single hair, and you are his forever."

"Ideals are like the stars: we never reach them, but like the mariners of the sea, we chart our course by them."

"This republic represents the greatest basis for that universal socialist order, the creation of which is at the present time the historic task of the International Proletariat."

"It is an open secret that Jews do not work, but rather let others work for them."

"The German language speaks Being, while all the others merely speak of Being."


"It has pleased no less than surprised me that of the many studies whereby I have sought to extend the field of general chemistry, the highest scientific distinction that there is today has been awarded for those on catalysis."

"The individual has become a mere cog in an enormous organization of things and powers which tear from his hands all progress, spirituality, and value in order to transform them from their subjective form into the form of a purely objective life."

"I need to hear what I am doing in order to create the next note. If I don't hear it then I can't feed myself."


"At one of the annual conventions of the American Society for Aesthetics much confusion arose when the Society for Anesthetics met at the same time in the same hotel."


"The worst manifestations of exhaustion were successfully cured by a long period of rest but it was immediately apparent to me that I had lost once and for all my former capacity for carrying out experimental work until physically tired."

"Free yourself from the rigid conduct of tradition and open yourself to the new forms of probability."

"What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank?"

"A man does not have to be an angel in order to be saint."


"If your contribution has been vital there will always be somebody to pick up where you left off, and that will be your claim to immortality."

"I joined the Party definitely in 1923 after having already been in sympathy with it before."

"Procedures outside the stadiums and in the parking areas still need to be optimized, for example so that emergency medical services can leave the grounds on their way to the hospital faster."

"Universal education is the most corroding and disintegrating poison that liberalism has ever invented for its own destruction."

"Heat can also be produced by the impact of imperfectly elastic bodies as well as by friction. This is the case, for instance, when we produce fire by striking flint against steel, or when an iron bar is worked for some time by powerful blows of the hammer."

"Above all it is important to point out that we can only maintain our prosperity in Europe if we belong to the most innovative regions in the world."

"The only antidote to mental suffering is physical pain."

"Do not let Sunday be taken from you If your soul has no Sunday, it becomes an orphan."

"Never believe that true prayer consists in mere babbling, reciting so many psalms and vigils, saying your beads while you allow your thoughts to roam."
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