Heinrich Heine

Who was Heinrich Heine?

Christian Johann Heinrich Heine was a German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of Lieder by composers such as Robert Schumann and Franz Schubert. Heine's later verse and prose are distinguished by their satirical wit and irony. His radical political views led to many of his works being banned by German authorities. Heine spent the last 25 years of his life as an expatriate in Paris.

Famous Quotes:

• Great genius takes shape by contact with another great genius, but, less by assimilation than by fiction.
• While we are indifferent to our good qualities, we keep on deceiving ourselves in regard to our faults, until we come to look on them as virtues.
• If the Romans had been obliged to learn Latin they would never have found time to conquer the world.
• Of course God will forgive me; that's His job.
• In politics, as in life, we must above all things wish only for the attainable.
• Whether a revolutions succeeds or fails people of great hearts will always be sacrificed to it.
• God will forgive me, that's his business.
• Experience is a good school, but the fees are high.
• In these times we fight for ideas and newspapers are our fortress.
• The weather-cock on the church spire, though made of iron, would soon be broken by the storm-wind if it did not understand the noble art of turning to every wind.