1797-1856, German Poet, Journalist
Experience is a good school, but the fees are high.
Heinrich Heine – [Experience]
God will forgive me, that's his business.
Heinrich Heine – [Forgiveness]
Great genius takes shape by contact with another great genius, but, less by assimilation than by fiction.
Heinrich Heine – [Genius]
If the Romans had been obliged to learn Latin they would never have found time to conquer the world.
Heinrich Heine – [Language]
In politics, as in life, we must above all things wish only for the attainable.
Heinrich Heine – [Politicians and Politics]
In these times we fight for ideas and newspapers are our fortress.
Heinrich Heine – [Newspapers]
Mark this well, you proud men of action! you are, after all, nothing but unconscious instruments of the men of thought.
Heinrich Heine – [Action]
Matrimony is the high sea for which no compass has yet to be invented.
Heinrich Heine – [Marriage]
Of course God will forgive me; that's His job.
Heinrich Heine – [Forgiveness]
Oh what lies lurk in kisses!
Heinrich Heine – [Kisses and Kissing]
The Bible is the great family chronicle of the Jews.
Heinrich Heine – [Bible]
The foolish race of mankind are swarming below in the night; they shriek and rage and quarrel — and all of them are right.
Heinrich Heine – [Quarrels]
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 – [Adaptability]
Whatever tears one may shed, in the end one always blows one's nose.
Heinrich Heine – [Cries and Crying]
Whenever books are burned men also in the end are burned.
Heinrich Heine – [Censorship]
Whether a revolutions succeeds or fails people of great hearts will always be sacrificed to it.
Heinrich Heine – [Revolutions and Revolutionaries]
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 – [Self-esteem]