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Quotes by German Authors

"The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children."

"What is evil? - Whatever springs from weakness."

"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."

"All theory of modernity in sociology suggests that the more modernity there is, the less religion. In my theory we can realize that this is wrong: atheism is only one belief system among many."

"Everything in the world may be endured except continual prosperity."

"My landlady, who is only a tailor's widow, reads her Milton; and tells me, that her late husband first fell in love with her on this very account: because she read Milton with such proper emphasis."

"What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven."

"If I read a book that impresses me, I have to take myself firmly by the hand, before I mix with other people; otherwise they would think my mind rather queer."

"Logic will get you from A to Z, imagination will get you everywhere."

"Every relationship between two individuals or two groups will be characterized by the ratio of secrecy that is involved in it."

"He, who cannot forgive a trespass of malice to his enemy, has never yet tasted the most sublime enjoyment of love."

"Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work."

"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."

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

"Excess of strength alone is proof of strength."

"Experience praises the most happy the one who made the most people happy."

"Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom."

"At the World Cup and even now at the Confederations Cup, our security provisions will ensure the greatest level of protection possible for all those participating - both inside and outside the stadiums."

"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."

"But heat can also be produced by the friction of liquids, in which there could be no question of changes in structure, or of the liberation of latent heat."

"Einer hat immer Unrecht: aber mit zweien beginnt die Wahrheit. Einer kann sich nicht beweisen: aber zweie kann man bereits nicht widerlegen."

"All religions must be tolerated... for every man must get to heaven in his own way."

"The human spirit must prevail over technology."

"Everyone who has ever built anywhere a "new heaven" first found the power thereto in his own hell."

"I was obliged to be industrious. Whoever is equally industrious will succeed equally well."

"A god who let us prove his existence would be an idol."

"The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children."

"To sum it all up, I must say that I regret nothing."

"You should look straight at a film; that's the only way to see one. Film is not the art of scholars but of illiterates."

"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."

"First, I was Bavarian State Minister of Justice, and after the ministries of justice in the various states were dissolved I became Reich Minister without portfolio."

"When you start out in a team, you have to get the teamwork going and then you get something back."

"To contrast national solidarity and international cooperation as two opposites seems foolish to me."

"They make glorious shipwreck who are lost in seeking worlds."

"Celibacy is not a matter of compulsion. Someone is accepted as a priest only when he does it of his own accord."

"Christianity gave Eros poison to drink; he did not die of it, certainly, but degenerated to Vice."

"Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point."

"No other question has ever moved so profoundly the spirit of man; no other idea has so fruitfully stimulated his intellect; yet no other concept stands in greater need of clarification than that of the infinite."

"I do not see why man should not be just as cruel as nature."
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