Quotes from Stefan Zweig

Nur einsame Kinder können ganz ihre Leidenschaft zusammenhalten: die anderen zerschwätzen ihr Gefühl in Geselligkeit, schleifen es ab in Vertraulichkeiten, sie haben von Liebe viel gehört und gelesen und wissen, daß sie ein gemeinsames Schicksal ist.

She did what is the most dangerous thing anyone can do in politics; she discoursed without having the most remote acquaintance with the subject; she amateurishly thrust her fingers into every pie, interfering in matters of the utmost moment; she used her overwhelming influence with the King exclusively on behalf of her favorites.

She tries to think, but the monotonous stuttering of the wheels breaks the flow of her thoughts, and the narcotic cowl of sleep tightens over her throbbing forehead—that muffled and yet overpowering railroad-sleep in which one lies rapt and benumbed as though in a shuddering black coal sack made of metal.

That is how our arch-adventurer likes to live, moving on from explosion to explosion of fortune and misfortune.

dreams are like delicate little white flowers that will be blown away at the first breath of reality?

Montaigne is the sworn enemy of all responsibility. He strives to dodge decisions. Solitary sage in a time of mass fanaticism, he seeks seclusion and flight.

In earlier times, when there was a rage for physiognomy, a Gall might have dissected the brains of such chess champions to determine whether there was a special convolution in their gray matter, a kind of chess muscle or chess bump more strongly marked than in the skulls of others. And how excited such a physiognomist would

A veces, al evocar su vida, se sentía como si sólo hubiera participado activamente en una pequeña parte de ella, y hubiera vivido el resto sumida en el cansancio o empujada por el vacío sentido del deber

Making music, dancing, the theater, conversation, proper and urbane deportment, these were cultivated here as particular arts. It was not the military, nor the political, nor the commercial, that was predominant in the life of the individual and of the masses.

Alt werden heisst nichts anderes, als keine Angst mehr haben vor der Vergangenheit.

Lorsque j'ouvrais les yeux dans l'obscurité et que je te sentais contre mon flanc, je m'étonnais qu'il n'y eût pas d'étoiles au-dessus de moi, tant le ciel semblait présent.

But this first installation was by no means the last. Every year the Queen had some new fancy for beautifying her miniature kingdom with more highly artificial and more "natural" additions and alterations.

la sola idea de un libro con palabras alineadas, renglones, páginas y hojas, la sola idea de un libro en el que leer, perseguir y capturar pensamientos nuevos, frescos, diferentes de los míos, pensamientos para distraerse y para atesorarlos en mi cerebro, esa sola idea era capaz de embriagarme y también de serenarme.

There is always a mysterious conflict in every artist; if life treats him roughly he longs for peace and calm, but if he comes into safe harbour he longs to be back in the turmoil.

Ac? çekmek için bile yetersizdim.

Solitario como un astrónomo que en su observatorio contempla cada noche, por la diminuta abertura de su telescopio, las miríadas de estrellas, sus misteriosas evoluciones, su cambiante confusión, cómo desaparecen yvuelven a encenderse, Jakob Mendel miraba a través de sus gafas y desde aquella mesa cuadrada ese otro universo de los libros, que asimismo gira eternamente y renace transformado,aquel mundo sobre nuestro mundo.

And the strength of love is always misjudged if we evaluate it only 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. A great, unused capacity for emotion had been lying in wait, and now it raced with outstretched arms towards the first person who seemed to deserve it.

But there, war does not care for predetermination; it also destroys in fury that wich is immaterial, the hopes and expectations (from Requiem for a Hotel /Nekrolog auf ein Hotel,1918)

Aquella memoria sólo había podido ejercitarse y formarse de aquella manera diabólicamente infalible por medio del eterno secreto de cualquier perfección: la concentración.

And once again I feel, in horror, how weak, poor and flabby a substance whatever we call by the names of soul, spirit or feeling must be after all, not to mention what we describe as pain, since all this, even to the utmost degree, is insufficient to destroy the suffering flesh of the tormented body entirely—for we do survive such hours and our blood continues to pulse, instead of dying and falling like a tree struck by lightning."..

For the first time in my life I had received an assurance that I had been of use to someone on this earth, and my astonishment at the thought that I, a commonplace, unsophisticated young officer, should really have the power to make someone else so happy knew no bounds.

She wanted, out of a kind of mysterious vindictiveness born of despair, to torture us with her torture, to arraign us, the hale and hearty, in the place of God.

Este es uno de los secretos de casi todas las revoluciones y el destino trágico de sus caudillos: sin tener sed de sangre, verse obligados a derramarla.

Nothing was done to us - we were simply placed in a complete void, and everyone knows that nothing on earth exerts such pressure on the human soul as a void.