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Quotes by German Authors
"The vanity of others runs counter to our taste only when it runs counter to our vanity."
"I think the tree is an element of regeneration which in itself is a concept of time."
"People tend to dwell more on negative things than on good things. So the mind then becomes obsessed with negative things, with judgments, guilt and anxiety produced by thoughts about the future and so on."
"Dignity is a value that creates irreplaceability."
"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."
"Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents."
"A composer knows that music is written by human beings for human beings and that music is a continuation of life, not something separated from it."
"None of the abstract concepts comes closer to fulfilled utopia than that of eternal peace."
"Without craftsmanship, inspiration is a mere reed shaken in the wind."
"Innocence is a splendid thing, only it has the misfortune not to keep very well and to be easily misled."
"One never comes into embarrassment, if one is ready to balance. To ask oneself never in embarrassment, what have you in these decades made."
"We do not belong to those who have ideas only among books, when stimulated by books. It is our habit to think outdoors - walking, leaping, climbing, dancing, preferably on lonely mountains or near the sea where even the trails become thoughtful."
"Socrates didn't care to visit the theater, as a rule, except when the plays of Euripides (which some think, he himself had helped to compose), were performed."
"Only those who look with the eyes of children can lose themselves in the object of their wonder."
"History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this."
"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness."
"Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?"
"I cannot choose but adhere to the word of God, which has possession of my conscience; nor can I possibly, nor will I even make any recantation, since it is neither safe nor honest to act contrary to conscience! Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God! Amen."
"Natural science will in time incorporate into itself the science of man, just as the science of man will incorporate into itself natural science: there will be one science."
"Literature decays only as men become more and more corrupt."
"Strong and convincing art has never arisen from theories."
"Were one merely to seek information, one should inquire of the man who hates, but if one wishes to know what truly is, one better ask the one who loves."
"I loved making 'Rising Sun'. I got into the psychology of why she liked to get strangled and tied up in plastic bags. It has to do with low self-worth."
"Since the intervention in Afghanistan, we suddenly began to notice when, in political discussions, we found ourselves only among Europeans or Israelis."
"He wants me to tell him about the front; he is curious in a way that I find stupid and distressing; I no longer have any real contact with him. There is nothing he likes more than just hearing about it. I realize he does not know that a man cannot talk of such things; I would do it willingly, but it is too dangerous for me to put these things into words. I am afraid they might then become gigantic and I be no longer able to master them. What would become of us if everything that happens out there were quite clear to us?"
"I basically only read books that are over 2,000 years old."
"The aim of our studies is to prove that color is the most relative means of artistic expression, that we never really perceive what color is physically."
"I always have the feeling we are merely fearfully trying to save room for God; I would rather speak of God at the center than at the limits, in strength rather than weakness, and thus in human life and goodness rather than in death and guilt."
"Nothing is divine but what is agreeable to reason."
"The real difference in the believer who follows Christ and has mortified his will and died after the old man in Christ, is that he is more clearly aware than other men of the rebelliousness and perennial pride of the flesh, he is conscious of his sloth and self-indulgence and knows that his arrogance must be eradicated. Hence there is a need for daily self-discipline."
"I just can't think how I would go on without children having lost Edith already... It's too upsetting for me to write about them. Naturally, I still hope, and wait, wait, wait."
"Love . . . includes fellowship in suffering in joy and in effort."
"The great artist is the man who most obviously succeeds in turning his pains to advantage, in letting suffering deepens his understanding and sensibility, in growing through his pains."
"Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one's self."
"After that he turned to the question of invading England. Hitler said that during the previous year he could not afford to risk a possible failure; apart from that, he had not wished to provoke the British, as he hoped to arrange peace talks."
"God is not the mere dead conception to which we have thus given utterance, but he is in himself pure Life."
"A man's manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait."
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