For one who is having no personal experience, the passionate disquiet of others is at any rate a titillation of the nerves, like seeing a play or listening to music. Stefan Zweig More Quotes by Stefan Zweig More Quotes From Stefan Zweig Why is it that the stupidest people are always the most good-natured? Stefan Zweig stupidest people Sometimes I have the feeling that you are not quite aware--and this honors you--of the historical greatness of your position, that you think too modestly about yourself. Everything you do is destined to be of historic significance. One day, your letters, your decisions, will belong to all mankind, like those of Wagner and Brahms. Stefan Zweig greatness decision thinking In this instant, shaken to her very depths, this ecstatic human being has a first inkling that the soul is made of stuff so mysteriously elastic that a single event can make it big enough to contain the infinite. Stefan Zweig events depth soul In their overestimation of the role of civilization, the humanists misunderstand the primary forces of the world of primitive human drives with their untamable violence. With their optimistic view of the role of culture, they (the humanists) trivialize the terrifying, hardly solvable problems of mass hatred and of the great passionate psychoses of the human race. Stefan Zweig psychosis optimistic hate Every wave, regardless of how high and forceful it crests, must eventually collapse within itself. Stefan Zweig collapse wave Only that which points the human spirit beyond its own limitations into what is universally human gives the individual strength superior to his own. Only in suprahuman demands which can hardly be fulfilled do human beings and peoples feel their true and sacred measure. Stefan Zweig individual-strength inspirational giving Health alone does not suffice. To be happy, to become creative, man must always be strengthened by faith in the meaning of his own existence. Stefan Zweig creative doe men 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 intellectual games play 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 stress pain water We can't forever be spending our lives paying for political follies that never gave us anything but always took from us, and I amcontent with the narrowest metes and bounds provided I have peace and quiet for work. Stefan Zweig contentment political forever But the creative person is subject to a different, higher law than mere national law. Whoever has to create a work, whoever has tobring about a discovery or deed which will further the cause of all of humanity, no longer has his home in his native land but rather in his work. Stefan Zweig creativity home discovery He was welcome everywhere he went, and was well-aware of his inability to tolerate solitude. He felt no inclination to be alone and avoided it as far as possible; he didn't really want to become any better acquainted with himself. He knew that if he wanted to show his talents to best advantage, he needed to strike sparks off other people to fan the flames of warmth and exuberance in his heart. On his own he was frosty, no use to himself at all, like a match left lying in its box. Stefan Zweig flames heart lying One must be convinced to convince, to have enthusiasm to stimulate the others. Stefan Zweig convince convinced enthusiasm The idea of Jewish unity, of a plan, an organization, unfortunately exists only in the brains of Hitler and Streicher. Stefan Zweig unity organization ideas Art knows no happier moment than the opportunity to show the symmetry of an extreme, during that moment of spheric harmony when the dissonance dissolves for the blink of an eye, dissolves into a blissful harmony, when the most extreme opposites, coming together from the greatest alienation, fleetingly touch with lips of the word and of love. Stefan Zweig eye opportunity art If you are going to sell yourself, you should at least get a good price. Stefan Zweig sells ifs should The strength of a love is always misjudged if we evaluate it by its immediate cause and not the stress that went before it, the dark and hollow space full of disappointment and loneliness that precedes all the great events in the heart's history. Stefan Zweig stress loneliness disappointment 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 creativity military war All my life I have been passionately interested in monomaniacs of any kind, people carried away by a single idea. The more one limits oneself, the closer one is to the infinite; these people, as unworldly as they seem, burrow like termites into their own particular material to construct, in miniature, a strange and utterly individual image of the world. Stefan Zweig people world ideas The dressmaker doesn't have problems unless the dress has to hide rather than reveal. Stefan Zweig problem dresses
