Werner Herzog Quotes

Quotes about:

• I believe the common denominator of the Universe is not harmony, but chaos, hostility and murder.

  Werner Herzog

  Believe, Directors, Common

  "Grizzly Man", 2006.

  70 Copy quote

• The trees are in misery, and the birds are in misery. I don’t think they sing. They just screech in pain. …Taking a close look at what’s around us, there is some sort of harmony: it’s the harmony of overwhelming and collective murder.

  Werner Herzog

  Pain, Thinking, Bird

  4 Copy quote

• Look into the eyes of a chicken and you will see real stupidity. It is a kind of bottomless stupidity, a fiendish stupidity. They are the most horrifying, cannibalistic and nightmarish creatures in the world.

  Werner Herzog

  Real, Eye, Stupidity

  "Here Are Werner Herzog, Errol Morris and Joshua Oppenheimer’s 10 Best Reddit AMA Moments" by Luke Slattery, www.indiewire.com. February 24, 2014.

  46 Copy quote

• Civilization is like a thin layer of ice upon a deep ocean of chaos and darkness.

  Werner Herzog

  Ocean, Ice, Civilization

  Siegbert Salomon Prawer, Werner Herzog (2004). “Nosferatu--Phantom der Nacht”, British Film Institute

  38 Copy quote

• I'm trying to find these rare moments where you feel completely illuminated. Facts never illuminate you. The phone directory of Manhattan doesn't illuminate you, although it has factually correct entries, millions of them. But these rare moments of illumination that you find when you read a great poem, you instantly know. You instantly feel this spark of illumination. You are almost stepping outside of yourself and you see something sublime.

  Werner Herzog

  Phones, Illumination, Sublime

  6 Copy quote

• The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot.

  Werner Herzog

  Nature, Feet, World

  "Werner Herzog Is Ready for the End of the World". Interview with Sam Fragoso, newrepublic.com. January 29, 2016.

  17 Copy quote

• I think there should be holy war against yoga classes.

  Werner Herzog

  War, Yoga, Thinking

  "Mad German Auteur, Now in 3-D!" by Chris Heath, www.gq.com. April 29, 2011.

  7 Copy quote

• I am torn between the beauty of the natural world, which you see all around us, and the idea that some dumb tornado could blow a telephone pole onto my sweet Camaro.

  Werner Herzog

  Sweet, Blow, Ideas

  13 Copy quote

• Facts do not convey truth. That's a mistake. Facts create norms, but truth creates illumination.

  Werner Herzog

  Mistake, Illumination, Facts

  42 Copy quote

• I think psychology and self-reflection is one of the major catastrophes of the twentieth century.

  Werner Herzog

  Thinking, Reflection, Self

  "Mad German Auteur, Now in 3-D!". Interview with Chris Heath, www.gq.com. April 29, 2011.

  6 Copy quote

• I am a product of my failures.

  Werner Herzog

  Products

  "12 Things I Learned at Werner Herzog’s Rogue Film School" by Marie-Françoise Theodore, www.indiewire.com. September 24, 2014.

  11 Copy quote

• Every man should pull a boat over a mountain once in his life.

  Werner Herzog

  Men, Mountain, Boat

  "The Dark Comedy of Werner Herzog". Interview with Hadley Freeman, www.theguardian.com. March 05, 2011.

  14 Copy quote

• It's not because nature is angry, it's rather that we are stupid. We're not doing the right thing with our planet.

  Werner Herzog

  Stupid, Planets, Our Planet

  Source: www.rogerebert.com

  4 Copy quote

• What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.

  Werner Herzog

  Dream, Ocean, Sleep

  37 Copy quote

• Nature is monumentally indifferent.

  Werner Herzog

  Indifferent

  Source: www.rogerebert.com

  9 Copy quote

• Do you not then hear this horrible scream all around you that people usually call silence.

  Werner Herzog

  People, Silence, Scream

  "The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser". Biography, Drama, History, 1974.

  10 Copy quote

• You are confronted with abysses of time that are, in a way, unfathomable. You see a painting in charcoal of raindeer and it was left unfinished and somebody else finished it. But through radio carbon dating we know that the next one completed the painting 5,000 years later. You're just blown away by the notion of passage of time. We have no relationship to that kind of depth of time.

  Werner Herzog

  Years, Dating, Radio

  "Cave of Forgotten Dreams (3D) - Werner Herzog interview". Interview with Rob Carnevale, www.indielondon.co.uk.

  27 Copy quote

• Money doesn't make films. You just do it and take the initiative.

  Werner Herzog

  Film, Initiative, Just Do It

  47 Copy quote

• Never wallow in your troubles; despair must be kept private and brief.

  Werner Herzog

  Despair, Trouble

  "Werner Herzog — A Guide for the Perplexed". Book by Paul Cronin, www.indiewire.com. August 5, 2014.

  11 Copy quote

• Without dreams we would be cows in a field, and I don't want to live like that. I live my life or I end my life with this project.

  Werner Herzog

  Dream, Would Be, Want

  "Burden of Dreams". Documentary, www.imdb.com. 1982.

  34 Copy quote

• In the face of the obscene, explicit malice of the jungle, which lacks only dinosaurs as punctuation, I feel like a half-finished, poorly expressed sentence in a cheap novel.

  Werner Herzog

  Half, Dinosaurs, Faces

  11 Copy quote

• Life in the oceans must be sheer hell. A vast, merciless hell of permanent and immediate danger. So much of a hell that during evolution some species—including man—crawled, fled onto some small continents of solid land, where the Lessons of Darkness continue.

  Werner Herzog

  Ocean, Men, Land

  Paolo Jedlowski, Roberto De Gaetano, Jacques Rancière, Roberto Esposito, Slavoj Žižek (2016). “CINEMA, THOUGHT, LIFE. Conversations with Fata Morgana”, p.128, Luigi Pellegrini Editore

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• Read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read...if you don't read, you will never be a filmmaker.

  Werner Herzog

  Filmmaking, Filmmaker, Ifs

  51 Copy quote

• I never planned my career in steps. It's all coming at me like burglars in the night.

  Werner Herzog

  Night, Careers, Steps

  "Jack Reacher - Werner Herzog interview". Interview with Jack Foley, www.indielondon.co.uk.

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• I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. I see only the overwhelming indifference of nature.

  Werner Herzog

  Understanding, Indifference, Mercy

  "Grizzly Man". Documentary, Biography, www.imdb.com. 2005.

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