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You talk of our having an idea we do not have an idea. The idea has us, and martyrs us, and scourges us, and drives us into the arena to fight and die for it, whether we want to or not.

Heinrich Heine

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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
Fighting
Martyrs
Whether
Scourge
Idea
Martyr
Ideas
Arena
Writing
Drives
Fight
Talk
Dies
Scourges

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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.
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He who fights with priests may make up his mind to have his poor good name torn and befouled by the most infamous lies and the most cutting slanders.
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Genius: 1. to believe your own thought. To believe that what is true for you is ultimately true. 2. a sledgehammer. 3. the fruit of labour and thought. 4. soul. 5. the ability to put into effect what is in your mind. 6. something one can become.
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First, I thought, almost despairing, This must crush my spirit now Yet I bore it, and am bearing- Only do not ask me how.
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If thou lookest on the lime-leaf, Thou a heart's form will discover Therefore are the lindens ever Chosen seats of each fond lover.
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Newness hath an evanescent beauty.
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The cloudlets are lazily sailing O'er the blue Atlantic sea And mid the twilight there hovers A shadowy figure o'er me.
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Perfumes are the feelings of flowers.
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In the image of the lion made He kittens small and curious.
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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.
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Where words leave off, music begins.
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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.
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God has given us speech in order that we may say pleasant things to our friends, and tell bitter truths to our enemies.
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There is no Sixth Commandment in art. The poet is entitled to lay his hands on whatever material he finds necessary for his work.
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The lotus flower is troubled At the sun's resplendent light With sunken head and sadly She dreamily waits for the night.
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It must require an inordinate share of vanity and presumption, too, after enjoying so much that is good and beautiful on earth, to ask the Lord for immortality in addition to it all.
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Lo, sleep is good, better is death--in sooth The best of all were never to be born.
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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.
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Each violet peeps from its dwelling to gaze at the bright stars above.
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God will pardon me. It is His trade.
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