German Literature Quotes

“A little while ago I was able to wander in a beautiful sublime fantasy world, in Ossian’s half-dark magical world. But the blessed dreams dissolve; they seem like love potions - they intoxicate, exalt and then disappear, that is the misery and wretchedness of all our feelings. With thoughts it is no better: one easily overthinks things to the point of staleness.”
― Karoline von Günderrode

“The whole day, the whole night –nothing but the thought of her.”
― E.T.A. Hoffmann, The Devil's Elixirs

“Certo, io sono una selva e una notte di alberi scuri ma chi non ha paura delle mie tenebre, troverà anche pendii di rose sotto i miei cipressi.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“A gentle warmth spread through my body and I felt a strange tingling in my veins. Feeling turned to thought, but my character seemed split into a thousand parts; each part was independent and had its own consciousness, and in vain did the head command e limbs, which, like faithless vassals, would not obey its author The thoughts in these separate parts now started to revolve like points of light, faster and faster, forming a fiery circle which became smaller as the speed increased, until it finally appeared like a stationary ball of fire, its burning rays shining from the flickering flames. “Those are my limbs dancing; I am waking up.” Such was my first clear thought, but a sudden pain shot through me at that moment and the chiming of bells sounded in my ears.

“Flee! Flee!” I cried aloud. I could now open my eyes. The bells continued to ring. At first I thought I was still in the forest, and was amazed when I looked at myself and the objects around me. Dressed in the habit of a Capuchin, I was lying stretched out on comfortable mattress in a lofty room; the only other items of furniture were a few cane-chairs, a small table and a simple bed. I realized that my unconsciousness must have lasted some time and that in some way or other I had been brought to a monastery which offered hospitality to the sick; perhaps my clothes were torn and I had been given this habit for the time being.”
― E.T.A. Hoffmann, The Devil's Elixirs

“The whole day, the whole night – nothing but the thought of her.”
― E.T.A. Hoffmann, The Devil's Elixirs

“Yet although I could not resist doing so, my sleep was not interrupted. The door opened and a dark figure entered whom I recognized to my horror as my own self in Capuchin robes, with beard and tonsure. The figure came nearer and nearer my bed: I lay motionless, and every sound I tried to utter was stifled in the trance that gripped me. The figure sat down on my bed and leered mockingly at me.

“You must come with me,” it said. “Let us climb on to the roof beneath the weathercock, which is playing a merry tune for the owl's wedding. Up there we will fight with each other, and the one who pushes the other over will become king and be able to drink blood.”

I felt the figure take hold of me and lift me up. With a strength born of desperation I screamed:
“You are not me, you are the Devil!” - and clawed at the face of the menacing spectre. But my fingers went through his eyes as if they were empty cavities, and the figure burst into strident laughter.”
― E.T.A. Hoffmann, The Devil's Elixirs

“Where is the man who has not felt in his breast the wonderful mystery of love? Whoever you may be who come to read these pages - call to mind that noontide of supreme happiness, behold once more that image of angelic beauty, the spirit of love itself, as she came to meet you; it was through her, through her alone, that you seemed assured of your own higher existence. Do you recall how the bubbling springs, the rustling bushes, the caressing evening breezes told so clearly of her love? Can you still picture the flowers that turned their gentle, shining eyes upon you, bringing kisses and words of endearment from her? And she came, yielding to you utterly. You embraced her with burning desire, and thought to rise above the pettiness of earth in the flame of your fervent longing. But the miracle did not happen; you were forced back to earth just as you were about to soar with her to the distant promised land. You had lost her even before you had dared to hope; the voices, the beautiful sounds had all died away, and only the despairing lamentation of the lonely soul was heard in the cruel wilderness.”
― E.T.A. Hoffmann, The Devil's Elixirs

“You will learn of the relationship between the various strange destinies which plunged you at one moment into a higher realm of miraculous visions and at the next into the most commonplace of worlds. It is said that the miraculous has vanished from the earth, but I do not believe it. The miracles are still there, for even if we are no longer willing to call by that name the most wonderful aspects of our daily life, because we have managed to deduce from a succession of events a law of cyclic recurrence, nevertheless there often passes through that cycle a phenomenon which puts all our wisdom to shame, and which, in our stupid obstinacy, we refuse to believe because we are unable to comprehend it.”
― E.T.A. Hoffmann, The Devil's Elixirs

“Cling to everything which to you is by nature and tradition holy as a son of the god like west.”
― Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

“A hell hound is coming. Howling. A huge explosive shell. A disgusting sugarloaf from the infernal regions.”
― Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

“daß man nicht das Recht hatte, ein Buch aufzuschlagen, wenn man sich nicht verpflichtete, alle zu lesen”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“However useful it was to me in my present situation, there was something terrifying in the realisation that I was known to nobody, that no one could have the slightest idea who I was, or what a singular quirk of fate had brought me here, or what secrets I was concealing. I felt like a departed spirit walking on earth in which all the affection he had once enjoyed had long since perished.”
― E.T.A. Hoffmann, The Devil's Elixirs

“When dawn broke, the city lay far behind me, and the haunting vision of that fearful, menacing figure had vanished. The coachman's question: “Where to?” brought home to me how I had forsaken all friendship in life and was roaming the earth at the mercy of the rolling waves of chance. Yet had not an unchallengeable power wrenched me away from everything to which I had been attached, just so that the spirit within me should unfurl and beat its wings with irresistible force? Like a nomad I roved through the countryside, finding no peace. I was driven on and on, further and further southwards. Without realizing it, I had up to now hardly deviated from the itinerary laid down for me by Leonardus, and as if impelled by his will, I journeyed onwards.”
― E.T.A. Hoffmann, The Devil's Elixirs

“Was she then to be lost to me? Nay, for as she left this vale of sorrows, she had kindled the eternal love that now glowed within me. I now know that her death was the consummation of that love which, as she had told me, rules above the stars and has nothing in common with the things of earth. Such thoughts as these lifted me above my earthly self, and these days in the convent were truly the most blissful of my whole life.”
― E.T.A. Hoffmann, The Devil's Elixirs

“In the beginning was the World, but it was, therefore the past existed before the World. He bowed before the supremacy of the past. The Catholic Church would have much to be said for it, but it allowed too little past. Two thousand years, a part of it only recorded, what does that matter compared to traditions of double or treble that space of years? A Catholic priest is surpassed by any Egyptian mummy. Because the mummy is dead, he may think himself superior. But the pyramids are no more dead than St. Peter's, on the contrary, they are much more alive, for they are older. These Romans think that they have all time in the pockets. They refuse to revere their ancestors. That is a blasphemy. God is the past... A time will come when all men will beat their senses into recollections, and all time into the past. A time will come when a single past will embrace all men when there will be nothing except the past, when everyone will have one faith– the past.”
― Elias Canetti, Auto-da-Fé

“Dem Sokrates gaben sie ein Gift zu trinken, und unseren Herrn Christus schlugen sie an das Kreuz! Das geht in den letzten Zeiten nicht mehr so leicht; aber - einen Gewaltsmenschen oder einen bösen stiernackigen Pfaffen zum Heiligen oder einen tüchtigen Kerl, nur weil er uns um Kopfeslänge überwachsen war, zum Spuk und Nachtgespenst zu machen - das geht noch alle Tage.”
― Theodor Storm, Der Schimmelreiter: Novelle

“Authors like Shakespeare and Goethe have glorious monologues that flood the theater with words. This endless verbalizing is a lie. This perfect harmony between heart and tongue exists only on a stage. I wanted to use language realistically to dramatize the tension that arises when the correspondence between feelings and language breaks down. Even Brecht swindled when it comes to language. His peasants speak more intelligently and more beautifully than any university professor.
I wanted to smash this convention of stage language. I do not believe that people can heave their hearts into their mouths and speak their inner torments trippingly on the tongue. Language should not be the central element in drama. Language exists only on the surface of our consciousness. The great human struggles are played out in silence and in the inability to express oneself. Language should have the same function in the theater that it has in reality.”
― Franz Xaver Kroetz

“Die Felder sind genauso eingegangen und vertrocknet wie meine Seele, beide liegen sie brach, unwissend, ob diese Zeit wieder vorübergeht oder ob sie die letzte ist. Ich frage mich erneut, wann ein Mensch wirklich tot ist. Sobald er nicht mehr atmet oder sobald er nicht mehr weiß, wofür?”
― Max Osswald, Von hier betrachtet sieht das scheiße aus

“If there ever was a man of whom it could be said that he ‘hungered and thirsted after righteousness,’ it was Kafka.”
― W.H. Auden, The Dyer's Hand and Other Essays

“Colui che ha occhi per vedere e orecchi per sentire deve convincersi che nessun mortale sa mantenere un segreto: se le sue labbra sono serrate parlerà con la punta delle dita, il suo tradirsi trasuderà da ogni poro.”
― Sigmund Freud

“a pair of young dandies who were nicknamed Max and Moritz bore a great reputation for breaking out of bounds.”
― Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

“Think [...] of the world that you carry within you, and call this thinking whatever you like. Whether it is memory of your own childhood or longing for you own future – just be attnetive towards what rises up inside you, and place it above everything that you notice round about.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“Der Marquise stürzte der Schmerz aus den Augen. [...] Sie sank, als sie die Türe verschlossen fand, mit jammender Stimme, alle Heiligen zu Zeugen ihrer Unschuld anrufend, vor derselben nieder,”
― Heinrich von Kleist, Die Marquise von O... / Das Erdbeben in Chili

“Binlerce insanın arasında yapayalnız olmanın ne anlama geldiğini bilemezsin…”
― Stefan Zweig, Scharlach / Sternstunden der Menschheit

“I have always read biographies with a peculiar joy, and in doing so it always appeared to me as if one could not invent a complete person; one only ever discovers one side and the complexity of human existence is never achieved[.]”
― Karoline von Günderrode

“For some time now in Germany, especially in Berlin, a young, radical intelligentsia has developed that in journals and books comes out quite vigorously and uniformly against capitalism. To the superficial glance it seems to be a serious opponent of all powers that do not, like itself, strive directly for a reasonable human order. But even if its protests may be sincere and often fruitful, it makes protesting too easy for itself. For it is usually roused only by extreme cases - war, crude miscarriages of justice, the May riots, etc. - without appreciating the imperceptible dreadfulness of normal existence.”
― Siegfried Kracauer

“Seine Natur war nicht unedel, aber er gewöhnte sich, die innere Schande der äußern vorzuziehen. Man darf nur sagen, er gewöhnte sich zu prunken, während seine Mutter darbte.”
― Annette von Droste Hülshoff, Die Judenbuche

“Vergeben Sie mir diese Schilderung, aber denken Sie nicht, daß es Mitleid war, was mich erfüllte. [...] Es war viel mehr und viel weniger als Mitleid: ein ungeheures Anteilnehmen, ein Hinüberfließen in jene Geschöpfe oder ein Fühlen, daß ein Fluidum des Lebens und Todes, des Traumes und Wachens für einen Augenblick in sie hinübergeflossen ist [...].”
― Hugo von Hofmannsthal

“Oder als könnten wir in ein neues, ahnungsvolles Verhältnis zum ganzen Dasein treten, wenn wir anfingen, mit dem Herzen zu denken.”
― Hugo von Hoffmannstahl

“Wie es aber des öfteren geht, daß tiefsinnige Menschen, oder solche denen die Natur allerlei wunderliche Dichtung und seltsame Gefühle in das Herz gepflanzt hatte, gerade solche Orte aufsuchen und liebgewinnen, weil sie da ihren Träumen und innerem Klingklang nachgehen können, so geschah es auch auf diesem Haideflecke.”
― Adalbert Stifter