Stefan Zweig
Stefan Zweig
Stefan Zweigwas 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...
NationalityAustrian
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth28 November 1881
CountryAustria
fleeting moments reason
In history, the moments during which reason and reconciliation prevail are short and fleeting.
greatness thinking decision
Sometimes I have the feeling that you are not quite aware--and this honors you--of the historical greatness of your position, that you think too modestly about yourself. Everything you do is destined to be of historic significance. One day, your letters, your decisions, will belong to all mankind, like those of Wagner and Brahms.
voice today too-much
I had learned and written too much history not to know that the great masses always and at once respond to the force of gravity in the direction of the powers that be. I knew that the same voices which yelled "Heil Schuschnigg" today would thunder "Heil Hitler" tomorrow.
disappointment loneliness stress
The strength of a love is always misjudged if we evaluate it by its immediate cause and not the stress that went before it, the dark and hollow space full of disappointment and loneliness that precedes all the great events in the heart's history.
presence-of-mind spotlight energy
Often the presence of mind and energy of a person remote from the spotlight decide the course of history for centuries to come.
wave collapse
Every wave, regardless of how high and forceful it crests, must eventually collapse within itself.
terrible humans human-beings
All I know is that I shall be alone again. There is nothing more terrible than to be alone among human beings.
leadership light history
Erasmus was the light of his century; others were its strength: he lighted the way; others knew how to walk on it while he himselfremained in the shadow as the source of light always does. But he who points the way into a new era is no less worthy of veneration than he who is the first to enter it; those who work invisibly have also accomplished a feat.
passion learning pedants
He who studies without passion will never become anything more than a pedant.
knowledge achievement creative
But, in history, practical usefulness never determines the moral value of an achievement. Only the person who increases the knowledge humanity has about itself and enhances its creative consciousness permanently enriches humanity.
psychology understanding intellectual
Human life is so strangely constituted that even perfected intellectual understanding combined with the richest experience is incapable of conquering innate weaknesses. Even if it thoroughly analyzes itself, psychology (and this is one of the dubious aspects of psychoanalysis) can, to be sure, recognize its flawed native characteristics, but it cannot eliminate them. Understanding (them) is not the same as overcoming (them) and, again and again, we see the wisest of human beings helpless in the fact of their small follies which everyone else observes with a smile.
gratitude kings age
Heroic ages are not and never were sentimental and those daring conquistadores who conquered entire worlds for their Spain or Portugal received lamentably little thanks from their kings.
strength character human-nature
One never gets to know a person's character better than by watching his behavior during decisive moments.... It is always only danger which forces the most deeply hidden strengths and abilities of a human being to come forth.
leadership powerful fall
Fate forces its way to the powerful and violent. With subservient obedience it will assume for years dependency on one individual:Caesar, Alexander, Napoleon, because it loves the elemental human being who grows to resemble it, the intangible element. Sometimes, and these are the most astonishing moments in world history, the thread of fate falls into the hands of a complete nobody but only for a twitching minute.