Georg Büchner

One must love humanity in order to reach out into the unique essence of each individual: no one can be too low or too ugly.

Karl Georg Büchner (17 October 1813 – 19 February 1837) was a German dramatist and writer of prose. He was the brother of physician and philosopher Ludwig Büchner.

Quotes

• One must love humanity in order to reach out into the unique essence of each individual: no one can be too low or too ugly.
  • Lenz (1835).

The Hessian Courier (1834)

• Peace to the shacks! War on the palaces!

• Raise your eyes and count the small gang of your oppressors who are only strong through the blood they suck from you and through your arms which you lend them unwillingly.

• Supreme power rests in the will of all or of the majority.

• In Germany, the judicial system has been the whore of the German princes for centuries.

• The life of the wealthy is one long Sunday.

• Germany is now a field of cadavers, soon she will be a paradise.

• The state is therefore everyone; the rules within the state are laws which safeguard the welfare of all and which must originate from the welfare of all.

Dantons Tod (Danton's Death) (1835)

• The sin is in our thoughts.
  • Act I.

• There are only Epicureans, either crude or refined; Christ was the most refined.
  • Act I.

• The revolutionary government is the despotism of liberty against tyranny.
  • Act I.

• The weapon of the Republic is terror, and virtue is its strength.
  • Act I.

• You women could make someone fall in love even with a lie.
  • Act I.

• The breath of an aristocrat is the death rattle of freedom.
  • Act I.

• Revolution is like Saturn, it devours its own children.
  • Act I.

• They say in the grave there is peace, and peace and the grave are one and the same.
  • Act I.

• Government must be a transparent garment which tightly clings to the people’s body.
  • Act I.

• The revolution must end and the republic must begin. In our constitution, right must take the place of duty, welfare that of virtue, and self-defense that of punishment. Everyone must be able to prevail and to live according to one’s own nature.
  • Act I.

• Whoever finishes a revolution only halfway, digs his own grave.
  • Act I.

• The statue of Freedom has not been cast yet, the furnace is hot, we can all still burn our fingers.
  • Act I.

• Murder begins where self-defense ends.
  • Act I.

• We are always on stage, even when we are stabbed in earnest at the end.
  • Act II.

• We are only puppets, our strings are being pulled by unknown forces.
  • Act II.

• The strides of humanity are slow, they can only be counted in centuries.
  • Act II.

• We have not made the Revolution, the Revolution has made us.
  • Act II.

• Your words smell of corpses.
  • Act II.

• Dying people often become childish
  • Act II.

• I’ll know how to die with courage; that is easier than living.
  • Act II.

• Revolution is like the daughters of Pelias: it cuts humanity to pieces in order to rejuvenate it.
  • Act II.

• The power of the people and the power of reason are one.
  • Act III.

• The stars are scattered all over the sky like shimmering tears, there must be great pain in the eye from which they trickled.
  • Act IV.

• Freedom and whores are the most cosmopolitan items under the sun.
  • Act IV.

• The world is chaos. Nothingness is the yet-to-be-born god of the world.
  • Act IV

Leonce and Lena (1838)

• Love is a peculiar thing.
  • Act I.

• That is a long word: forever!
  • Act I.

• How many women does one need to sing the scale of love all the way up and down?
  • Act I.

• The death clock is ticking slowly in our breast, and each drop of blood measures its time, and our life is a lingering fever.
  • Act II.

• Death is the most blessed dream.
  • Act II.

• Und müden Augen jedes Licht zu scharf, und müden Lippen jeder Hauch zu schwer, Lächelnd. und müden Ohren jedes Wort zu viel.
  • And for tired eyes every light is too bright, and for tired lips every breath too heavy, and for tired ears every word too much.
  • Act II.

• Do you know, Valerio, that even the least among all humans is so great that life is far too short to love him?
  • Act III

Woyzeck (1879)

• There is something beautiful about virtue, Captain. But I am just a poor guy.
  • Scene VI.

• People like us are unhappy in this world and in the next, I guess if we made it to heaven, we’d have to help make it thunder.
  • Scene VI.

• A good man with a good conscience doesn’t walk so fast.
  • Scene X.

External links

• Works by Georg Büchner at Project Gutenberg