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Quotes by German Authors
"Be polite; write diplomatically; even in a declaration of war one observes the rules of politeness."
"Granted, there is always much that is hidden, and we must not forget that the writing of history - however dryly it is done and however sincere the desire for objectivity - remains literature. History's third dimension is always fiction."
"There is nothing insignificant in the world. It all depends on the point of view."
"That which is so universal as death must be a benefit."
"I can go in front of an orchestra. I can go in front of an audience. But if you see me walking through an audience in the reception or through a lot of people, I'm still shy."
"To come to grips with creativity, I must ask creative, adventurous questions - the kind which, in all likelihood, cannot be answered."
"You do not build your own houses, nor make your own garments, nor bake your own bread, simply because you know that if you were to attempt all these things they would all be more or less ill done."
"I play a curator, the most American part you can think of. My work is to protect the Declaration of Independence. I work at the National Archives in Washington."
"I now resolved to go to bed early, with a firm purpose of also rising early the next day to revisit this charming walk; for I thought to myself, I have now seen this temple of the modern world imperfectly; I have seen it only by moonlight."
"Not only is the self entwined in society; it owes society its existence in the most literal sense."
"What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding. Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions - they are metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained of sensuous force."
"Physiology is the science which treats of the properties of organic bodies, animal and vegetable, of the phenomena they present, and of the laws which govern their actions. Inorganic substances are the objects of other sciences, - physics and chemistry."
"You didn't just pay lip service to the goal of overcoming the division of Europe and Germany... Rather, you put yourself at the forefront of those who encouraged us on the way to unity."
"Healthy introspection, without undermining oneself; it is a rare gift to venture into the unexplored depths of the self, without delusions or fictions, but with an uncorrupted gaze."
"I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people: that each protects the solitude of the other."
"Perhaps you still think you ought to think out beforehand and know what you ought to do. To that there is only one answer. You can only know and think about it by actually doing it. You can only learn what obedience is by obeying. It is no use asking questions, for it is only through obedience that you come to learn the truth."
"I'm not going to pretend that I am the best thing in their life and they have to be totally loyal."
"A director in Hollywood in my time couldn't do what he wanted to do."
"Not only the entire ability to think rests on language... but language is also the crux of the misunderstanding of reason with itself."
"When one has not had a good father, one must create one."
"People gave us everything for free. We were allowed only so much film per picture, but there was no limit to the creativity. I like to say that they let us loose like wild dogs in the streets of Paris."
"Often, even after years, mental states once present in consciousness return to it with apparent spontaneity and without any act of the will; that is, they are reproduced involuntarily."
"Film is a very, very powerful medium. It can either confirm the idea that things are wonderful the way they are, or it can reinforce the conception that things can be changed."
"The adjustment of reality to the masses and of the masses to reality is a process of unlimited scope, as much for thinking as for perception."
"Just remember, once you're over the hill you begin to pick up speed."
"Ego=1/Knowledge" More the knowledge lesser the ego, lesser the knowledge more the ego."
"I strive for an architecture from which nothing can be taken away."
"In every man the memory of the struggles and the heroes of the past is alive. But these memories are not incompatible with the desire for peace in the future."
"Within this widest concept of object, and specifically within the concept of individual object, Objects and phenomena stand in contrast with each other."
"Crying can bring relief, as long as you don't cry alone."
"A government must not waiver once it has chosen it's course. It must not look to the left or right but go forward."
"Information networks straddle the world. Nothing remains concealed. But the sheer volume of information dissolves the information. We are unable to take it all in."
"I had given up magic, because it had reached a state of perfection. I felt that I was able to transform men into animals. I did not make use of this capability, because I believed I could not justify an intervention of this kind in the life of another person."
"Speaking generally punishment hardens and numbs it produces concentration it sharpens the consciousness of alienation it strengthens the power of resistance."
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