Heinrich Heine Quotations

Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (December 13, 1797 – February 17, 1856) was a journalist, an essayist, and one of the most significant German romantic poets. Jewish by birth, he converted to Christianity as an adult.

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Out of my own great woe
I make my little songs.
- Aus Meinen Grossen Schmerzen (Out of My Great Woe), st. 1

Ich weiss nicht, was soll es bedeuten,
Dass ich so traurig bin;
Ein Märchen aus alten Zeiten,
Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn.
- I cannot explain the sadness
  That's fallen on my breast.
  An old, old fable haunts me,
  And will not let me rest.
  - Die Lorelei, st. 1

Du bist wie eine Blume,
So hold und schön und rein;
Ich schau dich an, und Wehmut
Schleicht mir ins Herz hinein.
- You're lovely as a flower,
  So pure and fair to see;
  I look at you, and sadness
  Comes stealing over me.
  - Du Bist Wie eine Blume, st. 1

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

Ich hatte einst ein schönes Vaterland.
Der Eichenbaum
Wuchs dort so hoch, die Veilchen nickten sanft.
Es war ein Traum.
Das küßte mich auf deutsch und sprach auf deutsch
(Man glaubt es kaum
Wie gut es klang) das Wort: "Ich liebe dich!"
Es war ein Traum.
- I had once a beautiful fatherland.
  The oak tree
  Grew so high there, violets nodded softly.
  It was a dream.
  It kissed me in German and spoke in German
  (You would hardly believe
  How good it sounded) the words: "I love you!"
  It was a dream.
  - In Der Fremde (In a Foreign Land)

Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.
- Where they burn books, at the end they also burn people.
  - Almansor: A Tragedy (1823)
- Variant translations:
- Where they burn books, they will also burn people.
- It is there, where they burn books, that eventually they burn people.
- Where they burn books, so too will they in the end burn human beings.
- Where they burn books, they also burn people.
- Them that begin by burning books, end by burning men.
Every woman is the gift of a world to me.
- Ideas: The Book Le Grand (1826)

Don't send a poet to London.
- English Fragments (1828), Ch. 2 : London

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.
- English Fragments (1828), Ch. 11 : The Emancipation
- Variant: The weather-cock on the church spire, though made of iron, would soon be broken by the storm-wind if it did not understand the noble art of turning to every wind.

Christianity is an idea, and as such is indestructible and immortal, like every idea.
- History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany, Vol. I (1834)

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.
- History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany, Vol. III (1834)

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.
- Französische Bühne (The French Stage), ch. 9 (1837)

If one has no heart, one cannot write for the masses.
- Letter to Julius Campe (March 18, 1840)

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.
- Lutetia; or, Paris. From the Augsberg Gazette, 12, VII (1842)

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.
- Lutetia; or, Paris. From the Augsberg Gazette, 12, VII (1842)

No talent, but a character.
- Atta Troll, ch. 24 (1843)

Ordinarily he is insane, but he has lucid moments when he is only stupid.
- Of Savoye, appointed ambassador to Frankfurt by Lamartine (1848); as quoted in Insults : A Practical Anthology of Scathing Remarks and Acid Portraits (1941) by Max John Herzberg, p. 74

One should forgive one's enemies, but not before they are hanged.
- Statement of 1848, as quoted in The Cynic's Lexicon : A Dictionary of Amoral Advice (1984) by Jonathon Green, p. 91
- One must forgive one's enemies, but not before they are hanged.
  - As quoted in A Mania for Sentences (1985) by Dennis Joseph Enright, p. 10

So we keep asking, over and over,
Until a handful of earth
Stops our mouths —
But is that an answer?
- Lazarus, I (1854)

Rossini! divino Maestro!
- Rossini, divine master.
  - Heinrich Heine's Pictures of Travel (1855) as translated by Charles Godfrey Leland, p. 270

Bien sûr, il me pardonnera; c'est son métier. [Of course he [God] will forgive me; that’s his job.]
- Death-bed joke (1856), attributed as last words; quoted in French in The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious (1905) by Sigmund Freud, as translated by Joyce Crick (2003).
- Quoted as “Gott wird mir verzeihen, das ist sein Beruf.” in Letzte Worte auf dem Totenbett. Quelle: Alfred Meißner: "Heinrich Heine. Erinnerungen" (1856), Kapitel 5
- Variant translation: Why, of course, he will forgive me; that's his business.
  - As quoted in Heinrich Heine (1937) by Louis Untermeyer

If the Romans had been obliged to learn Latin, they would never have found time to conquer the world.
- As quoted in The Medical Record No. 674 (6 October 1883); also in And I Quote : The Definitive Collection of Quotes, Sayings, and Jokes for the Contemporary Speechmaker (1992) by Ashton Applewhite, Tripp Evans and Andrew Frothingham, p. 447

Great genius takes shape by contact with another great genius, but less by assimilation than by friction.
- As quoted in Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern English and Foreign Sources (1899) by James Wood, p. 6

My songs, they say, are poisoned.
How else, love, could it be?
Thou hast, with deadly magic,
Poured poison into me.
- Lyrical Intermezzo, 57; in Poems of Heinrich Heine: Three Hundred and Twenty-five Poems (1917) Selected and translated by Louis Untermeyer, p. 73

Oh what lies there are in kisses!
And their guile so well prepared!
Sweet the snaring is; but this is
Sweeter still, to be ensnared.
- The Home-coming, Poem 74; also in Poems of Heinrich Heine: Three Hundred and Twenty-five Poems (1917) Selected and translated by Louis Untermeyer, p. 134

What! Think you that my flashes show me
Only in lightnings to excel?
Believe me, friends, you do not know me,
For I can thunder quite as well.
- Wartet nur! [Only Wait!] in Poems for the Times ; also in Poems of Heinrich Heine: Three Hundred and Twenty-five Poems (1917) Selected and translated by Louis Untermeyer, p. 262

Oaks shall be rent; the Word shall shatter —
Yea, on that fiery day, the Crown,
Even the palace walls shall totter,
And domes and spires come crashing down.
- Wartet nur! [Only Wait!] in Poems for the Times ; also in Poems of Heinrich Heine: Three Hundred and Twenty-five Poems (1917) Selected and translated by Louis Untermeyer, p. 263

Experience is a good school. But the fees are high.
- As quoted in The Modern Handbook of Humor (1967) by Ralph Louis Woods, p. 493

When words leave off, music begins.
- As quoted in Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Time (1977) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 343

The music at a wedding procession always reminds me of the music of soldiers going into battle.
- As quoted in The Cynic's Lexicon : A Dictionary of Amoral Advice (1984) by Jonathon Green
- Variant translation: The Wedding March always reminds me of the music played when soldiers go into battle.
  - As quoted in The Routledge Dictionary of Quotations (1987) by Robert Andrews, p. 281

Whatever tears one may shed, in the end one always blows one's nose.
- As quoted in The Routledge Dictionary of Quotations (1987) by Robert Andrews, p. 60

The fundamental evil of the world arose from the fact that the good Lord has not created money enough.
- As quoted in The Pillars of Economic Understanding : Factors and Markets (2000) by Mark Perlman and Charles Robert McCann

There are more fools in the world than there are people.
- As quoted in One Big Fib : The Incredible Story of the Fraudulent First International Bank of Grenada (2003) by Owen Platt, p. 37

Misattributed

You cannot feed the hungry on statistics.
- David Lloyd George

Every man, either to his terror or consolation, has some sense of religion.
- James Harrington in The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656)

Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak and to speak well are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.
- Ben Jonson

True eloquence consists in saying all that is necessary, and nothing but what is necessary.
- François de La Rochefoucauld

Quotes about Heine

Heine says that a true autobiography is almost an impossibility, and that man is bound to lie about himself.
- Dostoevsky in Notes from the Underground (1864); this has led to the statement "True autobiography is almost an impossibility" being quoted as a direct quote of Heine.

Quoternity