Stefan Zweig
Stefan Zweig
Stefan Zweigwas an Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most popular writers in the world...
NationalityAustrian
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth28 November 1881
CountryAustria
voice today too-much
I had learned and written too much history not to know that the great masses always and at once respond to the force of gravity in the direction of the powers that be. I knew that the same voices which yelled "Heil Schuschnigg" today would thunder "Heil Hitler" tomorrow.
soul stuff firsts
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.
mean purpose realizing
It is never until one realizes that one means something to others that one feels there is any point or purpose in one's own existence.
littles world vindictive
There is nothing more vindictive, nothing more underhanded, than a little world that would like to be a big one.
numbers errors important
But don't despise error. When touched by genius, when led by chance, the most superior truth can come into being from even the most foolish error. The important inventions which have been brought about in every realm of science from false hypotheses number in the hundreds, indeed in the thousands.
inspirational individual-strength giving
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.
heart compassion sight
There are two kinds of pity. One, the weak and sentimental kind, which is really no more than the heart's impatience to be rid as quickly as possible of the painful emotion aroused by the sight of another's unhappiness, that pity which is not compassion, but only an instinctive desire to fortify one's own soul agains the sufferings of another; and the other, the only one at counts, the unsentimental but creative kind, which knows what it is about and is determined to hold out, in patience and forbearance, to the very limit of its strength and even beyond.
wave collapse
Every wave, regardless of how high and forceful it crests, must eventually collapse within itself.
fleeting moments reason
In history, the moments during which reason and reconciliation prevail are short and fleeting.
chaos authority tyranny
Freedom is not possible without authority - otherwise it would turn into chaos and authority is not possible without freedom - otherwise it would turn into tyranny.
truth silence criminals
Truth to tell, we are all criminals if we remain silent....
reality understanding world
Only the misfortune of exile can provide the in-depth understanding and the overview into the realities of the world.
eye feelings rooms
Time to leave now, get out of this room, go somewhere, anywhere; sharpen this feeling of happiness and freedom, stretch your limbs, fill your eyes, be awake, wider awake, vividly awake in every sense and every pore.
spiritual firsts emotion
Dostoevsky was the first to reveal to us this teeming multiplicity of emotions, this complexity of our spiritual universe.