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Quotes by German Authors

"Freedom can occur only through education."

"The deepest problems of modern life derive from the claim of the individual to preserve the autonomy and individuality of his existence in the face of overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of external culture, and of the technique of life."

"What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action."

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

"Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth."

"Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom."

"Philosophy is properly home-sickness; the wish to be everywhere at home."

"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."

"Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight."

"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."

"Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied."

"One must not let oneself be misled: they say 'Judge not!' but they send to Hell everything that stands in their way."

"In praise there is more obtrusiveness than in blame."

"Physics is becoming too difficult for the physicists."

"Let the wife make the husband glad to come home, and let him make her sorry to see him leave."

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

"If I were to awaken after having slept for a thousand years, my first question would be: Has the Riemann hypothesis been proven?"

"Consciousness is a vast ocean and thinking is the waves & ripples on the surface of the ocean. Every wave & ripple has a very short lived life - it is very fleeting Do not identify with your thoughts - continued indentification with the stream of thinking leads to a very serious dysfunction in ones sense of identity."

"Any book which is at all important should be re-read immediately."

"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."

"What? A great man? I only ever see the ape of his own ideal."

"The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity."

"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats."

"I wish I had had a great disappointment, a real one."

"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."

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

"Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom."

"In the midst of the affliction He counsels, strengthens confirms, nourishes, and favors us.... More over, when we have repented, He instantly remits the sins as well as the punishments. In the same manner parents ought to handle their children."

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

"To vigorous men intimacy is a matter of shame--and something precious."

"A mighty fortress is our God A bulwark never failing Our helper he amid the flood Of mortal ills prevailing."

"To invent an airplane is nothing. To build one is something. But to fly is everything."

"Without forgetting it is quite impossible to live at all."

"I am the Roman Emperor, and am above grammar."

"To die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. Death of one's own free choice, death at the proper time, with a clear head and with joyfulness, consummated in the midst of children and witnesses: so that an actual leave-taking is possible while he who is leaving is still there."

"One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil."


"How a person masters his fate is more important than what his fate is."

"The African is my brother but he is my younger brother by several centuries."
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