Heinrich Heine

People in those old times had convictions; we moderns only have opinions. And it needs more than a mere opinion to erect a Gothic cathedral.

— Heinrich Heine

If one has no heart, one cannot write for the masses.

— Heinrich Heine

Wild, dark times are rumbling toward us, and the prophet who wishes to write a new apocalypse will have to invent entirely new beasts, and beasts so terrible that the ancient animal symbols of St. John will seem like cooing doves and cupids in comparison.

— Heinrich Heine

The future smells of Russian leather, of blood, of godlessness and of much whipping. I advise our grandchildren to come into the world with very thick skin on their backs.

— Heinrich Heine

No talent, but a character.

— Heinrich Heine

Ordinarily he is insane, but he has lucid moments when he is only stupid.

— Heinrich Heine

One should forgive one's enemies, but not before they are hanged.

— Heinrich Heine

So we keep asking, over and over,But is that an answer?

— Heinrich Heine

God will forgive me. It's his job.

— Heinrich Heine

Bien sûr, il me pardonnera; c'est son métier. [Of course he [God] will forgive me; that’s his job.]

— Heinrich Heine

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

— Heinrich Heine

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

— Heinrich Heine

My songs, they say, are poisoned. Poured poison into me.

— Heinrich Heine

Oh what lies there are in kisses! Sweeter still, to be ensnared.

— Heinrich Heine

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

— Heinrich Heine

What! Think you that my flashes show me For I can thunder quite as well.

— Heinrich Heine

Oaks shall be rent; the Word shall shatter — And domes and spires come crashing down.

— Heinrich Heine

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

— Heinrich Heine

When words leave off, music begins.

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

— Heinrich Heine

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

— Heinrich Heine

Music is a strange thing. I would almost say it is a miracle.

— Heinrich Heine

A pine tree standeth lonely

— Heinrich Heine

Hence the one-sided errors—ces erreurs d'idée fixe—which we cannot escape when we stand too near to one or the other party; either deceives, yet does it unaware, and we confide most willingly in those who think as we do. But if we are by chance of such indifferent nature that we, without special predilection, keep in continual intercourse with all, then we are bewildered by the perfect self-confidence of either party, and our judgement is neutralised in the most depressing manner.

— Heinrich Heine

Perfumes are the feelings of flowers.

— Heinrich Heine

God will forgive me; that's his business.

— Heinrich Heine

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

— Heinrich Heine

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

— Heinrich Heine

Lieb Liebchen, leg ‘s Händchen aufs Herze mein; -

— Heinrich Heine

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

— Heinrich Heine

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

— Heinrich Heine

God will forgive me. It's his job.

— Heinrich Heine

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

— Heinrich Heine

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

— Heinrich Heine

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

— Heinrich Heine

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

— Heinrich Heine

First, I thought, almost despairing,

— Heinrich Heine

God will forgive me. It's his job.

— Heinrich Heine

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

— Heinrich Heine

Where they burn books, at the end they also burn people

— Heinrich Heine

Out of my own great woeI make my little songs.

— Heinrich Heine

At first I was almost about to despair, I thought I never could bear it — but I did bear it. The question remains: how?

— Heinrich Heine

Every woman is the gift of a world to me.

— Heinrich Heine

Don't send a poet to London.

— Heinrich Heine

He who will establish himself on a certain height must yield according to circumstances, like the weather-cock on a church-spire, which, though it be made of iron, would soon be broken by the storm-wind if it remained obstinately immovable, and did not understand the noble art of turning to every wind. But a great man will never so far contradict his own feelings as to see, or, it may be, increase, with cold-blooded indifference, the misfortunes of his fellow country-men.

— Heinrich Heine

Christianity is an idea, and as such is indestructible and immortal, like every idea.

— Heinrich Heine

Mark this well, you proud men of action: You are nothing but the unwitting agents of the men of thought who often, in quiet self-effacement, mark out most exactly all your doings in advance.

— Heinrich Heine