340 Quotes by Heinrich Heine

The men of the past had convictions, while we moderns have only opinions.

Nature, like a true poet, abhors abrupt transitions.

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!

The negro king desired to be portrayed as white. But do not laugh at the poor African; for every man is but another negro king, and would like to appear in a color different from that with which Fate has bedaubed him.

The dragon-fly is dancing,— Is on the water glancing, She flits about with nimble wing, The flickering, fluttering, restless thing. Besotted chafers all admire Her light-blue, gauze-like, neat attire; They laud her blue complexion, And think her shape perfection...

A brainiac notices everything, an ignoramus comments about everything.

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...

If one has no heart, one cannot write for the masses.

I live! Red life boils in my veins, earth yields beneath my feet, in the glow of love I embrace trees and statues, and they live in my embrace. Every woman is to me the gift of a world. I revel in the melody of her countenance, and with a single glance of my eye I can enjoy more than others with their every limb through all their lives.