Quotes by German Authors - Page 83

We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial—I believe we are lost.
Erich Maria Remarque
He who joyfully marches to music rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
Albert Einstein
But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony--Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?
Erich Maria Remarque
I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another.
Erich Maria Remarque
There are perhaps many causes worth dying for, but to me, certainly, there are none worth killing for.
Albert Dietrich
Ti­tles are granted or in­her­ited, no­bil­ity isn't. Whatever paper we receive, be it of material or immaterial value – it will never exceed the value of your character being loved by people!
Akilnathan Logeswaran
What irritates me most of all about these morning people is their horribly good temper, as if they have been up for three hours and already conquered France. Particularly since the vast majority of them, in spite of rising so appallingly early, have performed anything but great deeds. In Berlin I have time and again met people who make no secret of the fact that their only reason for stirring at such an ungodly hour of the morning is so that they can leave the office earlier in the afternoon. I have suggested to several of these eight-hour logicians that they ought to start work at ten o'clock at night, thereby allowing them to leave at six in the morning and perhaps even arrive home before it is time to get up. Some even took this for a serious suggestion. In my opinion, only bakers need to work early in the morning.
Timur Vermes
the world and the people who inhabit it are not the same. The world lies between people, and this in-between – much more than (as is often thought) men or even man – is today the object of the greatest concern and the most obvious upheaval in almost all the countries of the globe. Even where the world is still halfway in order, or is kept halfway in order, the public realm has lost the power of illumination which was originally part of its very nature. More and more people in the countries of the Western world, which since the decline of the ancient world has regarded freedom from politics as one of the basic freedoms, make use of this freedom and have retreated from the world and their obligations within it. This withdrawal from the world need not harm an individual; he may even cultivate great talents to the point of genius and so by a detour be useful to the world again. But with each such retreat an almost demonstrable loss to the world takes place; what is lost is the specific and usually irreplaceable in-between which should have formed between this individual and his fellow men.
Hannah Arendt
I like to prowl ordinary places.I feel sorry for us all or glad for us allcaught alive togetherand awkward in that way.there's nothing better than the jokeof usthe seriousness of usthe dullness of us
Charles Bukowski
When we have to change an opinion about any one, we charge heavily to his account the inconvenience he thereby causes us.
Friedrich Nietzsche
I like to prowl ordinary placesand taste the people-from a distance.
Charles Bukowski
People just weren't interesting. Maybe they weren't supposed to be. But animals, birds, even insects were. I couldn't understand it.
Charles Bukowski
A perfectly normal person is rare in our civilization.
Karen Horney
Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goals, ifhe is able to think, if he is able to wait, if he is able to fast.
Hermann Hesse
Those who are weak don't fight.Those who are stronger might fightfor an hour.Those who are stronger still might fightfor many years.The strongest fighttheir whole life.They are the indispensable ones.
Bertolt Brecht
I was alone with myself. And disgusting as I was it was better than being with somebody else, anybody else, all of them out there doing their pitiful little tricks and handsprings.
Charles Bukowski
Logos and branding are so important. In a big part of the world, people cannot read French or English--but are great in remembering signs
Karl Lagerfeld
Guilty feelings about clothes are totally unnecessary. A lot of people earn their living by making clothes, so you should never feel bad.
Karl Lagerfeld
Enemies are people who's story you haven't heard, or who's face you haven't seen.
Irene Butter
Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: That we are here for the sake of other men —above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, 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 outer and inner life is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received and am still receiving.
Albert Einstein
As a recluse I couldn't bear traffic. It had nothing to do with jealousy, I simply disliked people, crowds, anywhere, except at my readings. People diminished me, they sucked me dry.
Charles Bukowski
Virtue is under certain circumstances merely an honorable form of stupidity: who could be ill-disposed toward it on that account? And this kind of virtue has not been outlived even today. A kind of sturdy peasant simplicity, which, however, is possible in all classes and can be encountered only with respect and a smile, believes even today that everything is in good hands, namely in the "hands of God"; and when it maintains this proportion with the same modest certainty as it would that two and two make four, we others certainly refrain from contradicting. Why disturb THIS pure foolishness? Why darken it with our worries about man, people, goal, future? And even if we wanted to do it, we could not. They project their own honorable stupidity and goodness into the heart of things (the old God, deus myops, still lives among them!); we others — we read something else into the heart of things: our own enigmatic nature, our contradictions, our deeper, more painful, more mistrustful wisdom.
Friedrich Nietzsche
I have one problem, I don’t hate people. They disgust me and I want to get away from them. I do not have hatred. I have an escape mechanism.
Charles Bukowski
Most people are far too much occupied with themselves to be malicious.
Friedrich Nietzsche
You call me a misanthrope because I avoid society. You err; I love society. Yet in order not to hate people, I must avoid their company.
Caspar David Friedrich
The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.
Albert Einstein
I love Humanity but I hate humans
Albert Einstein
He's a good old sort. If only he weren't plumb crazy!
Michael Ende
Friendship makes the impossible possible!
Lily Amis
Love is the most precious gift in life. Be grateful for all the love and support you get from your parents, your family and friends. Because nothing is as precious as receiving true and devoted love" - Monsieur Jac Couture
Lily Amis
For twenty-seven years I was told and believed it to be true, that if you really liked someone, you'd wish her/him to 'stay the way s/he is'.Today I know that I was not wrong, but my view was limited. If I really like someone today, I don't want them to merely stay that way, I want them to grow, to discover their potential, and am excited to see who they choose to become.
Akilnathan Logeswaran
The closer two people stand to each other inwardly, the more readily they become for each other the condition under which alone their two beings find expression.
Lou Andreas-Salomé
The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. Just as love to God begins with listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them. It is God's love for us that He not only gives us His Word but also lends us His ear. So it is His work that we do for our brother and sister when we learn to listen to them.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
A light has dawned for me: I need companions, living ones, not dead companions and corpses which I carry with me wherever I wish. But I need living companions who follow me because they want to follow themselves— and who want to go where I want to go.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Shared joys make a friend, not shared sufferings.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Govinda was standing in front of him, dressed in the yellow robe of an ascetic. Sad was how Govinda looked like, sadly he asked: Why have you forsaken me? At this, he embraced Govinda, wrapped his arms around him, and as he was pulling him close to his chest and kissed him, it was not Govinda any more, but a woman, and a full breast popped out of the woman's dress, at which Siddhartha lay and drank, sweetly and strongly tasted the milk from this breast.
Hermann Hesse
Today the grass listens when I speak of love. It seems to me that this word isn't honest even with itself.
Herta Müller
Oh, if I had had a friend at this moment, a friend in an attic room, dreaming by candlelight and with a violin lying ready at his hand! How I should have slipped up to him in his quiet hour, noiselessly climbing the winding stair to take him by surprise, and then with talk and music we should have held heavenly festival throughout the night!
Hermann Hesse
Love should not be polluted with friendship.
Erich Maria Remarque
It's asking us our names," Falkor reported."I'm Atreyu!" Atreyu cried."I'm Falkor!" cried Falkor.The boy without a name was silent.Atreyu looked at him, then took him by the hand and cried: "He's Bastian Balthazar Bux!""It asks," Falkor translated, "why he doesn't speak for himself.""He can't," said Atreyu. "He has forgotten everything."Falkor listened again to the roaring of the fountain."Without memory, it says, he cannot come in. The snakes won't let him through."Atreyu replied: "I have stored up everything he told us about himself and his world. I vouch for him."Falkor listened."It wants to know by what right?""I am his friend," said Atreyu.
Michael Ende
I came to realize that one single human being, comprehended in his depth, who gives generously from the treasures of his heart, bestows on us more riches than Caesar or Alexander could ever conquer. Here is our kingdom, the best of monarchies, the best republic. Here is our garden, our happiness.
Ernst Jünger
However rare true love may be, it is less so than true friendship.
Albert Einstein
I will always miss the person I thought U are. But not the selfish, unkind, insensitive and heartless person U turned out to be.
Lily Amis
For despite what some people say, love is not only a sweet falling bound to come and quickly go away.
Erich Fromm
Never chase people. Be you and the right people who belong in your life and deserve a place in your heart will come, find and appreciate you!
Lily Amis
I love you butdon't know what todo.
Charles Bukowski
Any man who loves a woman as she deserves to be loved is a magician.
Nina George
The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive
Albert Einstein
The heights charm us, but the steps do not; with the mountain in our view we love to walk the plains.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
No small art is it to sleep: it is necessary for that purpose to keep awake all day.
Friedrich Nietzsche
To think what is true, to sense what is beautiful and to want what is good, hereby the spirit finds purpose of a life in reason.
Johann Gottfried Herder
Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
What he had hoped for was his ruin and what he had feared his salvation.
Michael Ende
We don't act like that because we are in good humor we are in a good humor because otherwise we should go to pieces.
Erich Maria Remarque
Wednesday, March 23 I know now that I love Clarimonda. That she has entered into the very fiber of my being. It may be that the loves of other men are different. But does there exist one head, one ear, one hand that is exactly like hundreds of millions of others? There are always differences, and it must be so with love. My love is strange, I know that, but is it any the less lovely because of that? Besides, my love makes me happy.If only I were not so frightened. Sometimes my terror slumbers and I forget it for a few moments, then it wakes and does not leave me. The fear is like a poor mouse trying to escape the grip of a powerful serpent. Just wait a bit, poor sad terror. Very soon, the serpent love will devour you."The Spider
Hanns Heinz Ewers
She'll be your dance partner, Jordan""Her? She's much too good. I'm scared!""Remember the feeling. Someday you'll want to write about it, and then it'll be good to know how the fear feels and to go ahead and dance all the same.
Nina George
The best remedy for those who are frightened, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere they can be alone, alone with the sky, nature and God. For then and only then can you feel that everything is as it should be and that God wants people to be happy amid nature's beauty and simplicity.As long as this exists, and that should be forever, I know that there will be solace for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances. I firmly believe that nature can bring comfort to all who suffer.
Anne Frank
Boredom is fear's patience. Fear doesn't want to exaggerate. Only on occasion--and fear considers this very important--does it want to know how things stand with me.
Herta Müller
And the great question for mankind is what is to be loved or hated next, whenever and old love or fear has lost its hold.
Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy