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

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No talent, but yet a character. [Ger., Kein talent, doch ein Charakter.]
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Sleep is lovely, death is better still, not to have been born is of course the miracle.
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The butterfly long loved the beautiful rose, And flirted around all day While round him in turn with her golden caress, Soft fluttered the sun's warm ray.... I know not with whom the rose was in love, But I know that I loved them all. The butterfly, rose, and the sun's bright ray, The star and the bird's sweet call.
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Nature, like a true poet, abhors abrupt transitions.
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Our sweetest hopes rise blooming. And then again are gone, They bloom and fade alternate, And so it goes rolling on. I know it, and it troubles My life, my love, my rest, My heart is wise and witty, And it bleeds within my breast.
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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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Every age has its problem, by solving which humanity is helped forward.
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The Bible is the great family chronicle of the Jews.
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Money is the god of our time, and Rothschild is his prophet.
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I have never seen an ass who talked like a human being, but I have met many human beings who talked like asses.
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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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My heart resembles the ocean has storm, and ebb and flow and many a beautiful pearl lies hid in its depths below.
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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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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 nightingale appear'd the first, And as her melody she sang, The apple into blossom burst, To life the grass and violets sprang.
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In the image of the lion made He kittens small and curious.
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So we keep asking, over and over,Until a handful of earthStops our mouths -But is that an answer?
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God will pardon: That's His business.
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He that marries is like the dogs who was married to the Adriatic. He knows not what there is in that which he marries mayhap treasures and pearls, mayhap monsters and tempests, await him.
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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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