Quotes from Heinrich von Kleist

To live in a place where I am not, and in a time that is either past or not yet come.

But paradise is locked and bolted.... We must make a journey around the world to see if a back door has perhaps been left open.

Misconceptions are unavoidable now that we've eaten of the Tree of Knowledge. But Paradise is locked and bolted, and the cherubim stands behind us. We have to go on and make the journey round the world to see if it is perhaps open somewhere at the back.

Does that mean, I said in some bewilderment, that we must eat again of the tree of knowledge in order to return to the state of innocence? Of course, he said, but that's the final chapter in the history of the world.

In M---, an important town in northern Italy, the widowed Marquise of O---, a lady of unblemished reputation and the mother of several well-brought-up children, inserted the following announcement in the newspapers: that she had, without knowledge of the cause, come to find herself in a certain situation; that she would like the father of the child she was expecting to disclose his identity to her; that she was resolved, out of consideration to her family, to marry him.

In Santiago, the capital of the kingdom of Chile, at the moment of the great earthquake of 1647 in which many thousands lost their lives, a young Spaniard called Jeronimo Rugera was standing beside one of the pillars in the prison to which he had been committed on a criminal charge, and he was about to hang himself.

Torheit, du regierst die Welt, und dein Sitz ist ein schöner weiblicher Mund!

Frauen stünde gelehrt sein nicht? Die Wahrheit zu sagen, nützlich ist es: Es steht Männern so wenig wie Fraun.

Ben bu toplumun d???na at?lm?? olmasayd?m, insan topluluÄŸuna açt???m bu savaÅŸ, kötü bir davran?? say?labilirdi.

Yasan?n korumad??? kimseyi ben, devlet toplulu?unun d???na at?lm?? sayar?m.

Wie Manche, die am Hals des Freundes hängt, Sagt wohl das Wort: sie lieb' ihn, o so sehr, Daß sie vor Liebe gleich ihn essen könnte; Und hinterher, das Wort beprüft, die Närrinn!

Adalet duygusu, Kohlhaas'? bir haydut, bir katil yapt?.

Because dearest Lisbeth, I will not abide in a country in which my rights are not protected. If I am to be trampled underfoot, I would rather be a dog than a man. I am certain that, on this point, my wife thinks with me.

U zemlji u kojoj moja prava ne?e biti zašti?ena ne mogu ostati.

Verflucht das Herz, das sich nicht mäß'gen kann!

Er bestrich sich Stirn und Brust, unwissend, was er aus seinem Zustande machen sollte, und ein unsägliches Wonnegefühl ergriff ihn, als ein Westwind, vom Meere her, sein wiederkehrendes Leben anwehte, und sein Auge sich nach allen Richtungen über die blühende Gegend von St. Jago hinwandte.

Wenn Euer Landesherr käme, und spräche, ich will mich, mit dem ganzen Troß derer, die mir das Szepter führen helfen, vernichten – vernichten, versteht ihr, welches allerdings der größteste Wunsch ist, den meine Seele hegt: so würde ihm doch den Zettel noch, der ihm mehr wert ist, als das Dasein, verweigen und sprechen: du kannst mich auf das Schafott bringen, ich aber kann dir weh tun und ich wills!

Wir wissen hierzuland nur unvollkommen, Was in der Hölle Mod ist, Frau Brigitte

the kiss and the bite are such close cousins that in the heat of love they are too readily confounded