371 Quotes by Stefan Zweig

Every wave, regardless of how high and forceful it crests, must eventually collapse within itself.

But in the intellectual world, there is room for all opposing forces: even that which never appears victorious in the real world continues to be effective as a dynamic force (in the intellectual world) and precisely the unfulfilled ideals prove to be the most invincible.

Often the presence of mind and energy of a person remote from the spotlight decide the course of history for centuries to come.

The free, independent spirit who commits himself to no dogma and will not decide in favor of any party has no homestead on earth.

States of profound happiness, like all other forms of intoxication, are apt to befuddle the wits; intense enjoyment of the present always makes one forget the past.

In history as in human life, regret does not bring back a lost moment and a thousand years will not recover something lost in a single hour.

It is a blessing not yet to have acquired that over-keen, diagnostic, misanthropic eye, and to be able to look at people and things trustfully when one first sees them.

Today, for a Jew who writes in the German language, it is totally impossible to make a living. In no group do I see as much misery, disappointment, desperation and hopelessness as in Jewish writers who write in German.

The Battle of Waterloo is a work of art with tension and drama with its unceasing change from hope to fear and back again, changewhich suddenly dissolves into a moment of extreme catastrophe, a model tragedy because the fate of Europe was determined within this individual fate.