Heinrich Heine Quotes

105 Sourced Quotes

Experience is a good school. But the fees are high.

Heinrich Heine
Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.

Heinrich Heine
Nothing is sillier than this charge of plagiarism. There is no sixth commandment in art. The poet dare help himself wherever he lists, wherever he finds material suited to his work. He may even appropriate entire columns with their carved capitals, if the temple he thus supports be a beautiful one. Goethe understood this very well, and so did Shakespeare before him.

Heinrich Heine
You're lovely as a flower,
So pure and fair to see;
I look at you, and sadness
Comes stealing over me.

Heinrich Heine
The gazelles so gentle and clever Skip lightly in frolicsome mood.

Heinrich Heine
Sweet May lies fresh before us, To life the young flowers leap, And through the Heaven's blue o'er us The rosy cloudlets sweep.

Heinrich Heine
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.

Heinrich Heine
The sea knows all things; for, at night, the stars confide to it the hidden mysteries of heaven.

Heinrich Heine
The violets prattle and titter, And gaze on the stars high above.

Heinrich Heine
The night comes stealing o'er me,
And clouds are on the sea;
While the wavelets rustle before me
With a mystical melody.

Heinrich Heine
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
If thou lookest on the lime-leaf, Thou a heart's form will discover; Therefore are the lindens ever Chosen seats of each fond lover.

Heinrich Heine
God has given us speech in order that we may say pleasant things to our friends, and tell bitter truths to our enemies.

Heinrich Heine
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.

Heinrich Heine
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.

Heinrich Heine
The great pulsation of nature beats too in my breast, and when I carol aloud, I am answered by a thousand-fold echo. I hear a thousand nightingales. Spring hath sent them to awaken Earth from her morning slumber, and Earth trembles with ecstasy, her flowers are hymns, which she sings in inspiration to the sun...

Heinrich Heine
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
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.

Heinrich Heine
The nightingale appear'd the first, And as her melody she sang, The apple into blossom burst, To life the grass and violets sprang.

Heinrich Heine
Perhaps already I am dead, And these perhaps are phantoms vain;— These motley phantasies that pass At night through my disordered brain. Perhaps with ancient heathen shapes, Old faded gods, this brain is full; Who, for their most unholy rites, Have chosen a dead poet's skull...

Heinrich Heine
Every age has its problem, by solving which humanity is helped forward.

Heinrich Heine
At Dresden on the Elbe, that handsome city,
Where straw hats, verses, and cigars are made,
They've built (it well may make us feel afraid,)
A music club and music warehouse pretty.

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

Heinrich Heine
The artist is the child in the popular fable, every one of whose tears was a pearl.

Heinrich Heine
The cloudlets are lazily sailing O'er the blue Atlantic sea; And mid the twilight there hovers A shadowy figure o'er me...

Heinrich Heine
Nature, like a true poet, abhors abrupt transitions.

Heinrich Heine
Life is the greatest of blessings and death the worst of evils.... all great, powerful souls love life.

Heinrich Heine
I live! Red life boils in my veins, earth yields beneath my feet, in the glow of love I embrace trees and statues, and they live in my embrace. Every woman is to me the gift of a world. I revel in the melody of her countenance, and with a single glance of my eye I can enjoy more than others with their every limb through all their lives.

Heinrich Heine
Literary history is the great morgue where all seek the dead ones whom they love, or to whom they are related.

Heinrich Heine
The Blossoms and leaves in plenty From the apple tree fall each day; The merry breezes approach them, And with them merrily play.

Heinrich Heine