E. T. A. Hoffmann
E. T. A. Hoffmann
Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, was a Prussian Romantic author of fantasy and horror, a jurist, composer, music critic, draftsman and caricaturist. His stories form the basis of Jacques Offenbach's famous opera The Tales of Hoffmann, in which Hoffmann appearsas the hero. He is also the author of the novella The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, on which the famous ballet The Nutcracker is based. The ballet Coppélia is based on two other stories that Hoffmann wrote, while Schumann's Kreisleriana is...
ProfessionCritic
Date of Birth24 January 1776
boys play weapons
Boys should not play with weapons more dangerous than they understand.
destiny men play
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.
passion personality smoking
As the priest is characterized by his cassock, so the smoker by his pipe. The way in which he holds it, raises it to his lips, and knocks out the ashes, reveals his personality, habits, passions, and even his thoughts.
dream glasses doubt
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.
men earth birth
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.
real simplicity genius
Is it not in the most absolute simplicity that real genius plies its pinions the most wonderfully?
creating goes-on useless
It is useless to contend with the irresistible power of Time, which goes on continually creating by a process of constant destruction.
improbable
It is nearly always the most improbable things that really come to pass.
morning should reviews
It is only in the morning that one should marry, read unfavourable reviews, make one's will, beat one's servants, and so forth.
friends insects draws
Human beings ought not to draw in their antennae at every ungentle touch, like supersensitive insects.
death years earth
Every year lays more earth upon us, which weighs us down from aerial regions, till we go under the earth at last.
men circles feet
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.
creativity errors phrases
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.
spiritual echoes kingdoms
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.