Top 180 Heinrich Heine Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “Everywhere that a great soul gives utterance to its thoughts, there also is a Golgotha.”

— Heinrich Heine

52. “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.”

— Heinrich Heine

53. “I fell asleep reading a dull book and dreamed I kept on reading, so I awoke from sheer boredom.”

— Heinrich Heine

54. “I have smelt all the aromas there are in the fragrant kitchen they call Earth; and what we can enjoy in this life, I surely have enjoyed just like a lord!”

— Heinrich Heine

55. “Life is all too wondrous sweet, and the world is so beautifully bewildered; it is the dream of an intoxicated divinity...”

— Heinrich Heine

56. “Every period of time is a sphinx that throws itself into the abyss as soon as its riddle has been solved.”

— Heinrich Heine

57. “Ask me not what I have, but what I am.”

— Heinrich Heine

58. “Each violet peeps from its dwelling to gaze at the bright stars above.”

— Heinrich Heine

59. “Laughter is wholesome. God is not so dull as some people make out. Did not He make the kitten to chase its tail.”

— Heinrich Heine

60. “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.”

— Heinrich Heine

61. “It is extremely difficult for a Jew to be converted, for how can he bring himself to believe in the divinity of – another Jew?”

— Heinrich Heine

62. “While we are indifferent to our good qualities, we keep on deceiving ourselves in regard to our faults, until we come to look on them as virtues.”

— Heinrich Heine

63. “I live, which is the main point.”

— Heinrich Heine

64. “Thought is invisible nature.”

— Heinrich Heine

65. “People in those old times had convictions; we moderns only have opinions. And it needs more than a mere opinion to erect a Gothic cathedral.”

— Heinrich Heine

66. “The spring’s already at the gate With looks my care beguiling; The country round appeareth straight A flower-garden smiling.”

— Heinrich Heine

67. “Phychical pain is more easily borne than physical; and if I had my choice between a bad conscience and a bad tooth, I should choose the former.”

— Heinrich Heine

68. “If one has no heart, one cannot write for the masses.”

— Heinrich Heine

69. “Christ rode on an ass, but now asses ride on Christ.”

— Heinrich Heine

70. “A blaspheming Frenchman is a spectacle more pleasing to the Lord than a praying Englishman.”

— Heinrich Heine

71. “Sweet May hath come to love us, Flowers, trees, their blossoms don; And through the blue heavens above us The very clouds move on.”

— Heinrich Heine

72. “Good Luck is a giddy maid, Fickle and restless as a fawn; She smooths your hair; and then the jade Kisses you quickly, and is gone.”

— Heinrich Heine

73. “Music is a strange thing. I would almost say it is a miracle.”

— Heinrich Heine

74. “With the rose the butterfly’s deep in love, A thousand times hovering round; But round himself, all tender like gold, The sun’s sweet ray is hovering found.”

— Heinrich Heine

75. “The fountain of love is the rose and the lily, the sun and the dove.”

— Heinrich Heine

76. “Be entirely tolerant or not at all; follow the good path or the evil one. To stand at the crossroads requires more strength than you possess.”

— Heinrich Heine

77. “In blissful dream, in silent night, There came to me, with magic might, With magic might, my own sweet love, Into my little room above.”

— Heinrich Heine

78. “Pretty women without religion are like flowers without perfume.”

— Heinrich Heine

79. “Thought precedes action as lighting does thunder.”

— Heinrich Heine

80. “The lotus flower is troubled At the sun’s resplendent light; With sunken head and sadly She dreamily waits for the night.”

— Heinrich Heine

81. “She resembles the Venus de Milo: she is very old, has no teeth, and has white spots on her yellow skin.”

— Heinrich Heine

82. “I do not know the meaning of my sadness; there is an old fairy tale that I cannot get out of my mind.”

— Heinrich Heine

83. “The real madness probably is not another thing that the wisdom itself that, tired of discovering the shames of the world, has taken the intelligent resolution to become mad.”

— Heinrich Heine

84. “The arrow belongs not to the archer when it has once left the bow; the word no longer belongs to the speaker when it has once passed his lips, especially when it has been multiplied by the press.”

— Heinrich Heine

85. “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.”

— Heinrich Heine

86. “That was only the beginning – where one burns books, one will finally also burn people.”

— Heinrich Heine

87. “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.”

— Heinrich Heine

88. “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.”

— Heinrich Heine

89. “If the Romans had been obliged to learn Latin, they would never have found time to conquer the world.”

— Heinrich Heine

90. “Woman is at once apple and serpent.”

— Heinrich Heine

91. “Every age has its problem, by solving which humanity is helped forward.”

— Heinrich Heine

92. “Oh, they loved dearly: their souls kissed, they kissed with their eyes, they were both but one single kiss.”

— Heinrich Heine

93. “The eyes of spring, so azure, Are peeping from the ground; They are the darling violets, That I in nosegays bound.”

— Heinrich Heine

94. “Das war ein vorspeil nur; That was only a prelude; dort wo man Buecher verbrennt, Where one burns books, vebrennt man auch am Ende One will also burn people Menchen. Eventually.”

— Heinrich Heine

95. “Oh what lies there are in kisses! And their guile so well prepared! Sweet the snaring is; but this is Sweeter still, to be ensnared.”

— Heinrich Heine

96. “The people have no ear, either for rhythm or music, and their unnatural passion for pianoforte playing and singing is thus all the more repulsive. There is nothing on earth more terrible than English music, except English painting.”

— Heinrich Heine

97. “The swan in the pool is singing, And up and down doth he steer, And, singing gently ever, Dips under the water clear.”

— Heinrich Heine

98. “He only profits from praise who values criticism.”

— Heinrich Heine

99. “In these times we fight for ideas and newspapers are our fortress.”

— Heinrich Heine

100. “And over the pond are sailing Two swans all white as snow; Sweet voices mysteriously wailing Pierce through me as onward they go. They sail along, and a ringing Sweet melody rises on high; And when the swans begin singing, They presently must die.”

— Heinrich Heine