Quote

All our contemporary philosophers perhaps without knowing it are looking through eyeglasses that Baruch Spinoza polished. Spinoza was a philosopher who earned his livelihood by grinding lenses.

Heinrich Heine

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Heinrich Heine
Age: 58 †
Born: 1797
Born: December 13
Died: 1856
Died: February 17
Author
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Poet
Poet Lawyer
Publicist
Writer
Dusseldorf
Christian Johann Heinrich Heine
Heinrich Heine
Christian Heine
Christian Johann Heinrich Harry Heine
Contemporary
Spinoza
Philosopher
Eyeglasses
Perhaps
Grinding
Knowing
Livelihood
Looking
Polished
Without
Lenses
Earned
Philosophers

More quotes by Heinrich Heine

Image
Glow-worms on the ground are moving, As if in the torch-dance circling.
Heinrich Heine
Image
There, where one burns books... one, in the end, burns men.
Heinrich Heine
Image
I do not know if she was virtuous, but she was ugly, and with a woman that is half the battle.
Heinrich Heine
Image
The devil take these people and their language! They take a dozen monosyllabic words in their jaws, chew them, crunch them and spit them out again, and call that speaking. Fortunately they are by nature fairly silent, and although they gaze at us open-mouthed, they spare us long conversations.
Heinrich Heine
Image
I call'd the devil, and he came, And with wonder his form did I closely scan He is not ugly, and is not lame, But really a handsome and charming man. A man in the prime of life is the devil, Obliging, a man of the world, and civil A diplomatist too, well skill'd in debate, He talks quite glibly of church and state.
Heinrich Heine
Image
But a day must come when the fire of youth will be quenched in my veins, when winter will dwell in my heart, when his snow flakes will whiten my locks, and his mists will dim my eyes. Then my friends will lie in their lonely grave, and I alone will remain like a solitary stalk forgotten by the reaper.
Heinrich Heine
Image
There is no Sixth Commandment in art. The poet is entitled to lay his hands on whatever material he finds necessary for his work.
Heinrich Heine
Image
Christ rode on an ass, but now asses ride on Christ.
Heinrich Heine
Image
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.
Heinrich Heine
Image
Those who begin by burning books will end by burning people.
Heinrich Heine
Image
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.
Heinrich Heine
Image
As the stars are the glory of the sky, so great men are the glory of their country, yea, of the whole earth. The hearts of great men are the stars of earth and doubtless when one looks down from above upon our planet, these hearts are seen to send forth, a silvery light just like the stars of heaven.
Heinrich Heine
Image
There are more fools in the world than there are people.
Heinrich Heine
Image
Thought is invisible nature.
Heinrich Heine
Image
In politics, as in life, we must above all things wish only for the attainable.
Heinrich Heine
Image
The gazelles so gentle and clever Skip lightly in frolicsome mood.
Heinrich Heine
Image
A lonely fir-tree is standing On a northern barren height It sleeps, and the ice and snow-drift Cast round it a garment of white.
Heinrich Heine
Image
Life is all too wondrous sweet, and the world is so beautifully bewildered it is the dream of an intoxicated divinity.
Heinrich Heine
Image
The propaganda of communism possesses a language which every people can understand. Its elements are simply hunger, envy, death.
Heinrich Heine
Image
In vain would I seek to discover Why sad and mournful am I, My thoughts without ceasing brood over A tale of the time gone by.
Heinrich Heine