Stefan Zweig Quotes - Page 3

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Everything in life that deviates from the straight and, so to speak, normal line, makes people first curious and then indignant.

Stefan Zweig

People, Lines, Firsts

"Beware of Pity". Book by Stefan Zweig, 1939.

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Hearing, seeing and understanding each other, humanity from one end of the earth to the other now lives simultaneously, omnipresent like a god thanks to its own creative ability. And, thanks to its victory over space and time, it would now be splendidly united for all time, if it were not confused again and again by that fatal delusion which causes humankind to keep on destroying this grandiose unity and to destroy itself with the same resources which gave it power over the elements.

Stefan Zweig

Confused, Space, Creative

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It is better to pay tribute of gold to the enemy than tribute of blood in war.

Stefan Zweig

War, Blood, Enemy

Stefan Zweig (1929). “Jeremiah: A Drama in Nine Scenes”, p.73, Library of Alexandria

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There's an inherent limit to the stress that any material can bear. Water has its boiling point, metals their melting points. The elements of the spirit behave the same way. Happiness can reach a pitch so great that any further happiness can't be felt. Pain, despair, humiliation, disgust, and fear are no different. Once the vessel is full, the world can't add to it.

Stefan Zweig

Pain, Stress, Water

Stefan Zweig (2008). “The Post-office Girl”, New York Review of Books

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In chess, as a purely intellectual game, where randomness is excluded, - for someone to play against himself is absurd ... It is as paradoxical, as attempting to jump over his own shadow.

Stefan Zweig

Games, Play, Intellectual

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for the more a man restricts himself the closer he is, conversely, to infinity.

Stefan Zweig

Men, Infinity

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For the more a man limits himself, the nearer he is on the other hand to what is limitless.

Stefan Zweig

Men, Hands, Limits

Stefan Zweig (1989). “The burning secret: and other stories”, Plume Books

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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.

Stefan Zweig

Strong, Fear, Long

Stefan Zweig (2008). “The Post-office Girl”, New York Review of Books

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The world has always needed human beings who refuse to believe that history is nothing but a dull, monstrous selfrepetition, a selfperpetuating, meaningless game, only varied in outer garb, who cannot be converted from their conviction that history signifies progress in morality, that our race is ascending on an invisible ladder from an animal nature towards divinity, from brutal violence to the wisely ordering intellect, and that the ultimate stage of complete understanding is already close at hand, indeed has almost been attained.

Stefan Zweig

Believe, Animal, Hands

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The transformation of the impossible into reality is always the mark of a demonic will. The only way to recognize a military genius is by the fact that, during the war, he will mock the rules of warfare and will employ creative improvisation instead of tested methods and he will do so at the right moment.

Stefan Zweig

Military, War, Creativity

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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.

Stefan Zweig

Happiness, Past, Profound

"Beware of Pity". Book by Stefan Zweig, 1939.

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I had learned and written too much history not to know that the great masses always and at once respond to the force of gravity in the direction of the powers that be. I knew that the same voices which yelled "Heil Schuschnigg" today would thunder "Heil Hitler" tomorrow.

Stefan Zweig

Voice, Today, Too Much

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Only ambition is fired by the coincidences of success and easy accomplishment but nothing is quite as splendidly uplifting to the heart as the defeat of a human being who battles against the invincible superiority of fate. This is always the most grandiose of all tragedies, one sometimes created by a dramatist but created thousands of times by life.

Stefan Zweig

Uplifting, Heart, Ambition

"Stellar Moments in Human History". Book by Stefan Zweig, 1953.

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Hairdressers are professional gossips; when only the hands are busy, the tongue is seldom still.

Stefan Zweig

Hands, Gossip, Tongue

Stefan Zweig (2008). “The Post-office Girl”, New York Review of Books

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Once shame touches your being at any point, even the most distant nerve is implicated, whether you know it or not; any fleeting encounter or random thought will rake up the anguish and add to it.

Stefan Zweig

Encounters, Add, Nerves

Stefan Zweig (2008). “The Post-office Girl”, New York Review of Books

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There are two types of compassion. One - is faint-hearted and sentimental. Actually, it is nothing more than impatience of the heart, that is hurrying to get rid of that hard feeling when you see other peoples' sufferings; this is not a compassion, but just an instinct will to defence yourself from misfortunes of others. But there is another compassion - real one, that demands for actions, not sentiments, it knows what it wants, and it is full of determination to do everything, what is in human power and even beyond it.

Stefan Zweig

Love, Dream, Determination

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For the more a man limits himself, the nearer he is on the other hand to what is limitless; it is precisely those who are apparently aloof from the world who build for themselves a remarkable and thoroughly individual world in miniature, using their own special equipment, termit-like.

Stefan Zweig

Men, Hands, Special

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(Brazil:) I've never beheld such a paradise. The people are enchanting and--a mercy on this earth of ours--this is the only placewhere there isn't any race question. Negroes and whites and Indians, three-quarters, oneeighth, the wonderful Mulatto and Creole women, Jews and Christians, all dwell together in a peace that passes describing. The Jewish immigrants are in seventh heaven; all of them have jobs and feel at home.

Stefan Zweig

Christian, Jobs, Freedom

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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.

Stefan Zweig

Eye, Blessing, People

"Beware of Pity". Book by Stefan Zweig, 1939.

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Nothing whets the intelligence more than a passionate suspicion, nothing develops all the faculties of an immature mind more than a trail running away into the dark.

Stefan Zweig

Running, Dark, Mind

Stefan Zweig (2015). “The Collected Novellas of Stefan Zweig: Burning Secret, A Chess Story, Fear, Confusion, Journey into the Past”, p.27, Pushkin Press

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He who has been impoverished for a long timewho has long stood before the door of the mighty in darkness and begged for alms,has filled his heart with bitterness so that it resembles a sponge full of gall; he knows about the injustice and folly of all human action and sometimes his lips tremble with rage and a stifled scream.

Stefan Zweig

Heart, Doors, Long

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On the whole, more men had perhaps escaped into the war than from it.

Stefan Zweig

War, Men, Whole

"Beware of Pity". Book by Stefan Zweig, 1939.

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The union of opposites, in so far as they are really complementary, always results in the most perfect harmony; and the seemingly incongruous is often the most natural.

Stefan Zweig

Opposites, Perfect, Unions

"Beware of Pity". Book by Stefan Zweig, 1939.

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Erasmus was the light of his century; others were its strength: he lighted the way; others knew how to walk on it while he himselfremained in the shadow as the source of light always does. But he who points the way into a new era is no less worthy of veneration than he who is the first to enter it; those who work invisibly have also accomplished a feat.

Stefan Zweig

Leadership, Light, History

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The idea of Jewish unity, of a plan, an organization, unfortunately exists only in the brains of Hitler and Streicher.

Stefan Zweig

Organization, Ideas, Unity

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Born: November 28, 1881
Died: February 22, 1942
Occupation: Novelist
Cite this Page: Citation

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