Quotes by Kurt Tucholsky

Kurt Tucholsky (1890–1935) — Schriftsteller · keine · Deutschland

Kurt Tucholsky (1890–1935) war ein deutscher Schriftsteller, Journalist und Satiriker der Weimarer Republik, der vor allem in Berlin, Paris und im schwedischen Exil tätig war. Als Autor und Herausgeber der Wochenschrift „Die Weltbühne“ kritisierte er Militarismus, Justiz sowie den aufkommenden Nationalsozialismus und löste mit radikal pazifistischen Äußerungen heftige Kontroversen aus. Für Bibelleser bieten seine prägnanten Beobachtungen zu Gewissen, Menschenwürde und moralischer Verantwortung einen ungeschönten säkularen Blick auf ethische Grundfragen.

Era: The 20th Century

Recurring topics: Wisdom & Understanding, Ethical Questions, Freedom & Truth, Meaning & Identity, Relationships & Family, Peace & Rest, Humility & Pride, Loneliness & Abandonment

Quotes by Kurt Tucholsky

For nothing is harder and nothing requires more character than to find oneself in open opposition to one's time and to say out loud: No.
Kurt Tucholsky

There are many kinds of noise. But there is only one silence.
Kurt Tucholsky

Alongside the drive to reproduce and to eat and drink, man has two passions: to make noise and not to listen.
Kurt Tucholsky

Do not be impressed by any expert who tells you: Dear friend, I have been doing it this way for twenty years! One can also do something wrong for twenty years.
Kurt Tucholsky

Always searching isn't nice. Sometimes you want to come home too.
Kurt Tucholsky

This is hard: a life for two. Only one thing is harder: being alone.
Kurt Tucholsky

The annoying thing about anger is that you harm yourself without benefiting anyone else.
Kurt Tucholsky

May God preserve our friendship. One would almost like to believe one is not alone.
Kurt Tucholsky

Old people have usually forgotten that they were young, or they forget that they are old, and the young never understand that they can grow old.
Kurt Tucholsky

The German destiny: to stand in front of a counter. The German ideal: to sit behind a counter.
Kurt Tucholsky

On most people's coat of arms one should inscribe: When, actually, if not now?
Kurt Tucholsky

There are people who would rather have standing room in first class than a seat in third. They are not pleasant people.
Kurt Tucholsky

Every glorification of a human being killed in war means three dead in the next war.
Kurt Tucholsky

A piety that is only pulled out of the drawer, dusty and rusted, when and because its bearer is in trouble, is no piety at all. Tell me to whom you pray when things go well, and I will tell you how pious you are.
Kurt Tucholsky

It is beautiful, being able to be silent with someone.
Kurt Tucholsky

Love is when she brushes the crumbs out of your bed.
Kurt Tucholsky

In perfect silence one hears the whole world.
Kurt Tucholsky

Missionaries must learn Indian - with Latin one converts no Indians.
Kurt Tucholsky

Whenever we are not cruel for once, we immediately believe we are good.
Kurt Tucholsky

Every human being has 1 liver, 1 spleen, 1 lung, and 1 flag; all four organs are vital in nature. There are said to be humans without a liver, without a spleen, and with half a lung; humans without a flag do not exist.
Kurt Tucholsky

Germany is an anatomical oddity: it writes with the left and acts with the right.
Kurt Tucholsky

He was vain like a surgeon, dogmatic like a lawyer, and good-natured like an executioner after the execution.
Kurt Tucholsky

Expect nothing. Today: that is your life.
Kurt Tucholsky

In marriage, one is usually the fool. Only when two fools marry -: that can sometimes turn out well.
Kurt Tucholsky

Due to unfavorable weather, the German revolution took place in music.
Kurt Tucholsky

The people misunderstand most things; but they feel most things rightly.
Kurt Tucholsky

The cruelty of most people is a lack of imagination, and their brutality ignorance.
Kurt Tucholsky

A travelogue is primarily characteristic of the describer, not of the journey.
Kurt Tucholsky

One does not fall over one's mistakes. One always falls over one's enemies, who exploit these mistakes.
Kurt Tucholsky

Never do the Germans get so beside themselves as when they want to come to themselves.
Kurt Tucholsky

She talked so much that her listeners grew hoarse from it.
Kurt Tucholsky

When one person speaks, the others must listen – that is your opportunity. Abuse it.
Kurt Tucholsky

Man is a political creature who prefers to spend his life clumped together. Each clump hates the other clumps because they are the others, and hates its own because they are its own. The latter hatred is called patriotism.
Kurt Tucholsky

The reader has it easy: he can choose his writers.
Kurt Tucholsky

Satire has an upper limit: Buddha eludes it. Satire also has a lower limit. In Germany, for instance, the ruling fascist powers. It is not worth it – one cannot shoot that low.
Kurt Tucholsky

What cannot be said remains unredeemed.
Kurt Tucholsky

What the church cannot prevent, it blesses.
Kurt Tucholsky

The man does not exist at all; he is merely the noise he makes.
Kurt Tucholsky

The skilled journalist has one weapon: killing by silence – and of this weapon he makes use often enough.
Kurt Tucholsky

The ratio of German war memorials to German Heine memorials is in this country as power is to spirit.
Kurt Tucholsky

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