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Quotes by German Authors
"Today we are searching for things in nature that are hidden behind the veil of appearance... We look for and paint this inner, spiritual side of nature."
"Only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes."
"From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that we are here for the sake of each other - above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellow men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received."
"One in three all friends are:Brothers in distress,equals facing rivals,free men - facing death!"
"He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted."
"Optimism, where it is not just the thoughtless talk of someone with only words in his flat head, strikes me as not only absurd, but even a truly wicked way of thinking, a bitter mockery of the unspeakable sufferings of humanity."
"No burden is so heavy for a man to bear as a succession of happy days."
"Rather than walk about holy places we can thus pause in our thoughts, examine our heart, and visit the wheel promised land."
"For this reason, strangers are not really conceived as individuals, but as strangers of a particular type: the element of distance is no less general in regard to them than the element of nearness."
"Struggle is the father of all things. It is not by the principles of humanity that man lives or is able to preserve himself above the animal world, but solely by means of the most brutal struggle."
"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."
"Wit is the epitaph of an emotion."
"Treat people as an end, and never as a means to an end."
"If today I stand here as a revolutionary, it is as a revolutionary against the Revolution."
"Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion."
"Man made God in his own image."
"It is easy to give advice from a port of safety."
"The real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development."
"First I shake the whole Apple tree, that the ripest might fall. Then I climb the tree and shake each limb, and then each branch and then each twig, and then I look under each leaf."
"Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned."
"Education is the art of making man ethical."
"All religions must be tolerated... for every man must get to heaven in his own way."
"The art of doing mathematics consists in finding that special case which contains all the germs of generality."
"Logic will get you from A to Z, imagination will get you everywhere."
"Our way is upward, from the species across to the super-species. But the degenerate mind which says 'All for me' is a horror to us."
"Being an artist means, not reckoning and counting, but ripening like the tree which does not force its sap and stands confidence in the storms of spring without fear that after them may come no summer."
"How surely gravity's law,strong as an ocean current,takes hold of the smallest thingand pulls it toward the heart of the world.Each thing---each stone, blossom, child---is held in place.Only we, in our arrogance,push out beyond what we each belong tofor some empty freedom.If we surrenderedto earth's intelligencewe could rise up rooted, like trees.Instead we entangle ourselvesin knots of our own makingand struggle, lonely and confused.So like children, we begin againto learn from the things,because they are in God's heart;they have never left him.This is what the things can teach us:to fall,patiently to trust our heaviness.Even a bird has to do thatbefore he can fly."
"The state exists for man,not man for the state.The same may be said ofscience. These are old phrases,coined by people who saw in human individuality the highest human value .I would hesitate to repeat them,were it not for the ever recurring danger that they may be forgotten,especially in these days of organization and stereotypes."
"Should not the giver be thankful that the receiver received? Is not giving a need? Is not receiving mercy?"
"I've been to Paris France and I've been to Paris Paramount. Paris Paramount is better."
"Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own."
"Everywhere where detestable Islam has not yet driven out the ancient, profound religions of humanity with fire and sword, my ascetic results would have to fear the reproach of being trivial."
"I believe in intuitions and inspirations...I sometimes FEEL that I am right. I do not KNOW that I am."
"I've never done any nudity, but I would do basically anything if a role called for it."
"To be ashamed of one's immorality: that is a step on the staircase at whose end one is also ashamed of one's morality."
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