Poets From Germany

"When I am with my sweetheart kind, A happy youth am I; So great the wealth within my mind, I the whole world could buy. But when her swanlike arms I quit, In that sad hour of pain, Away my boasted wealth doth flit, And I am poor again."

"Indeed they have wearied me greatly, And made me exceedingly sad, One half with their prose so wretched, The other with poetry bad. Their terrible discord has scatter’d What little senses I had, One half with their prose so wretched, The other with poetry bad. But ’mongst the whole army of scribblers, They most have stirr’d up my bile, Who write in neither prosaic Nor true poetical style."

"In the middle of the war there was Heine, there was Goethe, there was Schiller. I did posters for the German club, in the middle of the war. When I think back to how happy I was, studying German and flunking algebra, and I think what was going on for other Jewish teenagers on the other side of the world, I'm so puzzled by those dates."

"It was Heinrich Heine who gave me the most perfect idea of what a lyrical poet could be. In vain do I search through all the kingdoms of antiquity or of modern times for anything to resemble his sweet and passionate music. He possessed that divine wickedness, without which perfection itself becomes unthinkable to me,—I estimate the value of men, of races, according to the extent to which they are unable to conceive of a god who has not a dash of the satyr in him. And with what mastery he wields his native tongue! One day it will be said of Heine and me that we were by far the greatest artists of the German language that have ever existed, and that we left all the efforts that mere Germans made in this language an incalculable distance behind us."

"I sometimes dwell on the fact that there's one thing that time and humankind will not be able to take away from me, leaving me rich, richer than Croesus: the bliss that I derive from a Heine poem, from a Beethoven sonata or a DaVinci painting."

"Emotional sorrow has inspired many sublime lyrics, much profound insight and poetic exultation of a Byron, Shelley, Heine, and their kind."

"Heine says that a true autobiography is almost an impossibility, and that man is bound to lie about himself."

"no one would claim that the revolt of a few hundred insurgents in the Warsaw ghetto in April 1943 influenced the course of the war in any way. The immense importance of this event was in another dimension: a symbol, as is often said, the manifestation par excellence of the will to attest by struggle 'despite everything' - the famous trotz alledem of Heinrich Heine, found also from the pens of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, and again in the famous song of Wolf Biermann. It embodied the will and capacity of human resistance in the face of adversity, despite the extreme disproportion of forces."

"Heine's life mirrors that of [Rashel Mironovna] Khin's "misfit," being himself a self-hating Jew who mocked his coreligionists and in the end favorably re-assessed his old faith. Despite Heine's traditional Jewish upbringing, his father Samson permitted his wife Betty to remove her son from a private Jewish school and send him to a Catholic lycée. Consequently, Heine's knowledge of Judaism, like Berg's, was fragmentary and confused. Heine's adult apostasy, which he spoke of as an "admission ticket to European culture," brought him no such advantages, and he came to writhe under the stigma of being a convert. Though at times severely critical of Jews and Judaism, he shed much of his hostility as he learned more of Jewish history and culture. The Damascus Affair (1840), which involved a ritual murder libel against the Jews, marked the starting point of Heine's change of heart..."

"True eloquence consists in saying all that is necessary, and nothing but what is necessary."

"Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak and to speak well are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks."

"Every man, either to his terror or consolation, has some sense of religion."

"You cannot feed the hungry on statistics."

"Money bequeathed to my wife "on the express condition that she remarry. I want at least one person to be truly bereaved by my death.""

"Hence the one-sided errors—ces erreurs d'idée fixe—which we cannot escape when we stand too near to one or the other party; either deceives, yet does it unaware, and we confide most willingly in those who think as we do. But if we are by chance of such indifferent nature that we, without special predilection, keep in continual intercourse with all, then we are bewildered by the perfect self-confidence of either party, and our judgement is neutralised in the most depressing manner."

"Wenn man auch der protestantischen Kirche manche fatale Engsinnigkeit vorwirft, so muß man doch zu ihrem unsterblichen Ruhme bekennen: indem durch sie die freie Forschung in der christlichen Religion erlaubt und die Geister vom Joche der Autorität befreit wurden, hat die freie Forschung überhaupt in Deutschland Wurzel schlagen und die Wissenschaft sich selbständig entwickeln können. Die deutsche Philosophie, obgleich sie sich jetzt neben die protestantische Kirche stellt, ja sich über sie heben will, ist doch immer nur ihre Tochter; als solche ist sie immer in betreff der Mutter zu einer schonenden Pietät verpflichtet."

"Ich spreche von jener Religion, in deren ersten Dogmen eine Verdammnis alles Fleisches enthalten ist, und die dem Geiste nicht bloß eine Obermacht über das Fleisch zugesteht, sondern auch dieses abtöten will, um den Geist zu verherrlichen; ich spreche von jener Religion, durch deren unnatürliche Aufgabe ganz eigentlich die Sünde und die Hypokrisie in die Welt gekommen, indem eben durch die Verdammnis des Fleisches die unschuldigsten Sinnenfreuden eine Sünde geworden und durch die Unmöglichkeit, ganz Geist zu sein, die Hypokrisie sich ausbilden mußte."

"Auf Flügeln des Gesanges, Herzliebchen, trag' ich dich fort, Fort nach den Fluren des Ganges, Dort weiß ich den schönsten Ort."

"In my latest book, "Komancero," I have explained the transformation that took place within me regarding sacred things. Since its publication many inquiries have been made, with zealous importunity, as to the manner in which the true light dawned upon me. Pious souls, thirsting after a miracle, have desired to know whether, like Saul on the way to Damascus, I had seen a light from heaven; or whether, like Balaam, the son of Beor, I was riding on a restive ass, that suddenly opened its mouth and began to speak as a man? No ; ye credulous believers, I never journeyed to Damascus, nor do I know anything about it, save that lately the Jews there were accused of devouring aged monks of St. Francis; and I might never have known even the name of the city had I not read the Song of Solomon, wherein the wise king compares the nose of his beloved to a tower that looketh towards Damascus. Nor have I ever seen an ass, at least any four-footed one, that spake as a man, though I have often enough met men who, whenever they opened their mouths, spake as asses. In truth, it was neither a vision, nor a seraphic revelation, nor a voice from heaven, nor any strange dream or other mystery that brought me into the way of salvation; and I owe my conversion simply to the reading of a book. A book? Yes, and it is an old, homely-looking book, modest as nature and natural as it; a book that has a work-a-day and unassuming look, like the sun that warms us, like the bread that nourishes us; a book that seems to us as familiar and as full of kindly blessing as the old grandmother who reads daily in it with dear, trembling lips, and with spectacles on her nose. And this book is called quite shortly the Book, the Bible. Rightly do men also call it the Holy Scripture; for he that has lost his God can find Him again in this Book, and towards him that has never known God it sends forth the breath of the Divine Word. The Jews, who appreciate the value of precious things, knew right well what they did when, at the burning of the second temple, they left to their fate the gold and silver implements of sacrifice, the candlesticks and lamps, even the breastplate of the High Priest adorned with great jewels, but saved the Bible. This was the real treasure of the Temple, and, thanks be to God!"

"The whole system of symbolism impressed on the art and the life of the Middle Ages must awaken the admiration of poets in all times. In reality, what colossal unity there is in Christian art, especially in its architecture! These Gothic cathedrals, how harmoniously they accord with the worship of which they are the temples, and how the idea of the Church reveals itself in them! Everything about them strives upwards, everything transubstantiates itself; the stone buds forth into branches and foliage, and becomes a tree; the fruit of the vine and the ears of corn become blood and flesh; the man becomes God; God becomes a pure spirit. For the poet, the Christian life of the Middle Ages is a precious and inexhaustibly fruitful field. Only through Christianity could the circumstances of life combine to form such striking contrasts, such motley sorrow, such weird beauty, that one almost fancies such things can never have had any real existence, and that it is all a vast fever-dream the fever-dream of a delirious deity. Even Nature, during this sublime epoch of the Christian religion, seemed to have put on a fantastic disguise; for oftentimes though man, absorbed in abstract subtilties, turned away from her with abhorrence, she would recall him to her with a voice so mysteriously sweet, so terrible in its tenderness, so powerfully enchanting, that unconsciously he would listen and smile, and become terrified, and even fall sick unto death."

"The moon, too, hid herself Behind the clouds that darkly came over her; High up roarèd the sea, And then triumphantly stood in the heavens The stars all-eternal."

"I believe in progress; I believe that happiness is the goal of humanity, and I cherish a higher idea of the Divine Being than those pious folk who suppose that man was created only to suffer. Even here on earth I would strive, through the blessings of free political and industrial institutions, to bring about that reign of felicity which, in the opinion of the pious, is to be postponed till heaven is reached after the day of Judgment. The one expectation is perhaps as vain as the other; there may be no resurrection of humanity either in a political or in a religious sense. Mankind, it may be, is doomed to eternal misery ; the nations are perhaps under a perpetual curse, condemned to be trodden under foot by despots, to be made the instruments of their accomplices and the laughing-stocks of their menials. Yet, though all this be the case, it will be the duty even of those who regard Christianity as an error still to uphold it ; and men must journey barefoot through Europe, wearing monks' cowls, preaching the doctrine of renunciation and the vanity of all earthly possessions, holding up before the gaze of a scourged and despised humanity the consoling Cross, and promising, after death, all the glories of heaven. The duration of religions has always been dependent on human need for them. Christianity has been a blessing for suffering humanity during eighteen centuries ; it has been providential, divine, holy. All that it has done in the interest of civilisation, curbing the strong and strengthening the weak, binding together the nations through a common sympathy and a common tongue, and all else that its apologists have urged in its praise all this is as nothing compared with that great consolation it has bestowed on man. Eternal praise is due to the symbol of that suffering God, the Saviour with the crown of thorns, the crucified Christ, whose blood was as a healing balm that flowed into the wounds of humanity. The poet especially must acknowledge with reverence the terrible sublimity of this symbol."

"Full-blossoming moon! In thy fair light Like liquid gold, the ocean gleams: Like daylight’s clearness, yet charm’d into twilight, Over the strand’s wide plain all is lying; In the starless clear azure heavens Hover the snowy clouds, Like colossal figures of deities Of glittering marble. No, ’tis not so, no clouds can they be! ’Tis They themselves, the Gods..."

"Do not smile at my advice -- the advice of a dreamer who warns you against Kantians, Fichteans, and philosophers of nature. Do not smile at the visionary who anticipates the same revolution in the realm of the visible as has taken place in the spiritual. Thought precedes action as lightning precedes thunder. German thunder is of true Germanic character; it is not very nimble, but rumbles along ponderously. Yet, it will come and when you hear a crashing such as never before has been heard in the world's history, then you know that the German thunderbolt has fallen at last. At that uproar the eagles of the air will drop dead, and lions in the remotest deserts of Africa will hide in their royal dens. A play will be performed in Germany which will make the French Revolution look like an innocent idyll."

"Christianity - and that is its greatest merit - has somewhat mitigated that brutal Germanic love of war, but it could not destroy it. Should that subduing talisman, the cross, be shattered, the frenzied madness of the ancient warriors, that insane Berserk rage of which Nordic bards have spoken and sung so often, will once more burst into flame. This talisman is fragile, and the day will come when it will collapse miserably. Then the ancient stony gods will rise from the forgotten debris and rub the dust of a thousand years from their eyes, and finally Thor with his giant hammer will jump up and smash the Gothic cathedrals."

"Darling maiden, who can be Ever found to equal thee? To thy service joyfully Shall my life be pledged by me. Thy sweet eyes gleam tenderly, Like soft moonbeams o’er the sea; Lights of rosy harmony O’er thy red cheeks wander free."

"Music is a strange thing. I would almost say it is a miracle."

"There are more fools in the world than there are people."

"The fundamental evil of the world arose from the fact that the good Lord has not created money enough."

"Whatever tears one may shed, in the end one always blows one's nose."

"The music at a wedding procession always reminds me of the music of soldiers going into battle."

"When words leave off, music begins."

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

"Oaks shall be rent; the Word shall shatter — Yea, on that fiery day, the Crown, Even the palace walls shall totter, And domes and spires come crashing down."

"What! Think you that my flashes show me Only in lightnings to excel? Believe me, friends, you do not know me, For I can thunder quite as well."

"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."

"My songs, they say, are poisoned. How else, love, could it be? Thou hast, with deadly magic, Poured poison into me."

"Great genius takes shape by contact with another great genius, but less by assimilation than by friction."

"What an awful book the Corpus Juris is, this Bible of selfishness! I've always found the Roman code as detestable as the Romans themselves. These robbers want to safeguard their swag, and they seek to protect by law what they have plundered with the sword; hence the robber became a combination of the most odious kind, soldier and lawyer in one. Truly, we owe the theory of property, which was formerly a fact only, to these Roman thieves; and the much vaunted Roman Law on which all our present-day legislations and state institutions are based is nothing but the development of this theory in all its pernicious implications, in spite of the fact that this Law is diametrically opposed to religion, morals, common humanity and reason."

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

"Bien sûr, il me pardonnera; c'est son métier. [Of course he [God] will forgive me; that's his job.]"

"Rossini! divino Maestro!"

"So we keep asking, over and over, Until a handful of earth Stops our mouths — But is that an answer?"

"One should forgive one's enemies, but not before they are hanged."

"Ordinarily he is insane, but he has lucid moments when he is only stupid."

"No talent, but a character."

"The future smells of Russian leather, of blood, of godlessness and of much whipping. I advise our grandchildren to come into the world with very thick skin on their backs."

"Wild, dark times are rumbling toward us, and the prophet who wishes to write a new apocalypse will have to invent entirely new beasts, and beasts so terrible that the ancient animal symbols of St. John will seem like cooing doves and cupids in comparison."

"If one has no heart, one cannot write for the masses."

"Die Menschen in jener alten Zeit hatten Überzeugungen, wir Neueren haben nur Meinungen, und es gehört etwas mehr als eine bloße Meinung dazu, um so einen gotischen Dom aufzurichten."