Heinrich Heine

No compass has ever been invented for the high seas of matrimony.

In these times we fight for ideas and newspapers are our fortress.

Great genius takes shape by contact with another great genius, but, less by assimilation than by friction.

I do not know if she was virtuous, but she was ugly, and with a woman that is half the battle.

Each violet peeps from its dwelling to gaze at the bright stars above.

Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.

Matrimony; the high sea for which no compass has yet been invented.

The foolish race of mankind are swarming below in the night they shriek and rage and quarrel and all of them are right.

It is a common phenomenon that just the prettiest girls find it so difficult to get a man.

Whether a revolution succeeds or fails people of great hearts will always be sacrificed to it.

Whenever books are burned, men also in the end are burned.

Experience is a good school. But the fees are high.

Like a great poet, Nature knows how to produce the greatest effects with the most limited means.

Christ rode on an ass, but now asses ride on Christ.

God will forgive me. It's his job.

I have never seen an ass who talked like a human being, but I have met many human beings who talked like asses.

Communism possesses a language which every people can understand its elements are hunger envy and death.

It is only kindred griefs that draw forth our tears, and each weeps really for himself.

True eloquence consists in saying all that is necessary, and nothing but what is necessary.

He only profits from praise who values criticism.

You cannot feed the hungry on statistics.

Sleep is good, death is better; but of course, the best thing would to have never been born at all.

I bequeath all my property to my wife on the condition that she remarry immediately. Then there will be at least one man to regret my death.

Whatever tears one may shed, in the end one always blows one's nose.

When words leave off, music begins.

Music played at weddings always reminds me of the music played for soldiers before they go into battle.

Communism possesses a language which every people can understand - its elements are hunger, envy, and death.

It is extremely difficult for a Jew to be converted, for how can he bring himself to believe in the divinity of - another Jew?

Sleep is lovely, death is better still, not to have been born is of course the miracle.

Great genius takes shape by contact with another great genius, but, less by assimilation than by fiction.

In earlier religions the spirit of the time was expressed through the individual and confirmed by miracles. In modern religions the spirit is expressed through the many and confirmed by reason.

Atheism is the last word of theism.

The swan, like the soul of the poet, By the dull world is ill understood.

Oh, what lies there are in kisses.

Every man, either to his terror or consolation, has some sense of religion.

Where they have burned books they will end in burning human beings.

If the Romans had been obliged to learn Latin, they would never have found time to conquer the world.

I fell asleep reading a dull book and dreamed I kept on reading, so I awoke from sheer boredom.

Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak and to speak well are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.

The men of action are, after all, only the unconscious instruments of the men of thought.

The fundamental evil of the world arose from the fact that the good Lord has not created money enough.

He is noble who both feels and acts nobly.

Of course God will forgive me; that's His job.

God will forgive me; that's his business.

Ask me not what I have, but what I am.

Be entirely tolerant or not at all follow the good path or the evil one. To stand at the crossroads requires more strength than you possess.

With the rose the butterflys deep in love A thousand times hovering round But round himself all tender like gold The suns sweet ray is hovering found.

When the heroes go off the stage, the clowns come on.

There are more fools in the world than there are people.

Human misery is too great for men to do without faith.

Perfumes are the feelings of flowers.

The Wedding March always reminds me of the music played when soldiers go into battle.

A brainiac notices everything, an ignoramus comments about everything.

The Bible is the great family chronicle of the Jews.

I will not say that women have no character; rather, they have a new one every day.

Woman is at once apple and serpent.

In the marvellous month of May when all the buds were bursting, then in my heart did love arise. In the marvellous month of May when all the birds were singing, then did I reveal to her my yearning and longing.