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Quotes by German Authors
"Let's talk of a system that transforms all the social organisms into a work of art, in which the entire process of work is included... something in which the principle of production and consumption takes on a form of quality. It's a Gigantic project."
"You only really get to know a person after a fight. Only then can you judge their true character."
"No single achievement in science is possible without the painstaking work of the many hundreds who have built the foundation on which all new work is based."
"We, the generation that faces the next century, can add the solemn injunction "If we don't do the impossible, we shall be faced with the unthinkable.""
"The purpose of marriage is not to have pleasure and to be idle, but to procreate and bring up children, to support a household. This, of course, is a huge burden full of great cares and toils. But you have been created by God to be a husband or a wife that you may learn to bear these troubles. Those who have no love for children are... unworthy of being called men or women; for they despise the blessing of God, the creator and author of marriage."
"No, this customary aim of research by excavators is completely foreign to the historical work with which I am occupied... my sole and only aim is to be able to establish a historical fact, on which I disagree with some eminent historians and geographers."
"Strong hope is a much greater stimulant of life than any single realized joy could be."
"An action, to have moral worth, must be done from duty."
"If your mind carries a heavy burden of past, you will experience more of the same. The past perpetuates itself through lack of presence. The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future."
"I have forgotten my umbrella."
"At least believe this many humans, who are interested obviously in this topic. Many of them visited me after lectures and meetings, in hope that I can give concrete answers to their questions. For it was clear: If that does not know it, who is to then know it?"
"Just as man is governed, in religion, by the products of his own brain, so, in capitalist production, he is governed by the products of his own hand."
"Life to the great majority is only a constant struggle for mere existence with the certainty of losing it at last."
"In the last analysis, even the best man is evil: in the last analysis, even the best woman is bad."
"Surely all art is the result of one's having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, where no one can go any further."
"Dreams and restless thoughts came flowing to him from the river, from the twinkling stars at night, from the sun's melting rays. Dreams and a restlessness of the soul came to him."
"The important part of the present development is the anti-capitalist sentiment that is permeating our people."
"Hatred is an affair of the heart; contempt that of the head."
"One-half of life is luck; the other half is discipline - and that's the important half, for without discipline you wouldn't know what to do with luck."
"The sight of a being who is not adorned with a single feature of a pure and good will, enjoying unbroken prosperity, can never give pleasure to an impartial rational spectator. Thus a good will appears to constitute the indispensable condition even of being worthy of happiness."
"Giving style to one's character - a great and rare art! It is exercised by those who see all the strengths and weaknesses of their own natures and then comprehend them in an artistic plan until everything appears as art and reason and even weakness delights the eye."
"The fewer the words the better the prayer."
"Knowing is not enough we must apply. Willing is not enough we must do."
"Ever since I began to compose, I have remained true to my starting principle: not to write a page because no matter what public, or what pretty girl wanted it to be thus or thus; but to write solely as I myself thought best, and as it gave me pleasure."
"As so often before, liberty has been wounded in the house of its friends."
"One always expects something else."
"What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine."
"A true Christian lives and labors on earth not for himself but for his neighbor. Therefore the whole spirit of his life him impels him to do even that which he needs not do, but which is profitable and necessary for his neighbor."
"The thinking man must oppose all cruel customs, no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another, even the lowliest creature; but to do so is to renounce our manhood and shoulder a guilt which nothing justifies."
"Peter Wessel and Peter Van Daan have grown into one Peter, who is beloved and good, and for whom I long desperately."
"The life of every individual, viewed as a whole and in general, and when only its most significant features are emphasized, is really a tragedy; but gone through in detail it has the character of a comedy."
"The temptation of Christ was harder, unspeakably harder, than the temptation of Adam; for Adam carried nothing in himself which could have given the tempter a claim and power over him. But Christ bore in himself the whole burden of the flesh, under the curse, under condemnation; and yet his temptation was henceforth to bring help and salvation to all flesh."
"Neither an ox nor a donkey is able to stop the progress of socialism."
"The Christian must treat his enemy as a brother, and requite his hostility with love. His behavior must be determined not by the way others treat him, but by the treatment he himself receives from Jesus; it has only one source, and that is the will of Jesus."
"The art of an artist must be his own art. It is... always a continuous chain of little inventions, little technical discoveries of one's own, in one's relation to the tool, the material and the colors."
"Instead of the international police action we had hoped for during the war in Kosovo, there are wars again - conducted with state-of-the-art technology, but still in the old style."
"A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be."
"It was my family that wanted me to be a teacher. That was safe, you see. To be a painter was terrible."
"One lost easiest what one held in one's arms- never what one left."
"When ideas fail, words come in very handy."
"He looked around. The room, a few suitcases, some belongings, a handful of well-read books- a man needed few things to live. And it was good not to get used to many things when life was unsettled. Again and again one had to abandon them or they were taken away. One should be ready to leave every day. That was the reason he had lived alone- when one was on the move one should not have anything that could bind one. Nothing that could stir the heart. The adventure- but nothing more."
"The Wall will be standing in 50 and even in 100 years, if the reasons for it are not removed."
"The entire day receives order and discipline when it acquires unity. This unity must be sought and found in morning prayer. The morning prayer determines the day."
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