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

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On the waves of the brook she dances by, The light, the lovely dragon-fly She dances here, she dances there, The shimmering, glimmering flutterer fair. And many a foolish young beetle's impressed By the blue gauze gown in which she is dressed They admire the enamel that decks her bright, And her elegant waist so slim and slight.
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Oh, they loved dearly: their souls kissed, they kissed with their eyes, they were both but one single kiss.
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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.
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God will forgive me. It's his job.
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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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Perfumes are the feelings of flowers, and as the human heart, imagining itself alone and unwatched, feels most deeply in the night-time, so seems it as if the flowers, in musing modesty, await the mantling eventide ere they give themselves up wholly to feeling...
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Everywhere that a great soul gives utterance to its thoughts, there also is a Golgotha.
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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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Never let a fool kiss you, or a kiss fool you. Oh, what lies there are in kisses!
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Tell me who first did kisses suggest? It was a mouth all glowing and blest It kissed and it thought of nothing beside. The fair month of May was then in its pride, The flowers were all from the earth fast springing, The sun was laughing, the birds were singing.
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The same fact that Boccaccio offers in support of religion might be adduced in behalf of a republic: It exists in spite of its ministers.
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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.
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Atheism is the last word of theism
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I consider it a degradation and a stain on my honor to submit to baptism in order to qualify myself for state employment in Prussia.
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Human misery is too great for men to die without faith.
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Like a great poet, Nature produces the greatest results with the simplest means. These are simply a sun, trees, flowers, water and love.
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The men of the past had convictions, while we moderns have only opinions.
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The propaganda of communism possesses a language which every people can understand. Its elements are simply hunger, envy, death.
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