Stefan Zweig quotes - page 5

Stefan Zweig was an Austrian writer, playwright, and biographer widely admired for his psychological insight. His works, including novellas, essays, and biographies, gained international popularity in the early twentieth century. He became known for exploring the complexities of the human soul and for his poignant reflections on European culture. Here are 116 of his quotes:

The word 'service' comes from serving, and serving means being dependent.

Stefan Zweig

We live through myriads of seconds, but there is only one second among all these myriads which brings our whole inner world to the boil; the second in which, as Stendhal described, there suddenly takes place a crystallization in the supersaturated blood; a magical second like that of procreation, and, like it, hidden in the warm interior of one's own body, invisible, intangible, impalpable, a unique experience of mystery. No algebra of the soul can calculate it; no alchemy can divine it. Usually, even for ourselves, it remains unsearchable.

Stefan Zweig

My father was a schoolmaster in a little North German town, and for the very reason that at home culture was a means of livelihood, I detested learning and literature from childhood onwards. That is nature's way. In pursuance of her mysterious design to safeguard the creative faculty, she is apt to make children scorn their father's bent. She does not want to encourage an easy, effortless acceptance of a heritage, a mere handing down of acquisitions from one generation to the next. She sows the seeds of discord, and will only allow children to follow in their parent's footsteps after they have made laborious but fruitful detours.

Stefan Zweig

There's an inherent limit to the stress that any material can bear. Water has its boiling point, metals their melting points. The elements of the spirit behave the same way. Happiness can reach a pitch so great that any further happiness can't be felt. Pain, despair, humiliation, disgust, and fear are no different. Once the vessel is full, the world can't add to it.

Stefan Zweig

Nothing makes you madder than wanting to defend yourself against something you can't even get hold of, something the human race is doing to you, but still there's nobody you can grab by the throat.

Stefan Zweig

When they are preparing for war, those who rule by force speak most copiously about peace until they have completed the mobilization process.

Stefan Zweig

Every wave, regardless of how high and forceful it crests, must eventually collapse within itself.

Stefan Zweig

Only the misfortune of exile can provide the in-depth understanding and the overview into the realities of the world.

Stefan Zweig

In history, the moments during which reason and reconciliation prevail are short and fleeting.

Stefan Zweig

It would be foolhardy to count on the conscience of the world.

Stefan Zweig

Today, for a Jew who writes in the German language, it is totally impossible to make a living. In no group do I see as much misery, disappointment, desperation and hopelessness as in Jewish writers who write in German.

Stefan Zweig

Now I am discovering the world once more. England has widened my horizon.

Stefan Zweig

The idea of Jewish unity, of a plan, an organization, unfortunately exists only in the brains of Hitler and Streicher.

Stefan Zweig

Lightly, caressingly, Marie Antoinette picked up the crown as a gift. She was still too young to know that life never gives anything for nothing, and that a price is always exacted for what fate bestows. She did not think she would have to pay a price. She simply accepted the rights of her royal position and performed no duties in exchange. She wanted to combine two things which are, in actual human experience, incompatible; she wanted to reign and at the same time to enjoy.

Stefan Zweig