Hans Magnus Enzensberger Quotes

10 Sourced Quotes

Mediocrity in politics is not to be despised. Greatness is not needed.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger
I am playing around
with the end, the end of the Titanic.
I've nothing better to do.
I have time, like a God.
I have nothing to lose.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger
The painter who dips his brush in the pot knows that his work is futile and that only one thing can be relied on: really existing time, which takes hold of and conserves everything, even as it wears it down. History is a process of erosion. What we call socialism is only its viceroy.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger
Even if they cannot name their own goal, people's self-directed activity expresses a practical critique of existing conditions.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger
Whenever anyone says that something or other is 'typically Italian', I want to jump up with impatience, overturn my chair, and run out of the room. Could anything be more barren than the study of 'national psychology', that moldy garbage heap of stereotypes, prejudices, and accepted ideas?

Hans Magnus Enzensberger
Slowly
the scab peels off. A new tobacconist,
a new address. Pariahs, horribly relieved.
Shades growing paler. These are the documents.
This is the bunch of keys. This is the scar.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger
That one gets used to everything –
One gets used to that.
The usual name for it is
A learning process.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger
I speak for none of you now,
all you plotters of perfect crimes,
nor for me, nor for anyone.
i speak for those who can't speak,
for the deaf and dumb witnesses,
for otters and seals,
for the ancient owls of the earth.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger
The reality in which a camera turns up is always posed, e.g., the moon landing.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger
Yes, my boy. I often wonder where the mathematics stops and witchcraft begins.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger