The Best Heinrich Heine quotes

Thought is invisible nature. — Heinrich Heine

God will forgive me. It’s his job.’ Heine said this on his deathbed (1856). Hilarious. He must have thought that up years before and counted the seconds to use it. — Heinrich Heine

At first I was almost about to despair, I thought I never could bear it–but I did I bear it. The question remains: how? — Heinrich Heine

Thought precedes action as lighting does thunder. — Heinrich Heine

Music is a strange thing. I would almost say it is a miracle. For it stands halfway between thought and phenomenon, between spirit and matter. — Heinrich Heine

First, I thought, almost despairing, This must crush my spirit now; Yet I bore it, and am bearing–Only do not ask me how. — Heinrich Heine

The men of action are, after all, only the unconscious instruments of the men of thought. — Heinrich Heine

Mark this well, you proud men of action! you are, after all, nothing but unconscious instruments of the men of thought. — Heinrich Heine

Everywhere that a great soul gives utterance to its thoughts, there also is a Golgotha. — Heinrich Heine

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

Music is a strange thing. I would almost say it is a miracle. — Heinrich Heine

There is one thing on earth more terrible than English music, and that is English painting. — Heinrich Heine

The music at a wedding procession always reminds me of The music of soldiers going into battle. — Heinrich Heine

Where words leave off, music begins. — Heinrich Heine

Music played at weddings always reminds me of the music played for soldiers before they go into battle. — 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

Nothing is more futile than theorizing about music. No doubt there are laws, mathematically strict laws, but these laws are not music; they are only its conditions? The essence of music is revelation. — Heinrich Heine

Every man, either to his terror or consolation, has some sense of religion. — Heinrich Heine

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. — Heinrich Heine

Religion cannot sink lower than when somehow it is raised to a state religion … It becomes then an avowed mistress. — Heinrich Heine

Pretty women without religion are like flowers without perfume. — Heinrich Heine

Atheism is the last word of theism. — Heinrich Heine

Christianity is an idea, and as such is indestructible and immortal, like every idea. — Heinrich Heine

There are more fools in the world than There are people. — Heinrich Heine

Every woman is the gift of a world to me. — Heinrich Heine

The fundamental evil of The world arose from The fact that The good lord has not created money enough. — Heinrich Heine

The swan, like the soul of the poet, By the dull world is ill understood. — Heinrich Heine

Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them. — Heinrich Heine

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

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

In politics, as In life, we must above all thIngs wish only for the attaInable. — 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

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

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

But that age … exerts on us An almost terrible charm, Like the memory of things seen And a life lived in dreams. — 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

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

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

It is an ancient story Yet is it ever new. — Heinrich Heine

The sun’s sweet ray is hovering discovered. — Heinrich Heine

Oh fair, oh sweet and holy as dew at morning tide, I gaze on thee, and yearnings, sad in my bosom hide. — Heinrich Heine

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

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

Of course God will forgive me; that’s His job. — Heinrich Heine

The deepest truth blooms only from the deepest love. — Heinrich Heine

What Christian love cannot do is effected by a common hatred. — Heinrich Heine

The fountain of love is the rose and the lily, the sun and the dove. — Heinrich Heine

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

The years keep coming and going, Men will arise & depart; Only one thing is immortal: The love that is in my heart. — Heinrich Heine

Like a great poet, Nature produces the greatest results with the simplest means. These are simply a sun, trees, flowers, water and love. — Heinrich Heine

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

Money is the god of our time, and Rothschild is his prophet. — Heinrich Heine

Freedom is a new religion, the religion of our time. — Heinrich Heine

Lyrical poetry is much the same an every age, as the songs of the nightingales in every spring–time. — Heinrich Heine

Every period of time is a sphinx that throws itself into the abyss as soon as its riddle has been solved. — Heinrich Heine

The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin. — Heinrich Heine

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

In earlier religions the spirit of the time was expressed through the individual and confirmed by miracles. In modern religions the spirit is expressed through the many and confirmed by reason. — Heinrich Heine

Ordinarily he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid. — Heinrich Heine