Berthold Auerbach

What people will say — in these words there lies the tyranny of the world, the whole destruction of our natural disposition, the oblique vision of our minds. These four words bear sway everywhere.

Berthold Auerbach (28 February 1812 – 8 February 1882) was a German poet and author. He was the founder of the German "tendency novel", in which fiction is used as a means of influencing public opinion on social, political, moral, and religious questions.

Quotes

Auf der Höhe · On the Heights (1865)

• Perfect solitude is when, for a whole day, no human eye has beheld your face.
  • Bk. 7 (Simon Adler Stern, trans.)

• He who possesses a firm faith, although in solitude, is not alone.
  • Bk. 7 (Stern, trans.)

A Dictionary of Quotations in Prose (1889)

Quotes reported in Anna L. Ward (ed.) A Dictionary of Quotations in Prose (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co, 1889)

• Being alone when one’s belief is firm, is not to be alone.
  • On the Heights (F. E. Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Belief", no. 434

• Books make men alone for themselves.
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Books", no. 485

• Only what thou art in thyself determines thy value, not what thou hast.
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Character", no. 640

• It lies in our own power to attune the mind to cheerfulness.
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Cheerfulness", no. 704

• Why does it signify to us what they think of us after death, when our being has become only an empty sound?
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Dead", no. 1068

• To a father, when his child dies, the future dies; to a child, when his parents die, the past dies.
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Dead", no. 1071

• We make nothing: we only form and discover what is already there, but which without our assistance cannot release itself from shapeless chaos.
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Development", no. 1155

• Gratitude is a soil on which joy thrives.
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Gratitude", no. 2182

• We hear the rain fall, but not the snow. Bitter grief is loud, calm grief is silent.
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Grief", no. 2292

• Our second mother, habit, is also a good mother.
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Habit", no. 2320

Imagination is the mightiest despot.

• Imagination is the mightiest despot.
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Imagination", no. 2681

• What is all our knowledge? We do not even know what weather it will be to-morrow.
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Knowledge", no. 2935

• Our life is twofold.
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Life", no. 3198

• The best loneliness is when no human eye has rested on our face for a whole day.
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Loneliness", no. 3282

• Truly, one gets easier accustomed to a silken bed, than to a sack of leaves.
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Luxury", no. 3419

Nature has no moods. They belong to man alone.

• Nature has no moods. They belong to man alone.
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Moods", no. 3635

• What people will say — in these words there lies the tyranny of the world, the whole destruction of our natural disposition, the oblique vision of our minds. These four words bear sway everywhere.
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Opinion", no. 3873

• He who is one with himself, is everything.
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Self-centration", no. 4898

• A mirror is the very foundation of self-consciousness.
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Self-consciousness", no. 4907

• He who, to be happy, needs nothing but himself, is happy.
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Self-esteem", no. 4915

The best self-forgetfulness is to look at the things of the world with attention and love; for, really, attention is fraught with love, and perhaps that which is most unselfish.

• The best self-forgetfulness is to look at the things of the world with attention and love; for, really, attention is fraught with love, and perhaps that which is most unselfish.
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Self-forgetfulness", no. 4923

• Forgetting one’s self, or knowing one’s self, around these everything turns.
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Self-taught", no. 4967

• It is only when one is thoroughly true that there can be purity and freedom.
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Sincerity", no. 5024

• Solitude has a healing consoler, friend, companion: it is work.
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Solitude", no. 5123

There is a childhood of the soul.

• There is a childhood of the soul.
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Soul", no. 5173

• The vain being is the really solitary being.
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Vanity", no. 5602

• We consider it tedious to talk of the weather, and yet there is nothing more important.
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Weather", no. 5763

• It is not joy nor repose which is the aim of life. It is work, or there is no aim at all.
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Work", no. 5952

• Why has no religion this command before all others: Thou shalt work?
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "Work", no. 5953

• The world is the same everywhere.
  • On the Heights (Bunnett, trans.)
  • "World", no. 5977

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Berthold Auerbach on Wikipedia