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Philosophical literature58 quotes
God is dead: but as the human race is constituted, there will perhaps be caves for millenniums yet, in which people will show his shadow. — Friedrich Nietzsche · 1882What does not destroy me, makes me stronger. — Friedrich Nietzsche · 1889"Where is God gone?" he called out. "I mean to tell you! We have killed him,—you and I! We are all his murderers!" — Friedrich Nietzsche · 1882He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. — Friedrich Nietzsche · 1886Life always gets harder toward the summit-the cold increases, responsibility increases. — Friedrich Nietzsche · 1895Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world…it is the opium of the people. — Karl Marx · 1883All 58 quotes →Political literature21 quotes
The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. — Karl Marx · 1848The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. — Karl Marx · 1848From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs! — Karl Marx · 1883The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class. — Karl Marx · 1848A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of Communism. — Karl Marx · 1848Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. — Karl Marx · 1852All 21 quotes →Tragedy (play)15 quotes
One lives but once in this world. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1774Against stupidity the very gods
Themselves contend in vain. — Friedrich Schiller · 1801Who strives always to the utmost,
For him there is salvation. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1808What's not forbidden to do make bold. — Friedrich Schiller · 1798The deed is all, the glory nothing. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1832Two souls dwell, alas! in my breast. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1808All 15 quotes →Tragedy14 quotes
One lives but once in this world. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1774Against stupidity the very gods
Themselves contend in vain. — Friedrich Schiller · 1801Who strives always to the utmost,
For him there is salvation. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1808What's not forbidden to do make bold. — Friedrich Schiller · 1798The deed is all, the glory nothing. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1832Two souls dwell, alas! in my breast. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1808All 14 quotes →Economic literature12 quotes
The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. — Karl Marx · 1848The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. — Karl Marx · 1848From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs! — Karl Marx · 1883The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class. — Karl Marx · 1848A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of Communism. — Karl Marx · 1848In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end. — Karl Marx · 1848All 12 quotes →Coming of age story11 quotes
I realize today that nothing in the world is more distasteful to a man than to take the path that leads to himself. — Hermann Hesse · 1919One never reaches home... But wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time. — Hermann Hesse · 1919Love isn't there to make us happy. I believe it exists to show us how much we can endure. — Hermann Hesse · 1904Every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect, only once in this way and never again. — Hermann Hesse · 1919Love must not entreat... Or demand. Love must have the strength to become certain within itself. Then it ceases merely to be attracted and begins to attract. — Hermann Hesse · 1919I do not consider myself less ignorant than most people. I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teachings my blood whispers to me. — Hermann Hesse · 1919All 11 quotes →Religious literature10 quotes
What can only be taught by the rod and with blows will not lead to much good; they will not remain pious any longer than the rod is behind them. — Martin Luther · 1529A mighty fortress is our God,
a bulwark never failing. — Martin Luther · 1529Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God. — Martin Luther · 1529They consider the deed but God weighs the motive. — Thomas a Kempis · 1418For man proposes, but God disposes. — Thomas a Kempis · 1427Oh how quickly the glory of the world passes away! — Thomas a Kempis · 1427All 10 quotes →Epistolary novel5 quotes
If you inquire what the people are like here, I must answer, "The same as everywhere!" — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1774I have so much in me, and the feeling for her absorbs it all; I have so much, and without her it all comes to nothing. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1774No one is willing to believe that adults too, like children, wander about this earth in a daze and, like children, do not know where they come from or where they are going, act as rarely as they do according to genuine motives, and are as thoroughly governed as they are by biscuits and cake and the rod. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1774Must it ever be thus-that the source of our happiness must also be the fountain of our misery? The full and ardent sentiment which animated my heart with the love of nature, overwhelming me with a torrent of delight, and which brought all paradise before me, has now become an insupportable torment, a demon which perpetually pursues and harrasses me. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1774The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1774Historical literature5 quotes
Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. — Karl Marx · 1852We may affirm absolutely that nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion. — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel · 1832The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom. — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel · 1832Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living. — Karl Marx · 1852Philosophy stands in the same relation to the study of the actual world as masturbation to sexual love. — Karl Marx · 1883Scientific literature5 quotes
The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility. — Albert Einstein · 1936The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of every day thinking. — Albert Einstein · 1936Common sense is actually nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind prior to the age of eighteen. — Albert Einstein · 1948The grand aim of all science [is] to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest possible number of hypotheses or axioms. — Albert Einstein · 1948A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it... An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. — Max Planck · 1936Autobiography and memoir2 quotes
What I understand by "philosopher": a terrible explosive in the presence of which everything is in danger. — Friedrich Nietzsche · 1908We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. It cannot lead, it can only serve; and it is not fastidious in its choice of a leader. — Albert Einstein · 1943Psychological literature2 quotes
Freedom, though it has brought him independence and rationality, has made him isolated and, thereby, anxious and powerless. — Erich Fromm · 1941Man's nature, his passions and anxieties, are a cultural product; as a matter of fact, man himself is the most important creation and achievement of the continuous human effort, the record of which we call history. — Erich Fromm · 1941Biography1 quote
The history of things that didn’t happen has never been written. — Henry Kissinger · 1972Documentary (film)1 quote
I believe the common denominator of the universe is not harmony, but chaos, hostility, and murder. — Werner Herzog · 2005Drama1 quote
Who reflects too much will accomplish little. — Friedrich Schiller · 1804Drama (play)1 quote
Who reflects too much will accomplish little. — Friedrich Schiller · 1804Philosopical literature1 quote
It may be said likewise in respect of perfect wisdom, which is no less orderly than mathematics, that if there were not the best among all possible worlds, God would not have produced any. — Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz · 1710Political speech1 quote
My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right. — Carl Schurz · 1872Tragic play1 quote
Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings. — Heinrich Heine · 1821