371 Quotes by Stefan Zweig

Unless our souls had root in soil divine We could not bear earth’s overwhelming strife. The fiercest pain that racks this heart of mine, Convinces me of everlasting life.

In medicine the use of the knife is often the kinder course.

Only the man who remains free from all and everything augments and sustains freedom on this earth.

I saw how the idea, still colourless, nothing but pure and flowing heat, streamed from the furnace of his impulsive excitement like the molten metal to make a bell, then gradually, as it cooled, took shape, I saw how that shape rounded out powerfully and revealed itself, until at last the words rang from it and gave human language to poetic feeling, just as the clapper gives the bell its sound.

It is my opinion that you should lend yourself to others and give yourself only to yourself.

In times of exceptional stress, nature will often give people’s behavior so tragical a complexion that neither a picture nor a verbal description is competent to represent its titanic energy.

Names have a mysterious transforming power. Like a ring on a finger, a name may at first seem merely accidental, committing you to nothing; but before you realize its magical power, it’s gotten under your skin, become part of you and your destiny.

Whatever a woman’s reason may say, her feelings tell her the truth.

This contact with the overpowering is her first encounter with travel’s disconcerting ability to strip the hard shell of habit from the heart, leaving only the bare, fertile kernel.