E. T. A. Hoffmann Professions : Author Born : January 24, 1776 Died : June 25, 1822 Browse All Authors Top 22 quotes by E. T. A. Hoffmann 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 vision imagination lying It is nearly always the most improbable things that really come to pass. E. T. A. Hoffmann improbable 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 hours week usual Once you are dancing with the devil, the prettiest capers won't help you. E. T. A. Hoffmann devil dancing helping 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 circles moving thinking 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 humanity sky blue 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 meat strong soul 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 feet order people Boys should not play with weapons more dangerous than they understand. E. T. A. Hoffmann weapons play boys 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 circles feet men 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 play men There is nothing more marvelous or madder than real life. E. T. A. Hoffmann marvelous real-life real 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 useless goes-on 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 glasses doubt dream 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 echoes kingdoms spiritual 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 earth death years Human beings ought not to draw in their antennae at every ungentle touch, like supersensitive insects. E. T. A. Hoffmann insects friends draws 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 phrases errors 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 birth earth men Is it not in the most absolute simplicity that real genius plies its pinions the most wonderfully? E. T. A. Hoffmann plies simplicity real Similar Authors F. E. Marsh author Iimani David author Beatrice Faust author Isabella Macdonald Alden author Isabella Beeton author Alan AtKisson author All Authors
