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Stefan Zweig

Stefan Zweig Quotes

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Famous Stefan Zweig Quotes

“All my life I have been passionately interested in monomaniacs of any kind, people carried away by a single idea. The more one limits oneself, the closer one is to the infinite; these people, as unworldly as they seem, burrow like termites into their own particular material to construct, in miniature, a strange and utterly individual image of the world.”

PeopleWorldKindHas BeensIdeasSeemsIndividualParticularStrangeMaterialsLimitsInfiniteOneselfConstructsCarried AwayMiniaturesKind People
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“Only ambition is fired by the coincidences of success and easy accomplishment but nothing is quite as splendidly uplifting to the heart as the defeat of a human being who battles against the invincible superiority of fate. This is always the most grandiose of all tragedies, one sometimes created by a dramatist but created thousands of times by life.”

HumansHeartSometimesEasyHuman BeingsFateBattleAmbitionTragedyDefeatUpliftingAccomplishmentSuperiorityCoincidenceInvincibleGrandiose
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“There are two types of compassion. One - is faint-hearted and sentimental. Actually, it is nothing more than impatience of the heart, that is hurrying to get rid of that hard feeling when you see other peoples' sufferings; this is not a compassion, but just an instinct will to defence yourself from misfortunes of others. But there is another compassion - real one, that demands for actions, not sentiments, it knows what it wants, and it is full of determination to do everything, what is in human power and even beyond it.”

KnowsWantLoveHumansHeartTwoRealHardFeelingsDreamActionSufferingCompassionTypeDemandDeterminationInstinctSentimentsMisfortunesSentimentalHeartedDefenceImpatienceHurryingReal OnesHuman PowerMisfortunes Of OthersFaint Hearted
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“Each of us, even the lowliest and most insignificant among us, was uprooted from his innermost existence by the almost constant volcanic upheavals visited upon our European soil and, as one of countless human beings, I can't claim any special place for myself except that, as an Austrian, a Jew, writer, humanist and pacifist, I have always been precisely in those places where the effects of the thrusts were most violent.”

HumansI CanHuman BeingsExistenceSpecialEffectsClaimsConstantJewViolentSoilHumanistInsignificantThrustPacifistSpecial PlacesUpheaval
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“In 1938, after Austria, our universe had become accustomed to inhumanity, to lawlessness, and brutality as never in centuries before. In a former day the occurrences in unhappy Vienna alone would have been sufficient to cause international proscription, but in 1938 the world conscience was silent or merely muttered surlily before it forgot and forgave.”

WorldHas BeensUniverseCausesCenturyConscienceSilentInternationalUnhappyFormerSufficientAccustomedBrutalityInhumanityViennaAustriaLawlessness
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“Decisive inventions and discoveries always are initiated by an intellectual or moral stimulus as their actual motivating force, but, usually, the final impetus to human action is given by material impulses ... merchants stood as a driving force behind the heroes of the age of discovery; this first heroic impulse to conquer the world emanated from very mortal forces”

WorldFirstsHumansAgeActionGivenForceBehindsMoralMaterialsHeroIntellectualDiscoveryFinalsDrivingInventionMortalsConquerImpulseHeroicStimulusMerchantsDriving ForceHuman ActionsImpetusConquer The World
Author:Stefan Zweig
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