Stefan Zweig: Trending quotes

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Stefan Zweig: 212 quotes113 likes

“Was it not the most wonderful thing on earth to be able to help one's fellow-creatures? I now knew that it was the only thing that was worth while.”

Stefan Zweig book Beware of Pity

Beware of Pity (1939)

“There are two kinds of pity. One, the weak and sentimental kind, which is really no more than the heart's impatience to be rid as quickly as possible of the painful emotion aroused by the sight of another's unhappiness, that pity which is not compassion, but only an instinctive desire to fortify one's own soul agains the sufferings of another; and the other, the only one at counts, the unsentimental but creative kind, which knows what it is about and is determined to hold out, in patience and forbearance, to the very limit of its strength and even beyond.”

Stefan Zweig book Beware of Pity

Beware of Pity (1939)

“The instinct for self-deception in human beings makes them try to banish from their minds dangers of which at bottom they are perfectly aware by declaring them non-existent.”

Stefan Zweig book Beware of Pity

Beware of Pity (1939)

“The dressmaker doesn't have problems unless the dress has to hide rather than reveal.”

Stefan Zweig book The Post Office Girl

The Post Office Girl (published posthumously in 1982)

“All office workers are afraid of being late for work.”

Stefan Zweig book The Post Office Girl

The Post Office Girl (published posthumously in 1982)

“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

Confusion of Feelings or Confusion: The Private Papers of Privy Councillor R. Von D (1927)

“It always demands a far greater degree of courage for an individual to oppose an organized movement than to let himself be carried along with the stream — individual courage, that is, a variety of courage that is dying out in these times of progressive organization and mechanization. During the war practically the only courage I ran across was mass courage, the courage that comes of being one of a herd, and anyone who examines this phenomenon more closely will find it to be compounded of some very strange elements: a great deal of vanity, a great deal of fear — yes, fear of staying behind, fear of being sneered at fear of independent action, and fear, above all, of taking up a stand against the mass enthusiasm of one's fellows.”

Stefan Zweig book Beware of Pity

Beware of Pity (1939)

“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 book The Post Office Girl

The Post Office Girl (published posthumously in 1982)

“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 book The Post Office Girl

The Post Office Girl (published posthumously in 1982)

“Supreme achievement and outstanding capacity are only rendered possible by mental concentration, by a sublime monomania that verges on lunacy.”

Stefan Zweig

“The soul is made of stuff so mysteriously elastic that a single event can make it big enough to contain the infinite.”

Stefan Zweig book The Post Office Girl

The Post Office Girl (published posthumously in 1982)

“One can run away from anything but oneself.”

Stefan Zweig book Beware of Pity

Beware of Pity (1939)

“People who are so much at the mercy of their moods should never be given serious responsibilities.”

Stefan Zweig book Beware of Pity

Beware of Pity (1939)

“It is a blessing not yet to have acquired that over-keen, diagnostic, misanthropic eye, and to be able to look at people and things trustfully when one first sees them.”

Stefan Zweig book Beware of Pity

Beware of Pity (1939)

“A doctor should never try to cure the incurable.”

Stefan Zweig book Beware of Pity

Beware of Pity (1939)

“Unhappiness makes people vulnerable, incessant suffering unjust. Just as in the relations between a creditor and a debtor there is always an element of the disagreeable that can never be overcome, for the very reason that the one is irrevocably committed to the role of giver and the other to that of receiver, so in a sick person a latent feeling of resentment at every obvious sign of consideration is always ready to burst forth.”

Stefan Zweig book Beware of Pity

Beware of Pity (1939)

“Someone who's on top of the world isn't much of an observer: happy people are poor psychologists. But someone who's troubled about something is on the alert. The perceived threat sharpens his senses - he takes in more than he usually does.”

Stefan Zweig book The Post Office Girl

The Post Office Girl (published posthumously in 1982)

“The sight of a wedding always has a disturbing effect on young girls; at such moments a mysterious sense of solidarity with their own sex takes possession of them.”

Stefan Zweig book Beware of Pity

Beware of Pity (1939)