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

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No talent, but yet a character. [Ger., Kein talent, doch ein Charakter.]
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The stones here speak to me, and I know their mute language. Also, they seem deeply to feel what I think. So a broken column of the old Roman times, an old tower of Lombardy, a weather- beaten Gothic piece of a pillar understands me well. But I am a ruin myself, wandering among ruins.
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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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Everywhere that a great soul gives utterance to its thoughts, there also is a Golgotha.
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If one has no heart, one cannot write for the masses.
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