He who fears to venture as far as his heart urges and his reason permits, is a coward; he who ventures further than he intended to go, is a slave.
The negro king desired to be portrayed as white. But do not laugh at the poor African; for every man is but another negro king, and would like to appear in a color different from that with which Fate has bedaubed him.
A brainiac notices everything, an ignoramus comments about everything.
I do not murmur, even if my heart break.
Das war ein vorspeil nur; That was only a prelude; dort wo man Buecher verbrennt, Where one burns books, vebrennt man auch am Ende One will also burn people Menchen. Eventually.
Thinking of Germany in the night robs me of my sleep.
In politics, as in life, we must above all things wish only for the attainable.
The foolish race of mankind are swarming below in the night; they shriek and rage and quarrel – and all of them are right.
Oh, they loved dearly: their souls kissed, they kissed with their eyes, they were both but one single kiss.
With the rose the butterfly’s deep in love, A thousand times hovering round; But round himself, all tender like gold, The sun’s sweet ray is hovering found.
That was only the beginning – where one burns books, one will finally also burn people.
In action, the English have the advantage enjoyed by free men always entitled to free discussion: of having a ready judgment on every question. We Germans, on the other hand, are always thinking. We think so much that we never form a judgment.
God will forgive me the foolish remarks I have made about Him just as I will forgive my opponents the foolish things they have written about me, even though they are spiritually as inferior to me as I to thee, O God!
I have smelt all the aromas there are in the fragrant kitchen they call Earth; and what we can enjoy in this life, I surely have enjoyed just like a lord!
And once again we plighted our troth, And titter’d, caress’d, kiss’d so dearly.
It is an ancient story Yet is it ever new.
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.
The men of action are, after all, only the unconscious instruments of the men of thought.
The Bible is the great family chronicle of the Jews.
In these times we fight for ideas and newspapers are our fortress.