E. T. A. Hoffmann Quotes

• There is nothing more marvelous or madder than real life.

  E. T. A. Hoffmann

  Real, Real Life, Marvelous

  10 Copy quote

• Once you are dancing with the devil, the prettiest capers won't help you.

  E. T. A. Hoffmann

  Dancing, Devil, Helping

  17 Copy quote

• The human spirit is itself the most wonderful fairy tale that can possibly be. What a magnificent world lies enclosed within our bosoms! No solar orbit hems it in, the inexhaustible wealth of the total visible creation is outweighed by its riches!

  E. T. A. Hoffmann

  Lying, Imagination, Vision

  13 Copy quote

• Think of the wonderful circles in which our whole being moves and from which we cannot escape no matter how we try. The circler circles in these circles.

  E. T. A. Hoffmann

  Moving, Thinking, Circles

  13 Copy quote

• It is nearly always the most improbable things that really come to pass.

  E. T. A. Hoffmann

  Improbable

  16 Copy quote

• Let me ask you outright, gentle reader, if there have not been hours, indeed whole days and weeks of your life, during which all your usual activities were painfully repugnant, and everything you believed in and valued seemed foolish and worthless?

  E. T. A. Hoffmann

  Usual, Week, Hours

  E. T. A. Hoffmann (2000). “The Golden Pot and Other Tales”, p.20, Oxford University Press, USA

  15 Copy quote

• How prone poor Humanity is to dam up the minutest remnants of its freedom, and build an artificial roof to prevent it looking up to the clear blue sky.

  E. T. A. Hoffmann

  Blue, Sky, Humanity

  65 Copy quote

• Everything here below beneath the sun is subject to continual change; and perhaps there is nothing which can be called more inconstant than opinion, which turns round in an everlasting circle like the wheel of fortune. He who reaps praise today is overwhelmed with biting censure tomorrow; today we trample under foot the man who tomorrow will be raised far above us.

  E. T. A. Hoffmann

  Men, Circles, Feet

  E. T. A. Hoffmann (2012). “The Best Tales of Hoffmann”, p.365, Courier Corporation

  9 Copy quote

• It is useless to contend with the irresistible power of Time, which goes on continually creating by a process of constant destruction.

  E. T. A. Hoffmann

  Creating, Goes On, Useless

  12 Copy quote

• Mozart's music is the mysterious language of a distant spiritual kingdom, whose marvelous accents echo in our inner being and arouse a higher, intensive life.

  E. T. A. Hoffmann

  Spiritual, Echoes, Kingdoms

  5 Copy quote

• Why should not a writer be permitted to make use of the levers of fear, terror and horror because some feeble soul here and there finds it more than it can bear? Shall there be no strong meat at table because there happen to be some guests there whose stomachs are weak, or who have spoiled their own digestions?

  E. T. A. Hoffmann

  Strong, Soul, Meat

  E. T. A. Hoffmann (2015). “The Mutual Interdependence of Things (Fantasy and Horror Classics)”, p.54, Read Books Ltd

  11 Copy quote

• I may be permitted, kind reader, to doubt whether you have ever been enclosed in a glass bottle, unless some vivid dream has teased you with such magical mishaps.

  E. T. A. Hoffmann

  Dream, Glasses, Doubt

  E. T. A. Hoffmann (2000). “The Golden Pot and Other Tales”, p.67, Oxford University Press, USA

  7 Copy quote

• The foot of the heavenly ladder, which we have got to mount in order to reach the higher regions, has to be fixed firmly in every-day life, so that everybody may be able to climb up it along with us. When people then find that they have got climbed up higher and higher into a marvelous, magical world, they will feel that that realm, too, belongs to their ordinary, every-day life, and is, merely, the wonderful and most glorious part thereof.

  E. T. A. Hoffmann

  Order, Feet, People

  10 Copy quote

• Every year lays more earth upon us, which weighs us down from aerial regions, till we go under the earth at last.

  E. T. A. Hoffmann

  Death, Years, Earth

  5 Copy quote

• Not a single man on earth knows from his own experience the how and where of his birth, only from tradition, which is often very uncertain.

  E. T. A. Hoffmann

  Men, Earth, Birth

  7 Copy quote

• It is only in the morning that one should marry, read unfavourable reviews, make one's will, beat one's servants, and so forth.

  E. T. A. Hoffmann

  Morning, Beats, Should

  E. T. A. Hoffmann (2000). “The Golden Pot and Other Tales”, p.187, Oxford University Press, USA

  5 Copy quote

• Human beings ought not to draw in their antennae at every ungentle touch, like supersensitive insects.

  E. T. A. Hoffmann

  Friends, Insects, Draws

  7 Copy quote

• Is it not in the most absolute simplicity that real genius plies its pinions the most wonderfully?

  E. T. A. Hoffmann

  Real, Simplicity, Plies

  E. T. A. Hoffmann (2015). “Old and New Church Music (Fantasy and Horror Classics)”, p.12, Read Books Ltd

  63 Copy quote

• It is true that writers often owe their most inspired thoughts, their most extraordinary phrases, to their generous typesetters, who assist their flights of fancy with so-called typographical errors.

  E. T. A. Hoffmann

  Creativity, Errors, Phrases

  4 Copy quote

• Boys should not play with weapons more dangerous than they understand.

  E. T. A. Hoffmann

  Boys, Play, Weapons

  10 Copy quote

• There are men from whom nature or some peculiar destiny has removed the cover beneath which we hide our own madness. They are likethin-skinned insects whose visible play of muscles seem to make them deformed, though in fact, everything soon turns to its normal shape again.

  E. T. A. Hoffmann

  Destiny, Men, Play

  7 Copy quote

• As the priest is characterized by his cassock, so the smoker by his pipe. The way in which he holds it, raises it to his lips, and knocks out the ashes, reveals his personality, habits, passions, and even his thoughts.

  E. T. A. Hoffmann

  Passion, Personality, Smoking

  10 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Edgar Allan Poe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Heinrich von Kleist

Johann Ludwig Tieck

Friedrich Schiller

Novalis

Heinrich Heine

Alexandre Dumas