Quotes from 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.

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

The foolish race of mankind are swarming below in the night; they shriek and rage and quarrel -- and all of them are right.

Child, you are like a flower,So sweet and pure and fair.I look at you, and sadnessTouches me with a prayer.

Jews who long have drifted from the faith of their fathers... are stirred in their inmost parts when the old, familiar Passover sounds chance to fall upon their ears.

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.

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, and breathe forth their sweetest odours. Flow forth, ye perfumes of my heart, and seek beyond these mountains the dear one of my dreams!

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

Communism possesses a language which every people can understand - its elements are hunger, envy, and death.

Since the Exodus, freedom has always spoken with a Hebrew accent.

The German is like the slave who, without chains, obeys his masters merest word, his very glance. The condition of servitude is inherent in him, in his very soul and worse than the physical is the spiritual slavery. The Germans must be set free from wit

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."