Quotes by Heinrich Heine

• The men of action are, after all, only the unconscious instruments of the men of thought.
• The fundamental evil of the world arose from the fact that the good Lord has not created money enough.
• The Bible is the great family chronicle of the Jews.
• 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.
• Sleep is lovely, death is better still, not to have been born is of course the miracle.
• The Wedding March always reminds me of the music played when soldiers go into battle.
• Of course God will forgive me; that's His job.
• Whenever books are burned, men also in the end are burned.
• Oh, what lies there are in kisses.
• There are more fools in the world than there are people.
• True eloquence consists in saying all that is necessary, and nothing but what is necessary.
• Music played at weddings always reminds me of the music played for soldiers before they go into battle.
• When words leave off, music begins.
• Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.
• Whether a revolution succeeds or fails people of great hearts will always be sacrificed to it.
• Woman is at once apple and serpent.
• When the heroes go off the stage, the clowns come on.
• Every man, either to his terror or consolation, has some sense of religion.
• Experience is a good school. But the fees are high.
• Atheism is the last word of theism.
• Matrimony; the high sea for which no compass has yet been invented.
• Ask me not what I have, but what I am.
• God will forgive me; that's his business.
• God will forgive me. It's his job.
• Great genius takes shape by contact with another great genius, but, less by assimilation than by fiction.
• He only profits from praise who values criticism.
• Human misery is too great for men to do without faith.
• I fell asleep reading a dull book and dreamed I kept on reading, so I awoke from sheer boredom.
• I have never seen an ass who talked like a human being, but I have met many human beings who talked like asses.
• If the Romans had been obliged to learn Latin, they would never have found time to conquer the world.
• 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.
• In these times we fight for ideas and newspapers are our fortress.
• Like a great poet, Nature knows how to produce the greatest effects with the most limited means.
• It is a common phenomenon that just the prettiest girls find it so difficult to get a man.
• Christ rode on an ass, but now asses ride on Christ.