Quotes by German Authors - Page 55

don't let what other people think, stop you from doing the things you love
Adolf Hitler
Here all great emotions decay: here only little, dry emotions may rattle!Do you not smell already the slaughter-houses and cook-shops of the spirit? Does this city not reek of the fumes of slaughtered spirit?Do you not see the souls hanging like dirty, limp rags? – And they also make newspapers from these rags!Have you not heard how the spirit has here become a play with words? It vomits our repulsive verbal swill! – And they also make newspapers from this verbal swill.They pursue one another and do not know where. They inflame one another, and do not know why. They rattle their tins, they jingle their gold.They are cold and seek warmth in distilled waters; they are inflamed and seek coolness in frozen spirits; they are all ill and diseased with public opinion.All lusts and vices are at home here; but there are virtuous people here, too, there are many adroit, useful virtues.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Water is sufficient...the spirit moves over water.
Friedrich Nietzsche
The sedentary life...is the real sin against the holy spirit.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Then came nightthat was like falling water.At times, for hours,a bird spirit,half buzzard, half swan,just above the rushesfrom which a snow-storm howls.
Peter Huchel
An appeal to fear never finds an echo in German hearts.
Otto von Bismarck
Industry, technology, and commerce can thrive only as long as an idealistic national community offers the necessary preconditions. And these do not lie in material egoism, but in a spirit of sacrifice and joyful renunciation.
Adolf Hitler
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
Albert Einstein
How was I able to live alone before, my little everything? Without you I lack self-confidence, passion for work, and enjoyment of life--in short, without you, my life is no life.[Written to his wife, Mileva]
Albert Einstein
And the world suddenly appeared to me as such an awfully large place, with I so totally alone in it that I could have cried from the bottom of my heart.
Joseph von Eichendorff
I often stood in front of the mirror alone, wondering how ugly a person could get.
Charles Bukowski
there's no clarity.there was never meant to be clarity.
Charles Bukowski
darkness falls upon Humanityand faces become terriblethingsthat wanted more than therewas.all our days are marked withunexpectedaffronts - somedisastrous, othersless sobut the process iswearing andcontinuous.attrition rules.most givewayleavingempty spaceswhere people shouldbe.and nowas we ready to self-destructthere is very little left tokillwhich makes the tragedyless and moremuch muchmore.
Charles Bukowski
sometimes all we need to be able to continue aloneare the deadrattling the wallsthat close us in.
Charles Bukowski
This change did not bring me into the community of the others, did not make me closer to anyone, but actually made me even lonelier. My reformation seemed to point in the direction ofDemian, but even this was a distant fate. I did not know myself, for I was too deeply involved. It had begunwith Beatrice, but for some time I had been living in such an unreal world with my paintings and my thoughtsof Demian that I'd forgotten all about her, too. I could not have uttered a single word about my dreams andexpectations, my inner change, to anyone, not even if I had wanted to. But how could I have wanted to?
Hermann Hesse
In the silence of night, great minds either unite or die
Katja Michael
People need me. I fill them. If they can't see me for a while they get desperate, they get sick. But if I see them too often I get sick. It's hard to feed without getting fed.
Charles Bukowski
These solitary ones who are free in spirit know thatin one thing or another they must constantly put on an appearance that is different from the way they think; although they want nothing but truth and honesty, they are entangled in a web of misunderstandings. And despite their keen desire, they cannot prevent a fog of false opinions, of accommodation, of halfway concessions, of indulgent silence, of erroneous interpretation from settling on everything they do. And so a cloud of melancholy gathers around their brow, for such natures hate the necessity of appearances more than death, and their persistent bitterness about this makes them volatile and menacing. From time to time they take revenge for their violent selfconcealment, for their coerced constraint. They emerge from their caves with horrible expressions on their faces; at such times their words and deeds are explosions, and it is even possible for them to destroy themselves.
Friedrich Nietzsche
There had never been any more between us thanchance had brought. But perhaps that makes a greater indebtednessand binds closer than much else
Erich Maria Remarque
By Fortune's adverse buffets overborneTo solitude I fled, to wilds forlorn,And not in utter loneliness to live,Myself at last did to the Devil give!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Just slowly, among his growing riches, Siddhartha had assumed something of the childlike people's ways for himself, something of their childlikeness and of their fearfulness. And yet, he envied them, envied them just the more, the more similar he became to them. He envied them for the one thing that was missing from him and that they had, the importance they were able to attach to their lives, the amount of passion in their joys and fears, the fearful but sweet happiness of being constantly in love. These people were all of the time in love with themselves, with women, with their children, with honours or money, with plans or hopes.
Hermann Hesse
And then, for an hour, he became aware of the strange life he was leading, of him doing lots of things which were only a game, of, though being happy and feeling joy at times, real life still passing him by and not touching him. As a ball-player plays with his balls, he played with his business-deals, with the people around him, watched them, found amusement in them; with his heart, with the source of his being, he was not with them. The source ran somewhere, far away from him, ran and ran invisibly, had nothing to do with his life any more. And at several times he suddenly became scared on account of such thoughts and wished that he would also be gifted with the ability to participate in all of this childlike-naive occupations of the daytime with passion and with his heart, really to live, really to act, really to enjoy and to live instead of just standing by as a spectator.
Hermann Hesse
Many persons seek community because they are afraid of loneliness...those who take refuge in community while fleeing from themselves are misuing it to indulge in empty talk and distraction, no matter how spiritual this idle talk and distraction may appear...it is precisely such misuse of community that creates deadly isolation of human beings.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
No one has ever properly understood me, I have never fully understood anyone; and no one understands anyone else
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Thinking, existentially speaking, is a solitary but not a lonely business; solitude is that human situation in which I keep myself company. Loneliness comes about when I am alone without being able to split up into the two-in-one, without being able to keep myself company.
Hannah Arendt
I and me are always too deeply in conversation: how could I endure it,if there were not a friend?The friend of the hermit is always the third one: the third one is the float which prevents the conversation of the two from sinking into the depth.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Language has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone.
Paul Tillich
Our language has wisely sensed these two sides of man’s being alone. It has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone. Although, in daily life, we do not always distinguish these words, we should do so consistently and thus deepen our understanding of our human predicament.
Paul Tillich
A lonely, quiet person has observations and experiences that are at once both more indistinct and more penetrating than those of one more gregarious; his thoughts are weightier, stranger, and never without a tinge of sadness. . . . Loneliness fosters that which is original, daringly and bewilderingly beautiful, poetic. But loneliness also fosters that which is perverse, incongruous, absurd, forbidden.
Thomas Mann
Deep down, the young are lonelier than the old.
Anne Frank
there is a loneliness in this world so great that you can see it in the slow movement of the hands of a clock
Charles Bukowski
We must become so alone, so utterly alone, that we withdraw into our innermost self. It is a way of bitter suffering. But then our solitude is overcome, we are no longer alone, for we find that our innermost self is the spirit, that it is God, the indivisible. And suddenly we find ourselves in the midst of the world, yet undisturbed by its multiplicity, for our innermost soul we know ourselves to be one with all being.
Hermann Hesse
I've never been lonely. I've been in a room -- I've felt suicidal. I've been depressed. I've felt awful -- awful beyond all -- but I never felt that one other person could enter that room and cure what was bothering me...or that any number of people could enter that room. In other words, loneliness is something I've never been bothered with because I've always had this terrible itch for solitude. It's being at a party, or at a stadium full of people cheering for something, that I might feel loneliness. I'll quote Ibsen, "The strongest men are the most alone." I've never thought, "Well, some beautiful blonde will come in here and give me a fuck-job, rub my balls, and I'll feel good." No, that won't help. You know the typical crowd, "Wow, it's Friday night, what are you going to do? Just sit there?" Well, yeah. Because there's nothing out there. It's stupidity. Stupid people mingling with stupid people. Let them stupidify themselves. I've never been bothered with the need to rush out into the night. I hid in bars, because I didn't want to hide in factories. That's all. Sorry for all the millions, but I've never been lonely. I like myself. I'm the best form of entertainment I have. Let's drink more wine!
Charles Bukowski
being alone never felt right. sometimes it felt good, but it never felt right.
Charles Bukowski
I have accumulated a wealth of knowledge in innumerable spheres and enjoyed it as an always ready instrument for exercising the mind and penetrating further and further. Best of all, mine has been a life of loving and being loved. What a tragedy that all this will disappear with the used-up body!
Richard Goldschmidt
The rich of this world will vanish like smoke, and no memory of their past pleasures will remain. But even in their lifetime they do not enjoy them without bitterness, weariness and fear, for the very things whence they derive their pleasures often carry with them the seeds of sorrow.
Thomas à Kempis
...Material goods have gained an increasing and finally inexorable power over the lives of men as at no previous period in history.
Max Weber
And I did work out something: that the rich of the earth indeed create misery, but they cannot bear to see it. They are weaklings and fools just like you. As long as they have enough to eat and can grease their floors with butter so that even the crumbs that fall from your table grow fat, they can't look with indifference on a man collapsing from hunger - although, of course, it must be in front of their house that he collapses.
Bertolt Brecht
An attitude to life which seeks fulfilment in thesingle-minded pursuit of wealth - in short, materialism - does not fit into thisworld, because it contains within itself no limiting principle, while theenvironment in which it is placed is strictly limited.
Ernst F. Schumacher
It is good," he thought "to taste for yourself everything you need to know. That worldly pleasures and wealth are not good things, I learned even as a child. I knew it for a long time, but only now have I experienced it. And now I know it, I know it not only because I remember hearing it, but with my eyes, with my heart, with my stomach. And it is good for me to know it!
Hermann Hesse
Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.
Arthur Schopenhauer
In my brain were stored a thousand pictures.
Hermann Hesse
Tell one your thoughts, but beware of two. All know what is known to three
Edith Hamilton
One not only wants to be understood when one writes, but also quite as certainly not to be understood. It is by no means an objection to a book when someone finds it unintelligible: perhaps this might just have been the intention of its author, perhaps he did not want to be understood by "anyone”. A distinguished intellect and taste, when it wants to communicate its thoughts, always selects its hearers; by selecting them, it at the same time closes its barriers against "the others". It is there that all the more refined laws of style have their origin: they at the same time keep off, they create distance, they prevent "access" (intelligibility, as we have said,) while they open the ears of those who are acoustically related to them.
Friedrich Nietzsche
The more you make your thoughts and beliefs into your identity, the more cut off you are from the spiritual dimension within yourself.
Eckhart Tolle
When someone is searching, said Siddhartha, then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searches for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind, because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Searching means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal. You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because, striving for your goal, there are many things you don't see, which are directly in front of your eyes.
Hermann Hesse
Vasudeva listened with great attention. Listening carefully, he leteverything enter his mind, birthplace and childhood, all that learning,all that searching, all joy, all distress. This was among theferryman's virtues one of the greatest: like only a few, he knew howto listen. Without him having spoken a word, the speaker sensed howVasudeva let his words enter his mind, quiet, open, waiting, how hedid not lose a single one, awaited not a single one with impatience,did not add his praise or rebuke, was just listening. Siddhartha felt,what a happy fortune it is, to confess to such a listener, to burry inhis heart his own life, his own search, his own suffering.
Hermann Hesse
The world, my friend Govinda, is not imperfect, or on a slow path towards perfection: no, it is perfect in every moment, all sin already carries the divine forgiveness in itself, all small children already have the old person in themselves, all infants already have death, all dying people the eternal life.
Hermann Hesse
When someone is searching, said Siddhartha, then it might easilyhappen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searchesfor, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind,because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search,because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Searchingmeans: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, havingno goal. You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because,striving for your goal, there are many things you don't see, which aredirectly in front of your eyes.
Hermann Hesse
There are tree main bulwarks of defence against new thoughts: to pay no heed, to give no credence, and finally to assert that it had already long existed.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Once we are lost unto ourselves, everything else is lost to us.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The only true thoughts are those which do not grasp their own meaning
Theodor W. Adorno
Ego is the complete identification with form. Physical forms, thought forms, emotional forms.
Eckhart Tolle
What does not engage our feelings does not long engage our thoughts either.
Lou Andreas-Salomé
Two thoughts cannot coexist at the same time: if the clear light of mindfulness is present, there is no room for mental twilight.
Nyanaponika Thera
We experience ourselves our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.
Albert Einstein
He who cannot put his thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of dispute.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them.
Eckhart Tolle
Consulting maps can diminish the wanderlust that they awaken,as the act of looking at them can replace the act of travel. But looking at maps is much more than an act of aesthetic replacement. Anyone who opens an atlas wants everything at once, without limits--the whole world. This longing will always be great, far greater than any satisfaction to be had by attaining what is desired. Give me an atlas over a guidebook any day. There is no more poetic book in the world.
Judith Schalansky
Travelers prove their lack of education if they make fun of the customs and values of their hosts, and the qualities that do a person honour are many and varied.
Thomas Mann