Stefan Zweig Quotes (18 Quotes)

When they are preparing for war, those who rule by force speak most copiously about peace until they have completed the mobilization process.

One must be convinced to convince, to have enthusiasm to stimulate the others.

Today, as a Jew, one should not have any position or accept any honors because it is difficult to live with those eternal compromises.

The life of our generation is now set. We do not have the power to influence the flow of events, and no right to offer advice to the next generation.

In history, the moments during which reason and reconciliation prevail are short and fleeting.

In history as in human life, regret does not bring back a lost moment and a thousand years will not recover something lost in a single hour.

The free, independent spirit who commits himself to no dogma and will not decide in favor of any party has no homestead on earth.

Now I am discovering the world once more. England has widened my horizon.

It would be foolhardy to count on the conscience of the world.

Every wave, regardless of how high and forceful it crests, must eventually collapse within itself.

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

Today, for a Jew who writes in the German language, it is totally impossible to make a living. In no group do I see as much misery, disappointment, desperation and hopelessness as in Jewish writers who write in German.

There is no sense to a sacrifice after you come to feel that it is a sacrifice.

Often the presence of mind and energy of a person remote from the spotlight decide the course of history for centuries to come.

Fate is never too generous even to its favorites. Rarely do the gods grant a mortal more than one immortal deed.

Only the person who has experienced light and darkness, war and peace, rise and fall, only that person has truly experienced life.

Never can the innate power of a work be hidden or locked away. A work of art can be forgotten by time; it can be forbidden and rejected but the elemental will always prevail over the ephemeral.

Only the misfortune of exile can provide the in-depth understanding and the overview into the realities of the world.