Stefan Zweig Quotes

If your heart was as big as your mouth you'd be real.

Wars and temper tantrums are the makeshifts of ignorance; regrets are illuminations come too late.

Just try to keep the heart turned outward, as well as having moments inward. I think the threat of an industry like this is that you can become sort of self-obsessed. There's so much praise being given to you - there's a real threat of exalting the ego.

Spiritual strength and passion, when accompanied by bad manners, only provoke loathing.

As a quick aside, let me observe that in moments of high emotion....if the next thing you're going to say makes you feel better, then it's probably the wrong thing to say. This is one of the finer maxims that I've discovered in life. And you can have it, since it's been of no use to me.

The main condition for the achievement of love is the overcoming of one's narcissism. The narcissistic orientation is one in which one experiences as real only that which exists within oneself, while the phenomena in the outside world have no reality in themselves, but are experienced only from the viewpoint of their being useful or dangerous to one. The opposite pole to narcissism is objectivity; it is the faculty to see other people and things as they are, objectively, and to be able to separate this objective picture from a picture which is formed by one's desires and fears.

You women listen more to your heart and less to all the nonsense. That's why you live longer.

A carefully cultivated heart will, assisted by the grace of God, foresee, forestall, or transform most of the painful situations before which others stand like helpless children saying “Why?

The heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head.

And there you see the distinction between our feelings: had he been in my place, and I in his, though I hated him with a hatred that turned my life to gall, I never would have raised a hand against him. You may look incredulous, if you please! I never would have banished him from her society as long as she desired his. The moment her regard ceased, I would have torn his heart out and drank his blood! But, till then - if you don't believe me, you don't know me - til then, I would have died by inches before I touched a single hair on his head!

Criticism ... makes very little dent upon me, unless I think there is some real justification and something should be done.

We should be slower to think that the man at his worst is the real man, and certain that the better we are ourselves the less likely is he to be at his worst in our company. Every time he talks away his own character before us he is signifying contempt for ours.

The answer to a lot of your life's questions is often in someone else's face. People's faces will tell you amazing things. Like if they are angry, or nauseous, or asleepTry to keep your mind open to possibilities and your mouth closed on matters that you don't know about. Limit your 'always' and your 'nevers.' Continue to share your heart with people even if it has been broken.

When you stop putting yourself on the line, and you don't touch your own heart, how do you expect to touch other people?

The difficult task of knowing another soul is not for young gentlemen whose consciousness is chiefly made up of their own wishes.

If we want justice for minorities and cooled wars with our natural enemies, whether human or non-human, we must first come to terms with the minority and the enemy in ourselves and in our own hearts, for the rascal is there as much as anywhere in the "external" world - -especially when you realize that the world outside your skin is as much yourself as the world inside.

Be inspired to ignore their ignorant message, and feel gratitude in your heart that you are not burdened or addicted to hate, as they are.

There was a brief moment after 9/11 when Colin Powell said we "should not rush to satisfy the desire for revenge." It was a great moment, an extraordinary moment, because what he was actually asking people to do was to stay with a sense of grief, mournfulness, and vulnerability.

The measure of our rationality determines the degree of vividness with which we appreciate the needs of other life, the extent to which we become conscious of the real character of our own motives and impulses, the ability to harmonize conflicting impulses in our own life and in society, and the capacity to choose adequate means for approved ends.

All ignorance is the lack of love.

When Nehemiah's heart was broken he paid attention to his broken heart.

I'm grateful that I feel the way that I do - to make choices based on a lot of people's feelings - even though it has been hard at times, especially when I was younger, but I feel like it has led me down the right road for me. I'm very happy with what has come of that.

The heart of change is in the emotions.

My idea of the perfect man would be someone intelligent and clever enough, but also kind and compassionate enough to stand up to me - to stand up to me with compassion.