371 Quotes by Stefan Zweig

People and events don’t disappoint us, our models of reality do. It is my model of reality that determines my happiness or disappointments.

But you wouldn’t believe what a dead finger does to a living hand.

Time is helpless, he thought to himself, helpless in the face of our feelings. Nine years have passed, and not a note in her voice is different, not a nerve in my body hears her in any other way. Nothing is lost, nothing is past and over, her presence is as much of a tender delight now as it was then.

But since those days in Vienna I had been aware that Austria was lost, not yet suspecting, to be sure, how much I had lost thereby.

It’s not your fault. But whose fault is it? Why are we always the ones who suffer? We didn’t do anything, we didn’t do anything to anyone, but every step we take is a trap.

Something indefinite is always worse than something definite, a strong fear that doesn’t last very long is easier than one that’s nebulous but doesn’t go away.

Alt werden heisst nichts anderes, als keine Angst mehr haben vor der Vergangenheit.

In the last resort, every shadow is also the child of light, and only those who have known the light and the dark, have seen war and peace, rise and fall, have truly lived their lives.

He lived one of those lives that seem otiose because they are not linked to any community of interest, because all the riches stored in them by a thousand separate valuable experiences will pass when their last breath is drawn, without anyone to inherit them.