Quotes from Lion Feuchtwanger

Whoever is free from prejudice should be ready to face misunderstanding.

Welcome Good! Welcome Evil!" a German poet once wrote, and ever since I was a boy I had revolved an apophthegm from the Talmud in my mind. Of evil it said: "Gam su letovo" ("That too is all for the best").

The French indiscriminately interned any women who had at any time had anything to do with Central Europe.

My secretary was interned though she was of Swiss citizenship, and her sister, though a British subject.

Even French mothers of French soldiers were interned if they had been born in Germany or were wives of Germans resident in France.

Both of us had long since learned to take the stupidity and indolence of men for granted and as things of which it was superfluous to speak.

The principle of relativity should be applied with due discretion in the field of jurisprudence and governmental administration.

The patrolling of the roads was slackest around the noon hour, for to the French police, as to other Frenchmen, mealtime was a sacred hour.

Without papers it was simply impossible to move from a hostile France across a hostile Spain and a not exactly sympathetic Portugal and thence reach an overseas country that was itself fussily bureaucratic.

und die halbe Wahrheit, die vorgibt, die ganze zu sein, ist schlimmer als die schlimmste Lüge.

Marile hot?râri trebuiesc luate de unul singur, în privinÈ›a asta nu pot fi de folos nici un maestru È™i nici o filozofie. În clipele de grea cump?n? omul nu mai poate face apel decât la propria raÈ›iune, la propria sa inim?, la propria sa persoan?.

We soon lost all sense of privacy in the camp. There was no effort to conceal ugliness and deformity, whether of body or of soul. One saw much that was ugly beyond words.

Like the philosopher, the author views his task as one of establishing a clear connection between life and history, and of making the past bear fruit for the present and future.

An author who sets about to depict events of the past that have run their course is suspected of wishing to avoid the problems of the present day, of being, in other words, a reactionary.

I have always made an effort to render every detail of my reality with the greatest accuracy; but I have never paid attention to whether my presentation of historical facts was an exact one.

Asking the author of historical novels to teach you about history is like expecting the composer of a melody to provide answers about radio transmission.

An action doesn't have to be wrong just because it is not logical. It doesn't have to be right just because it has its logic.

Ever since my youth it has disturbed me that of the literary works that survived their own epoch, so many dealt with historical rather than contemporary subjects.

What is a historian, anyway? It is someone who uses facts to record the development of humanity.

Asking the author of historical novels to teach you about history is like expecting the composer of a melody to provide answers about radio transmission.

In itself it is nothing. Nothing but a book: parchment, colouring, ink. Yet the most perishable material is at the same time the most durable substance in the world…

The word and the image mutually excluded each other. Joseph was a literary man to his very marrow; he put faith in the invisible Word; it was the most miraculous thing in all the world; though without form it had more power than anything endowed with form

The years that had passed had displayed vividly before our eyes the fickleness of human attitudes.

Die Mode jener Jahre war umständlich und töricht. Die Männer knöpften sich steifleinerne Krägen um die Hälse, enge, überflüssige, unschöne Kleidungsstücke, und umwanden sie mühsam zu schlingenden, zwecklosen Binden, sogenannten Krawatten.