"A. Alvarez: The Savage God" (1972), p. 69
The Good Word & Other Words (1978)
“For, he reasons pointedly
That which must not, can not be.”
Weil, so schließt er messerscharf
Nicht sein kann, was nicht sein darf.
„Die unmögliche Tatsache” “The Impossible Fact” (1910)
Original
Weil, so schließt er messerscharf, // nicht sein kann, was nicht sein darf.
Die unmögliche Tatsache. In: Palmström. Alle Galgenlieder. Diogenes 1981, S. 164
Variant: Weil, so schließt er messerscharf
Nicht sein kann, was nicht sein darf.
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Christian Morgenstern 21
German author 1871–1914Related quotes

Labouchere v. Dawson (1872), L. R. 13 Eq. Ca. 325.

1960s, The American Promise (1965)

“Reason, in fact, is a thing of God, inasmuch as there is nothing which God the Maker of all has not provided, disposed, ordained by reason — nothing which He has not willed should be handled and understood by reason. All, therefore, who are ignorant of God, must necessarily be ignorant also of a thing which is His, because no treasure-house at all is accessible to strangers. And thus, voyaging all the universal course of life without the rudder of reason, they know not how to shun the hurricane which is impending over the world.”
Quippe res dei ratio quia deus omnium conditor nihil non ratione providit disposuit ordinavit, nihil [enim] non ratione tractari intellegique voluit. [3] Igitur ignorantes quique deum rem quoque eius ignorent necesse est quia nullius omnino thesaurus extraneis patet. Itaque universam vitae conversationem sine gubernaculo rationis transfretantes inminentem saeculo procellam evitare non norunt.
De Paenitentia (On Repentance), 1.2-3

“Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired…”
Letter to a Young Clergyman (January 9, 1720), on proving Christianity to unbelievers