Quote

Reason exercises merely the function of preserving order, is, so to say, the police in the region of art. In life it is mostly a cold arithmetician summing up our follies.

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
Life
Police
Summing
Merely
Follies
Function
Preserving
Exercise
Exercises
Cold
Region
Art
Regions
Order
Folly
Reason
Mostly

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God will forgive me. It's his job.
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The foolish race of mankind are swarming below in the night they shriek and rage and quarrel - and all of them are right.
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The men of the past had convictions, while we moderns have only opinions.
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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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There is only one writer in whom I find something that reminds me of the directness of style which is found in the Bible. It is Shakespeare.
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In dark ages people are best guided by religion, as in a pitch-black night a blind man is the best guide he knows the roads and paths better than a man who can see. When daylight comes, however, it is foolish to use blind, old men as guides.
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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.
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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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Laughter is wholesome. God is not so dull as some people make out. Did not He make the kitten to chase its tail.
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The gazelles so gentle and clever Skip lightly in frolicsome mood.
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Sweet May hath come to love us, Flowers, trees, their blossoms don And through the blue heavens above us The very clouds move on.
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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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Oh, they loved dearly: their souls kissed, they kissed with their eyes, they were both but one single kiss.
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A brainiac notices everything, an ignoramus comments about everything.
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Religion cannot sink lower than when somehow it is raised to a state religion ... It becomes then an avowed mistress.
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There, where one burns books... one, in the end, burns men.
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If one has no heart, one cannot write for the masses.
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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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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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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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