Stefan Zweig quotes
Stefan Zweig
Birthdate: 28. November 1881
Date of death: 23. February 1942
Stefan Zweig was an Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most popular writers in the world.
Works
Quotes Stefan Zweig
„Fear is a distorting mirror in which anything can appear as a caricature of itself, stretched to terrible proportions; once inflamed, the imagination pursues the craziest and most unlikely possibilities. What is most absurd suddenly seems the most probable.“
— Stefan Zweig, book The Post Office Girl
The Post Office Girl (published posthumously in 1982)
„The vast power of money, mighty when you have it and even mightier when you don't, with its divine gift of freedom and the demonic fury it unleashes on those forced to do without it — they felt this as never before and were filled with bitter rage when, in the dark of the early morning, they saw the brightly lit windows and knew that those glowing gold curtains gave shelter and freedom to hundreds of thousands of people, men with women they desired, while they themselves were homeless, plodding blindly through the streets, through the rain; it was cruel as only the sea could be cruel — the sea in which a person can die of thirst.“
— Stefan Zweig, book The Post Office Girl
The Post Office Girl (published posthumously in 1982)
„No guilt is forgotten so long as the conscience still knows of it.“
— Stefan Zweig, book Beware of Pity
Source: Beware of Pity (1939)
„How terrible this darkness was, how bewildering, and yet mysteriously beautiful!“
Source: The Burning Secret and other stories
„All I know is that I shall be alone again. There is nothing more terrible than to be alone among human beings.“
Source: Letter from an Unknown Woman: The Fowler Snared
„Something indefinite is always worse than something definite, a strong fear that doesn't last very long is easier than one that's nebulous but doesn't go away.“
— Stefan Zweig, book The Post Office Girl
The Post Office Girl (published posthumously in 1982)
„The subject of a rumor is always the last to hear it.“
— Stefan Zweig, book The Post Office Girl
The Post Office Girl (published posthumously in 1982)
„The word 'service' comes from serving, and serving means being dependent.“
— Stefan Zweig, book Beware of Pity
Beware of Pity (1939)
„Whatever a woman's reason may say, her feelings tell her the truth.“
— Stefan Zweig, book Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman
Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman (1927)
„Hairdressers are professional gossips; when only the hands are busy, the tongue is seldom still.“
— Stefan Zweig, book The Post Office Girl
The Post Office Girl (published posthumously in 1982)
„Adultery is in most cases a theft in the dark. At such moments almost every woman betrays her husband's innermost secrets; becomes a Delilah who discloses to a stranger, discloses to her lover, the mysteries of her husband's strength or weakness. What seems to me treason is, not that women give themselves, but that a woman is prone, when she does so, to justify herself to herself by uncovering her husband's nakedness, exposing it to the inquisitive and scornful gaze of a stranger.“
Confusion of Feelings or Confusion: The Private Papers of Privy Councillor R. Von D (1927)