110+ Heinrich Heine Quotes (Romantic, Satirical And Lyrical)

Heinrich Heine was a German poet and journalist from the early 19th century. He is best known for his lyric poetry and his satirical writings, which often criticized the social and political conditions of his time. Heine was also a major influence on the Romantic movement in Germany, and his works have been translated into many languages.

Top 10 Heinrich Heine Quotes

1. If you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe.
2. Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.
3. It must require an inordinate share of vanity and presumption, too, after enjoying so much that is good and beautiful on earth, to ask the Lord for immortality in addition to it all.
4. The deepest truth blooms only from the deepest love.
5. Every man, either to his terror or consolation, has some sense of religion.
6. There are more fools in the world than there are people.
7. Experience is a good school, but the fees are high.
8. The swan, like the soul of the poet, By the dull world is ill understood.
9. Experience is a good school. But the fees are high.
10. 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 Short Quotes

• The gazelles so gentle and clever Skip lightly in frolicsome mood.
• Woman is at once apple and serpent.
• You cannot feed the hungry on statistics.
• We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged
• Ask me not what I have, but what I am.
• A brainiac notices everything, an ignoramus comments about everything.
• Newness hath an evanescent beauty.
• Perfumes are the feelings of flowers.
• Poverty sits by the cradle of all our great men and rocks all of them to manhood.
• When the heroes go off the stage, the clowns come on.

Heinrich Heine Famous Quotes And Sayings

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

The beauteous dragonfly's dancing By the waves of the rivulet glancing; She dances here and she dances there, The glimmering, glittering flutterer fair. Full many a beetle with loud applause Admires her dress of azure gauze, Admires her body's bright splendour, And also her figure so slender... — Heinrich Heine

The stones here speak to me, and I know their mute language. Also, they seem deeply to feel what I think. So a broken column of the old Roman times, an old tower of Lombardy, a weather- beaten Gothic piece of a pillar understands me well. But I am a ruin myself, wandering among ruins. — 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

My heart resembles the ocean; has storm, and ebb and flow; and many a beautiful pearl lies hid in its depths below. — Heinrich Heine

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

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

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

I bequeath all my property to my wife on the condition that she remarry immediately. Then there will be at least one man to regret my death. — Heinrich Heine

As the moon's fair image quaketh In the raging waves of ocean, Whilst she, in the vault of heaven, Moves with silent peaceful motion. — Heinrich Heine

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

Whenever books are burned men also in the end are burned. — Heinrich Heine

God will pardon me. It is His trade. — Heinrich Heine

A pine tree standeth lonely In the North on an upland bare; It standeth whitely shrouded With snow, and sleepeth there. It dreameth of a Palm tree Which far in the East alone, In the mournful silence standeth On its ridge of burning stone. — Heinrich Heine

God will forgive me. It's his job. — Heinrich Heine

Whether a revolutions succeeds or fails people of great hearts will always be sacrificed to it. — Heinrich Heine

On the waves of the brook she dances by, The light, the lovely dragon-fly; She dances here, she dances there, The shimmering, glimmering flutterer fair. And many a foolish young beetle's impressed By the blue gauze gown in which she is dressed; They admire the enamel that decks her bright, And her elegant waist so slim and slight. — Heinrich Heine

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

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. — Heinrich Heine

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

Pretty women without religion are like flowers without perfume. — 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

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

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

Great genius takes shape by contact with another great genius, but, less by assimilation than by fiction. — Heinrich Heine

Sleep is lovely, death is better still, not to have been born is of course the miracle. — Heinrich Heine

The sea appears all golden. Beneath the sun-lit sky. — Heinrich Heine

Our souls must become expanded by the contemplation of Nature's grandeur, before we can fully comprehend the greatness of man. — Heinrich Heine

And the dancing has begun now, And the Dancings whirl round gaily In the waltz's giddy mazes, And the ground beneath them trembles. — Heinrich Heine

A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks. — Heinrich Heine

All our contemporary philosophers perhaps without knowing it are looking through eyeglasses that Baruch Spinoza polished. Spinoza was a philosopher who earned his livelihood by grinding lenses. — Heinrich Heine

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

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. — Heinrich Heine

Perfumes are the feelings of flowers, and as the human heart, imagining itself alone and unwatched, feels most deeply in the night-time, so seems it as if the flowers, in musing modesty, await the mantling eventide ere they give themselves up wholly to feeling... — Heinrich Heine

Matrimony is the high sea for which no compass has yet to be invented. — Heinrich Heine

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

As the stars are the glory of the sky, so great men are the glory of their country, yea, of the whole earth. The hearts of great men are the stars of earth; and doubtless when one looks down from above upon our planet, these hearts are seen to send forth, a silvery light just like the stars of heaven. — Heinrich Heine

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

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

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

We know only that our entire existence is forced into new paths and disrupted, that new circumstances, new joys and new sorrows await us, and that the unknown has its uncanny attractions, alluring and at the same time anguishing. — Heinrich Heine

A blaspheming Frenchman is a spectacle more pleasing to the Lord than a praying Englishman. — Heinrich Heine

The butterfly long loved the beautiful rose, And flirted around all day; While round him in turn with her golden caress, Soft fluttered the sun's warm ray.... I know not with whom the rose was in love, But I know that I loved them all. The butterfly, rose, and the sun's bright ray, The star and the bird's sweet call. — 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

In politics, as in life, we must above all things wish only for the attainable. — Heinrich Heine

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

Thought precedes action as lighting does thunder. — Heinrich Heine

The devil take these people and their language! They take a dozen monosyllabic words in their jaws, chew them, crunch them and spit them out again, and call that speaking. Fortunately they are by nature fairly silent, and although they gaze at us open-mouthed, they spare us long conversations. — Heinrich Heine

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

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

What lies lurk in kisses. — Heinrich Heine

In these times we fight for ideas and newspapers are our fortress. — Heinrich Heine

The beauteous eyes of the spring's fair night With comfort are downward gazing. — 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

He that marries is like the dogs who was married to the Adriatic. He knows not what there is in that which he marries; mayhap treasures and pearls, mayhap monsters and tempests, await him. — Heinrich Heine

The eyes of spring, so azure, Are peeping from the ground; They are the darling violets, That I in nosegays bound. — Heinrich Heine

The spring's already at the gate With looks my care beguiling; The country round appeareth straight A flower-garden smiling. — Heinrich Heine

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

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

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

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

There is no Sixth Commandment in art. The poet is entitled to lay his hands on whatever material he finds necessary for his work. — Heinrich Heine

Each violet peeps from its dwelling to gaze at the bright stars above. — Heinrich Heine

Round my cradle shimmered the last moonbeams of the eighteenth century and the first morning rays of the nineteenth. — Heinrich Heine

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

Atheism is the last word of theism — Heinrich Heine

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

The Bible is the great family chronicle of the Jews. — Heinrich Heine

All special charters of freedom must be abrogated where the universal law of freedom is to flourish. — Heinrich Heine

Glow-worms on the ground are moving, As if in the torch-dance circling. — 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

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

In the image of the lion made He kittens small and curious. — Heinrich Heine

High in the air rises the forest of oaks, high over the oaks soar the eagle, high over the eagle sweep the clouds, high over the clouds gleam the stars... high over the stars sweep the angels. — Heinrich Heine

The weather-cock on the church spire, though made of iron, would soon be broken by the storm-wind if it did not understand the noble art of turning to every wind. — Heinrich Heine

Oh, they loved dearly: their souls kissed, they kissed with their eyes, they were both but one single kiss. — Heinrich Heine

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

Twelve Dancings are dancing, and taking no rest, And closely their hands together are press'd; And soon as a dance has come to a close, Another begins, and each merrily goes. — Heinrich Heine

I take pride in never being rude to anyone on this earth, which contains a great number of unbearable villains who set upon you to recount their sufferings and even recite their poems. — Heinrich Heine

When words leave off, music begins. — Heinrich Heine

Silence can be defined as conversation with an Englishman — 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

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 lotus flower is troubledAt the sun's resplendent light;With sunken head and sadlyShe dreamily waits for the night. — Heinrich Heine

Life Lessons by Heinrich Heine

1. Heinrich Heine taught us to never give up on our dreams, no matter how difficult the journey may be. He wrote about the importance of perseverance and resilience, and how even in the face of adversity, we can still find hope and joy in life.
2. Heine also believed in the power of imagination and creativity, and encouraged us to use our minds to explore and express our ideas and feelings.
3. Finally, Heine showed us that it is possible to find beauty and solace in the everyday, and to appreciate the small moments of joy that life offers us.