Heinrich Heine

Since the Exodus, freedom has always spoken with a Hebrew accent.

— Heinrich Heine

“The music at a wedding procession always reminds me of the music of soldiers going into battle.”

— Heinrich Heine

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

— Heinrich Heine

The men of the past had convictions, while we moderns have only opinions.

— Heinrich Heine

From every Englishman emanates a kind of gas, the deadly choke-damp of boredom.

— Heinrich Heine

Graves they say are warm'd by glory; Foolish words and empty story.

— Heinrich Heine

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

— Heinrich Heine

Lo, sleep is good, better is death--in sooth The best of all were never to be born.

— Heinrich Heine

I have smelt all the aromas there are in the fragrant kitchen they call Earth; and what we can enjoy in this…

— Heinrich Heine

The spring's already at the gate With looks my care beguiling; The country round appeareth straight A flower-garden smiling.

— Heinrich Heine

High in the air rises the forest of oaks, high over the oaks soar the eagle, high over the eagle sweep the…

— Heinrich Heine

The arrow belongs not to the archer when it has once left the bow; the word no longer belongs to the speaker…

— Heinrich Heine

The real madness probably is not another thing that the wisdom itself that, tired of discovering the shames of the world, has…

— Heinrich Heine

Phychical pain is more easily borne than physical; and if I had my choice between a bad conscience and a bad tooth,…

— Heinrich Heine

With the rose the butterfly's deep in love, A thousand times hovering round; But round himself, all tender like gold, The sun's…

— Heinrich Heine

Literary history is the great morgue where all seek the dead ones whom they love, or to whom they are related.

— Heinrich Heine

In vain would I seek to discover Why sad and mournful am I, My thoughts without ceasing brood over A tale of…

— Heinrich Heine

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

— Heinrich Heine

You talk of our having an idea; we do not have an idea. The idea has us, and martyrs us, and scourges…

— Heinrich Heine

“When the leeches have sucked enough blood, one simply has to sprinkle some salt on their backs and they fall off –…

— Heinrich Heine

Poverty sits by the cradle of all our great men, and rocks them up to manhood; and this meager foster-mother remains their…

— Heinrich Heine

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

— Heinrich Heine

All our contemporary philosophers perhaps without knowing it are looking through eyeglasses that Baruch Spinoza polished. Spinoza was a philosopher who earned…

— Heinrich Heine

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

— Heinrich Heine

Be entirely tolerant or not at all; follow the good path or the evil one. To stand at the crossroads requires more…

— Heinrich Heine

The nightingale appear'd the first, And as her melody she sang, The apple into blossom burst, To life the grass and violets…

— Heinrich Heine

The air grows cool and darkles, The Rhine flows calmly on; The mountain summit sparkles In the light of the setting sun.

— Heinrich Heine

Lyrical poetry is much the same an every age, as the songs of the nightingales in every spring-time.

— Heinrich Heine

Terrible as is war, it yet displays the spiritual grandeur of man daring to defy his mightiest hereditary enemy--death.

— Heinrich Heine

At first I was almost about to despair, I thought I never could bear it — but I did I bear it.…

— Heinrich Heine

Like a great poet, nature produces the greatest results with the simplest means. There are simply a sun, flowers, water, and love.

— Heinrich Heine

At Dresden on the Elbe, that handsome city, Where straw hats, verses, and cigars are made, They've built (it well may make…

— Heinrich Heine

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

— Heinrich Heine

Round my cradle shimmered the last moonbeams of the eighteenth century and the first morning rays of the nineteenth.

— Heinrich Heine

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

— Heinrich Heine

I consider it a degradation and a stain on my honor to submit to baptism in order to qualify myself for state…

— Heinrich Heine

“The weather-cock on the church spire, though made of iron, would soon be broken by the storm-wind if it did not understand…

— Heinrich Heine

The propaganda of communism possesses a language which every people can understand. Its elements are simply hunger, envy, death.

— Heinrich Heine

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

— Heinrich Heine

The swan in the pool is singing, And up and down doth he steer, And, singing gently ever, Dips under the water…

— Heinrich Heine