Heinrich Heine (1797–1856): German poet, writer and literary critic. The library holds 63 quotes by Heinrich Heine, drawn from Pictures of Travel: Return Home. The 60 below are the most quoted; search the library in the maker for the rest.
Reason is, so to speak, the police of the kingdom of art, seeking only to preserve order. In life itself a cold arithmetician who adds up our follies. Sometimes, alas! only the accountant in bankruptcy of a broken heart.
The artist is the child in the popular fable, every one of whose tears was a pearl. Ah! the world, that cruel step-mother, beats the poor child the harder to make him shed more pearls.
If all Europe were to become a prison, America would still present a loop-hole of escape; and, God be praised! that loop-hole is larger than the dungeon itself.
You should only attempt to borrow from those who have but few of this world’s goods, as their chests are not of iron, and they are, besides, anxious to appear wealthier than they really are.
To wither away, be disleaved, be trodden to dust even by the rude feet of Fate, that, friend, is the lot on earth of everything that is beautiful and sweet.
He that marries is like the Doge who was wedded to the Adriatic. He knows not what there is in that which he marries: mayhap treasures and pearls, mayhap monsters and tempests, await him.
Truth is vanishing from the earth, and of fidelity is the day gone by. The dogs still wag the tail and smell the same as ever, but they are no longer faithful.
A little shallowness might be useful to many a poet! What is depth, after all? Is the pit deeper than the shallow mirror which reflects its lowest recesses?
Monopolies are just as injurious to religion as to trade. With competition religions preserve their strength, but they will never again flourish in their original glory until religious freedom, or, in other words, free trade among the gods, is introduced.
Think not to find thy happiness out there in the whirl of riotous pleasure. Thy blessedness dwells in thy own breast; here must thou for ever establish it.
Death, the dry pedant, spares neither the rose nor the thistle, nor does he forget the solitary blade of grass in the distant waste. He destroys thoroughly and unceasingly. Everywhere we may see how he crushes to dust plants and beasts, men and their works. Even the Egyptian pyramids, that would seem to defy him, are trophies of his power,—monuments of decay, graves of primeval kings.