Quotes from Lion Feuchtwanger

The French have coined a phrase for their slipshod indifference, their way of letting things take care of themselves. They call it "je-m'en-foutisme," an attitude toward life that may be somewhat inadequately translated as "I-don't-give-a-damnism.

In the camp at Les Mille I observed again in myself and in others how very quickly the human being becomes acclimated.

while we professors, lawyers, physicians, agronomists, artisans, instead of busying ourselves with books, legal papers, diagnoses, weather forecasts, machine parts, were making piles of bricks that we would be ordered to unpile the day following, that verse from Exodus came into my mind, the verse in which the children of Israel are forced to bake bricks for Pharaoh of Egypt to build the treasure cities of Pithom and Raamses.

Misfortunes they ascribe to the injustice of Fate or of God, and think they are to be pitied because of them; if a stroke of luck comes, it is an achievement of their own.

Nu avea niciun sens s? se simt? furios. Trebuie s? iei viaÈ›a aÈ™a cum e: stupid?, minunat?, inteligent?, rea, nebuneasc? È™i foarte, foarte pl?cut?. Trebuie s? accepÈ›i sl?biciunile oamenilor ca pe un dat, s? le iei în calcul È™i s? le foloseÈ™ti pentru cauza nobil?.

În el pulsa aversiunea profund? a omului înÈ›elept È™i omenos împotriva unui lucru atât de inutil, complet stupid È™i atavic precum r?zboiul. Dintre numeroasele jocuri stupide ale oamenilor, r?zboiul i se p?rea cel mai stupid È™i mai costisitor.

History is the art of giving meaning to the meaningless," said a brilliant German professor (who was later killed by the Nazis).

I shall not importune him with any opinion of my own as to why I, at bottom a contemplative soul asking nothing better than to live in peace and to be able to read and to write, have been condemned to lead such a stormy existence so fraught with upheavals.

Dac? nu mori tân?r, uneori trebuie s? te contrazici.

Suddenly the following came: "All German nationals residing in the precincts of Paris, men and women alike, and all persons between the ages of seventeen and fifty-five who were born in Germany but are without German citizenship, are to report for internment.

There I had been for three-quarters of a year caught in that mousetrap of a France, unable to get permission to leave the country. Now, for a second time, I was to taste the pleasures of an internment camp.

My memory follows rules that my conscious being cannot explain, though they may have something to do with my subconscious being.

It is nevertheless my considered opinion that an experience often changes in physiognomy according to the capacity a person has for experiencing.

Yes, I am unalterably convinced that the translation of an experience into words depends more upon the temperament of the man who has lived through it than upon its actual content.

Fewer people are capable of experiencing things than is commonly supposed.

A man of imagination has an advantage over other people, in that an actual experience is almost always less intense than his expectations of it.

An actual misfortune is almost always less painful to him than his fear of it, just as, of course, his actual experience of joys is almost always less stirring than his hopes and anticipations of them.

There is nothing the rabble fears more than intelligence. If they understood what is truly terrifying, they would fear ignorance.

The French not only refused any co-operation from us German anti-Fascists, they locked us up.

And however often circumstances over which I had no control compelled me to forsake abodes that I had furnished with so much solicitude, I never learned my lesson.

No, my fatalism is yet not as primitive as that. It is rather the logical outcome of unfortunate experiences with the consistent application of intelligence.

I kept depositing money in countries that seemed safest from war—Sweden, Holland, Canada. Those were the very countries where my funds were either confiscated or frozen.

Certain numerologists in Germany had figured out that the number nine was fateful to German artists. Beethoven, Bruckner, and Mahler each wrote nine symphonies, Wagner nine operas that are still sung, Schiller, Hebbel, and Grillparzer each nine plays that are still produced.

Talented person is talented everywhere.