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Quotes by German Authors
"Achilles was like a rock star of his day so it made sense to have Brad Pitt playing him."
"Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity."
"Now the relation which, in the sphere of nature, being and semblance or sensation bear to one another in this antithesis, is the same as that which in ethics exists between good and pleasure or feeling."
"The victory of the working people over the exploiters and slave holders is at the same time the victorious struggle for liberation by the German people."
"Everyone chases after happiness, not noticing that happiness is right at their heels."
"The discovery of various phenomena has led to a recognition of the fact that the chemical atom is an individual which again is itself made up of several units into a selfcontained whole."
"Every fulfilled wish we wrest from the world is really like alms that keep the beggar alive today so that he can starve again tomorrow."
"Everything that has been wrestled from doubtI welcome-the mouths that burst open afterlong knowledge of what it is to be mute."
"These syllables, about 2,300 in number, were mixed together and then drawn out by chance and used to construct series of different lengths, several of which each time formed the material for a test."
"We accumulate our opinions at an age when our understanding is at its weakest."
"One other fact is significant: the domestic feasts and sacrifices of single families, which in David's time must still have been general, gradually declined and lost their importance as social circles widened and life became more public."
"This change did not bring me into the community of the others, did not make me closer to anyone, but actually made me even lonelier. My reformation seemed to point in the direction ofDemian, but even this was a distant fate. I did not know myself, for I was too deeply involved. It had begunwith Beatrice, but for some time I had been living in such an unreal world with my paintings and my thoughtsof Demian that I'd forgotten all about her, too. I could not have uttered a single word about my dreams andexpectations, my inner change, to anyone, not even if I had wanted to. But how could I have wanted to?"
"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."
"This is the true measure of love: when we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have loved so before us, and that no one will ever love in the same way after us."
"We planted bugs, microphones, in premises which interested us in the West. We weren't too successful - I would have said unfortunately in former years, but I don't care anymore now."
"Westminster Abbey, the Tower, a steeple, one church, and then another, presented themselves to our view; and we could now plainly distinguish the high round chimneys on the tops of the houses, which yet seemed to us to form an innumerable number of smaller spires, or steeples."
"Revenge... is like a rolling stone, which, when a man hath forced up a hill, will return upon him with a greater violence, and break those bones whose sinews gave it motion."
"Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways, the point is to change it."
"A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses. I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner."
"Let me say no more. Words do no justice to the hidden meaning. Everything immediately becomes slightly different when it is expressed in words, a little bit distorted, a little foolish...It is perfectly fine with me that what for one man is precious wisdom for another sounds like foolery."
"Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen."
"Legislators and revolutionaries who promise equality and liberty at the same time, are either psychopaths or mountebanks."
"This is the mark of a really admirable man: steadfastness in the face of trouble."
"Cheap grace is the mortal enemy of the church."
"All problems are illusions of the mind."
"Fascism is itself less 'ideological', in so far as it openly proclaims the principle of domination that is elsewhere concealed."
"Because, also the world of showbiz is not just black and white, good and bad."
"Man cannot be free if he does not know that he is subject to necessity, because his freedom is always won in his never wholly successful attempts to liberate himself from necessity."
"The more we have known of the really good things, the more insipid the thin lemonade of later literature becomes, sometimes almost to the point of making us sick. Do you know a work of literature written in the last, say, fifteen years that you think has any lasting quality? I don't. It is partly idle chatter, partly propaganda, partly self-pitying sentimentality, but there is no insight, no ideas, no clarity, no substance and almost always the language is bad and constrained. On this subject I am quite consciously a laudator temporis acti."
"It was my dream, and probably the dream of every one of us, to bring about a revision of the Versailles Treaty by peaceful means, which was provided for in that very treaty."
"The basic assumption of the secular society is that modernity overcomes religion."
"Versatility of education can be found in our best poetry, but the depth of mankind should be found in the philosopher."
"No change in the balance of political parties can alter the general determination that no class should be excluded from contributing to and sharing responsibility for the state."
"But Socialism, alone, can bring self-determination of their peoples."
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