List of winged words / E

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Ecce homo.

The Latin phrase Ecce homo ("See, what a man!") Were the words with which, according to the description of the Gospel of John ( Joh 19,5  EU ), the Roman governor Pontius Pilate of the people of Jerusalem presented the prisoner Jesus of Jerusalem crowned with a crown of thorns Nazareth surrendered because he saw no reason to condemn him.

The motif of the suffering Jesus, who seems to be looking at the viewer and thus enables identification, emerged in the late Middle Ages.

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche used these words as the title for his autobiographical legacy Ecce homo. How to become what you are , which he wrote in Nice in 1888 . The subtitle “ How to become what you are ” is based on a sentence from the Pythian Odes by the Greek poet Pindar :

Become who you are! "(Greek:" Γένοιο οἷος ἔσσι. "- Genoio, hoios essi. )

Nietzsche had already given the title Ecce homo to a small poem in the happy science :

Yes, I know where I come from!
Unsaturated like the flame
I glow and consume myself.
Light becomes everything I grasp,
coal everything I leave:
I am certainly flame!
"

Ecclesia semper reformanda

Essential statement of the Second Vatican Council on the constantly changing Catholic Church. The formula originally comes from the Reformation period, probably from Jodocus van Lodenstein (1620–1677).

Écrasez l'infâme!

see main article: Écrasez l'infâme

Let man be noble, helpful and good!

This well-known sentence comes from Goethe's poem The Divine , the first stanza of which reads as follows:

Be noble,
helpful and good!
Because that alone
distinguishes him
from all beings
we know.
"

On the Bavarian school server this quote is commented as an expression of humanism :

Goethe's famous words are an expression of a humanistic worldview that is rooted in ancient philosophy. Since the Enlightenment to this day, humanism is primarily about the question of how the happiness and well-being of the individual and human coexistence can be achieved in society. "

This beginning of the poem is so well known that it is often parodied:

  • Man is noble, rice pudding is good. "
  • Man is noble, the cow is rich in milk. "
  • People are noble, rusks and good. "
  • A donkey is a person, helpless and stupid. "
  • People drink nobly, then they become helpless and good. "
  • " Man is noble and healthy " ( Tatort episode)

Noble simplicity and quiet greatness

Apollonios' torso from the Belvedere , described by Winckelmann

Noble simplicity and quiet greatness ” is a central term of the German archaeologist Johann Joachim Winckelmann , for whom the highest task of art was to depict beauty. He contrasted the formula “ noble simplicity, quiet greatness ” with the playful, overloaded and allegorical of the Baroque and Rococo . Winckelmann's image of Roman and Greek antiquity influenced German classicism , but especially the Weimar classicism .

In his thoughts Winckelmann wrote about the imitation of Greek works in painting and sculpture :

The general excellent characteristic of the Greek masterpieces is finally a noble simplicity and a quiet greatness, both in position and in expression. Just as the depths of the sea remain calm at all times, no matter how raging the surface, the expression in the figures of the Greeks shows a great and sedate soul for all passions. "

The idea that the ancient architecture and thus also the sculpture was mostly white, ultimately goes back to Winckelmann. Archaeologically, however, it can be proven that architecture was usually painted. In sculpture, too, there are by no means only unpainted works, but also verifiably painted ones. With his ideal of the white art of antiquity, Winckelmann also had a lasting influence on the discussions about ancient polychromy .

How influential Winckelmann was is demonstrated by Goethe's book Winckelmann and his century from 1805, published in Tübingen .

EC regulation on the import of caramel candies

A satirical invention by the entrepreneur Alwin Münchmeyer .

Whether the cat is white or black, the main thing is that it catches mice.

This sentence by the Chinese politician Deng Xiaoping was cited by friends and enemies as evidence of his pragmatic attitude.

不管 白猫 、 黑猫 , 逮住 老鼠 就是 好 猫.
Bùguǎn bái māo, ​​hēi māo, ​​dàizhù lǎoshǔ jiù shì hǎo māo.
“White cat, black cat - the main thing is that it catches mice. "

This is the saying from his home province of Sichuan that he is said to have used to describe his economic reform strategy at a secretariat meeting of the CCP in the late 1970s. This marked a departure from Mao Zedong's dogmas and was the beginning of one of the greatest economic reforms in human history. The saying shows the contrast to Mao, since for him the cat should have been red in any case.

Deng wondered why the Chinese people still could not reap the benefits 30 years after the Communist Party came to power, and advocated a socialism that allowed market economy elements. The so-called contract system was introduced, under which the farmers had to give an agreed quota to the state, while everything else could be sold on free markets.

A camel is more likely to go through the eye of a needle.

Representation of parables in the Bonifatius Church in Dortmund

In the gospel according to Matthew ( Mt 19,24  LUT ) it says:

" Εὐκοπώτερόν ἐστι κάμηλον διὰ τρυπήματος ῥαφίδος διελθεῖν ἢ πλούσιον εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὴν βασιλοε τὴν βασιλίείανε οθθθσιλείίανε οτθθσιλείίαν "
"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

Perhaps the comparison is a transmission error in the Greek back where the terms for camel and knitting differ only in a single letter: καμ iota λος (knitting) and καμ .eta λος (Camel) who, because of iotacism were identical.

In the meantime, many cases of the original reading have become known as “ship rope” or “rope”, including the translations of the Armenian and Georgian Bibles and various manuscripts. Since the original reading "κάμιλον" was long unknown to the textual criticism, various explanations were sought, of which the most common interpretation still persists today, according to which a narrow alley in Jerusalem with a small gate at its end was meant, which in the It was popularly known as the "eye of the needle".

For a long time, New Testament text exegesis made use of the Talmudic tradition to interpret Jesus' words theologically. The kámêlos was seen as a “typical Middle Eastern image” that Jesus is said to have used based on the elephant to show the impossibility of rich people to get to heaven in the paradox of coupling a large animal with a small passage.

Iron law of the oligarchy

The Iron Law of the Oligarchy (Italian: la ferrea legge dell'oligarchia ) is a 1911 political theory by the German-Italian sociologist Robert Michels on intra-party democracy. It assumes that leadership groups in organizations are inevitably more and more interested in their own interests than in the goals, interests and will of the group itself. Three reasons lead to oligarchy :

  1. Human nature
  2. The political struggle
  3. The organization

This law states that oligarchization tendencies become stronger the more a group is organized and that in every larger group there is a division into a " leading minority and a led majority ". Michels did not trust the uneducated people with sovereignty and was of the opinion that the “ incompetent masses ” needed leaders who had the duty to assert themselves in the state and in the parties.

Honor where honor is due!

This saying comes from Paul's letter to the Romans , the subject of which is obedience to the authorities:

6 That is why you also pay tax; for they are God's servants, constantly concerned with this service. 7 So now give to everyone what you owe: tax to whom the tax is due; Duty to which duty is due; Fear to which fear is due; Honor to which honor is due. "

Reverence for life

The expression goes back to the jungle doctor Albert Schweitzer , who describes the background in his autobiography From my life and thinking . In September 1915 he was called to see a patient who lived 200 kilometers upstream. The only ride was a small steamer, on which he drove slowly upstream. Schweitzer sat absent-mindedly on the deck, working on a book:

On the evening of the third day, when we were driving through a herd of hippos at sunset, all of a sudden, I hadn't suspected or sought the word 'awe of life' before me. "

The quote can be seen as an expression of a comprehensive respect for people and nature. Similar lines of thought can be found in the Old Testament. So there is the commandment:

You shouldn't boil a kid in its mother's milk. "

This can be seen as an expression of reverence for life . When a goat gave birth to a male kid, it was mostly slaughtered and boiled, but it was felt to be cynical to cook the slaughtered animal in its own mother's milk, since this milk was intended for food.

Honest broker

This expression with the meaning " altruistic mediator " probably goes back to a saying of the Reich Chancellor Otto von Bismarck , who called himself that in 1878 at the Berlin Congress . At the invitation of Bismarck, the European diplomats met in Berlin on June 13, 1878 and sat for a month. At this congress, Bismarck mediated between Russia on the one hand and England and Austria-Hungary on the other, in order to settle the Balkan crisis. He said about this peace mission:

I want to be nothing more than the honest broker between disagreed clients who pulls the deal off. "

As a result of the Berlin Congress, however, the German-Russian relationship deteriorated, because the Russian Foreign Minister Gorchakov blamed the negative outcome of the negotiations on Bismarck's work.

Rainer F. Schmidt writes in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung about Bismarck's role as a mediator:

The formula of the“ honest broker who really wants to get the deal done ”has not only entered historians' quotes, but also in school books. To this day, the Bismarck era between 1871 and 1890 is considered a time of peace, balance and saturation. "

Bismarck's personal banker Gerson von Bleichröder is said to have once said the following: “There is no such thing as an honest broker” - at least not in the eyes of those for whom he acted.

Egg of Columbus

The story of Columbus's egg goes back to Girolamo Benzoni , who knew it from hearsay. According to this, Columbus is said to have taken an egg after his first voyage at a feast given to him in his honor, when the claim was made that his discovery was not so difficult after all, and asked who could bring it to a standstill. When none succeeded, Columbus took the egg, pushed in the tip, and it stood.

Vasari reports a similar process from the builder Filippo Brunelleschi from the construction of the dome of the cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore . He did not want to show his model to the other builders, who thought his plan was impracticable, but made them the suggestion that he should build the dome and that he could put an egg upright on a marble slab. When the other builders said they could have done that too, he replied, they could have built the dome if they had seen his model. The example of the egg fits well with Brunelleschi's work because the dome has the shape of an egg impressed at the tip. The anecdote is of oriental origin.

Eggs, we need eggs!

With these coarse words, the soccer goalkeeper Oliver Kahn responded in a premiere interview when asked what Bayern Munich was missing on November 1, 2003 in the 2-0 draw against Schalke 04 :

The stunned Premiere reporter had to ask twice because Kahn's answer seemed so incredible. 'Sorry, what was wrong with your team tonight?' - 'Eggs! You know that, 'Kahn repeats stoically, as if he wanted to explain to his son-in-law how to properly prepare a secret family recipe. Eggs! ... With what Olli disguised as 'eggs', neither the chicken fruit nor - God forbid - the male body part were meant. The Titan mocked himself much more about the low testosterone level of his teammates in his eyes, who had lost against Schalke 04 without any male aggressiveness, but with their - pardon - 'eggs'. "

Jealousy is a passion that eagerly seeks what creates suffering.

Angelo Bronzino: Allegory of the Triumph of Venus (detail)

In an interlude by the Spanish poet Miguel de Cervantes entitled The Vigilant Post (Spanish: La guarda cuydosa ) , a soldier calls out:

O zelos, zelos!
Quan mejor
os llamaran duelos, duelos!
"

In the German translation of 1870/71 by the Swabian poet Hermann Kurz (1813–1873) it becomes:

O jealousy, jealousy,
you passion,
That eagerly seeks
what creates suffering.
"

The origin of this epigrammatic phrase is usually attributed to the Protestant theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), who was also experienced in translating Lukian , commonly in the form:

"Jealousy is a passion that eagerly seeks what creates suffering."

This formulation is documented - albeit without reference to Schleiermacher - in Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872) in his epigrams (1830).

Own flesh and blood

Friedrich Overbeck : Sale of Joseph to the Egyptian dealers

This expression can already be found in Genesis . When the dreamer Joseph is thrown into a pit by his brothers, the fourth oldest brother Judah suggests to the others:

23 When Joseph came to his brothers, they took off his coat, the colored coat that he was wearing, 24 and took it and threw it into the pit; but the pit was empty and there was no water in it. 25 And sat down to eat. Meanwhile they lifted up their eyes and saw a company of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead with their camels; they carried spice and balsam and myrrh and went down to Egypt. 26 Then Judah said to his brothers, What use is it that we kill our brother and hide his blood? 27 Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, so that our hands may not touch him; for he is our brother, our flesh and blood. And they obeyed him. "

The journalist Andrea Roedig writes under the heading " My own flesh and blood " about the " discontinued family model ":

The pathos of the phrase 'my own flesh and blood' expresses the archaic depth of this kinship, we will not find any passion that does not have its roots here. "

Property is theft.

Qu'est ce que la propriété?

The French economist and sociologist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon wrote in 1840 in his book What does property mean? Or: Studies on the foundations of law and state power (original title: Qu'est ce que la propriété? Ou recherches sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement ) in French:

"La propriété, c'est le vol."
"Property is theft."

In the work he argues that the inherent unconditionality of the concept of property is in fundamental contradiction to the fundamental rights of freedom and equality. In his warning to the haves in 1868, Proudhon wrongly ascribed the word to the writer Denis Diderot , but Jacques Pierre Brissot already expressed the idea that property arose out of need, that is, it was only justified to the extent that the need for it actually existed; and

"If 40 thalers are enough to secure our livelihood, then possession of 200,000 thalers is an obvious theft, an injustice" .

But much earlier in the "Constitutiones monasticae" ( Basil the Great , around 370), the term used in reference to the private property of the monks:

“Because owning is theft. "

Property obliges.

This regulation can be found in Article 14 (2) sentence 1 of the German Basic Law , which is specified in the following sentence 2:

Its use should also serve the common good. "

In the Süddeutsche Zeitung 2004 under the heading “ Property obliges. But what does it oblige? “ Reported on the award of the Herbert Riehl Heyse Prize to Stefan Geiger from the Stuttgarter Zeitung , who reported on what happened during the takeover of Mannesmann by Vodafone . The takeover kept the media and the financial world in suspense for months and later led to legal proceedings against former parties involved in this takeover. Vodafone corrected the value of Mannesmann after the takeover by 50 billion euros and applied for partial write-offs on this amount . This enabled the mobile phone giant to reduce its tax burden by up to 20 billion euros.

See also: social responsibility of property

Haste makes waste!

"! Make haste slowly" The statement (in ancient Greek original: Σπεῦδε βραδέως. - "hurry slowly A cautious is better than a daring military leader!." ) Was, according to Suetonius Biography "Divus Augustus" 25, 4, a favorite saying of the Roman emperor Augustus .

The Latin translation "Festina lente!"

The phrase is also found in William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet .

Romeo: O, let us hence! I stood on sudden haste. (" O let's get away from here! I'm in a big hurry. ")
Lorenzo: Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast. (" If you run in a hurry, you fall; so just hurry because. ")

In Italian the analogous saying is: "Chi va piano, va sano e va lontano." Literal translation: "Whoever walks gently, walks healthy and far."

To keep an eye on someone

This phrase can already be found in the apocryphal story of Susanna in the bath . The story is told in the Greek appendix to the otherwise Hebrew-Aramaic Book of Daniel ( Dan 13.7-9  EU ):

“And since they saw the elders walking around in it (= in the garden) every day, they were kindled against them with evil lust and became fools because of it and cast their eyes so completely on them that they could not see heaven and neither thought of God Word still punishment. "

According to Daniel, there lived in Babylon a rich man named Jojakim, who was married to a beautiful and pious woman named Susanna. Two highly respected old judges frequented his house and fell in love with Susanna.

History is known not only in the visual arts, but also in law, while the phrase is commonly used in the sense of taking good care of something or someone and is used that often enough:

  • " Cars: VW keeps an eye on ATU "
  • Who has an eye on the eye? "(Everything about eyes and vision)
  • " 1. FC Nürnberg: 'Club' has its eye on Jan Koller "

A moment lived in paradise is not atone for too dearly with death.

The quote comes from Friedrich Schiller's drama Don Karlos , in which Karlos illegally approaches his original fiancée, now his father's wife, and thus puts his life at risk.

"Queen.
More mad!
To what boldness my grace drives them!
How? Do they know into which sanctuary
they dare to venture this outrageous break-in?
More unfortunate that it is the Queen,
that it is the mother, to whom this
daring language is addressed? Do you
know that I
am forced to hand over the molester to the court ?
Karlos.
And that I have to die.
They tear me from here on the scaffolding,
they judge me like a high traitor,
a moment lived in paradise
is not atone for too dearly with death.
"

A picture for the gods

A similar phrase can be found in Goethe's Singspiel Erwin und Elmire , where it says:

A spectacle for gods
to see two lovers!
The most beautiful spring weather
is not so warm, so beautiful.
"

With Goethe, therefore, the drama is not seen as something ridiculous for gods , whereas today it denotes something that is grotesquely beautiful to look at. For example, it is said about the shoe fashion of certain women:

So I stood in astonishment on Zollernstrasse and watched the pop, plop, plop - shuffle, shuffle, shuffle - clack, clack, clack. Until the three of them had their bus and I regained the language. 'A picture for the gods,' I said. "

A picture is worth a thousand words.

A picture is worth a thousand words is a purported Chinese proverb, but it originated in the United States.

On December 8, 1921, Fred R. Barnard published an ad in Printers' Ink magazine with the slogan:

" One Look is Worth A Thousand Words. "
One look is worth a thousand words. "

On March 10, 1927, a second ad appeared with the phrase

" One Picture is Worth Ten Thousand Words. "
A picture is worth ten thousand words. "

There it is claimed that it is a Chinese proverb:

畫 意 能 達 萬 言

The book The Home Book of Proverbs, Maxims, and Familiar Phrases quotes the author Barnard, who said he had the slogan " dubbed as the Chinese proverb, so people take it seriously. “Soon after, it was attributed to the Chinese philosopher Confucius .

A good horse dies in the Sielen.

Horses with Sielen - harness

The German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck used these words in a speech to the Prussian House of Representatives in 1881 to reject demands for his resignation.

What is meant by this quote is that a capable horse dies in a harness, in the middle of work, and does not give up beforehand. As a breast harness or Brustblattgeschirr is called a manufactured mostly made of leather or nylon Harness.

A book with nothing right except the page numbers.

Oswald Spengler made this devastating judgment on Alfred Rosenberg's book The Myth of the 20th Century . The book, published in 1930, was intended as a continuation of Houston Stewart Chamberlain's work " The Foundations of the 19th Century ". According to Rosenberg, a new "religion of blood" should replace Christianity by a new " metaphysics " of "race" and that which is inherent in it "Collective will" is able to replace this.

To this end, the myth of the Roman representative of God must be overcome as well as the myth of the 'Holy Letter' in Protestantism. In the myth of the people's soul and honor lies the new binding, formative center. To serve him is a binding duty of our sex. "

Despite this attitude, Rosenberg was an ardent admirer of Martin Luther , in whom he saw embodied the “true” Christianity, which had been falsified, “Judged” by the Roman Catholic Church and the Jesuits . Rosenberg protested against the claim that he was Heide himself:

It was suppressed that I presented Wotanism as a dead form of religion [but of course I am in awe of the Germanic character who gave birth to Wotan as well as Faust] and lying and unscrupulously told me that I wanted to reintroduce the ' pagan Votan cult '. "

Rosenberg's book reached a circulation of millions and was considered the second standard work of Nazi ideology after Hitler's confession book Mein Kampf .

A thorn in the side

In the 4th book of Moses ( 4 Mos 33,55  LUT ) God orders the Israelites to drive the Canaanites out of the land of Canaan :

But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the country in front of you, then they, if you let them remain, will become thorns in your eyes and thorns in your sides and will crowd you into the land in which you live. "

Ruth Klüger writes in her memoirs Lost on the road (2008):

“The survivors of the concentration camps, with the exception of some who have been branded martyrs, are a thorn in the side of all people who have remained free. To have suffered is a shame, unless one has died from it and for it [...] Among Jews, the aversion to us survivors can be even stronger, because it is less admitted. "

To the sentence from the Gospel according to Matthew ( Mt 7,3  LUT ): Why do you see the splinter in your brother's eye, but you do not notice the beam in your eye? , see Aliena vitia in oculis habemus, a tergo nostra .

One third? Nah, I want at least a quarter.

The professional soccer player Horst Szymaniak (1934-2009) allegedly responded with these words in a salary negotiation at Tasmania Berlin to the offer to increase his salary by a third.

Szymaniak himself denied ever saying so; he had learned enough arithmetic in nine years of school. In the 1960s, he successfully sued for an injunction against a publisher who attributed this quote to him . Nevertheless, it became a sure-fire success. Sometimes there is also talk of quarters or fifths, and sometimes the contract negotiations with Wuppertaler SV or Karlsruher SC are postponed.

Szymaniak was a miner at a young age and worked for eight years in the Ewald colliery . He also played in the 2nd League West for SpVgg Erkenschwick . An offer from Wuppertaler SV brought him from the mining environment in 1955.

The version with quarters, fifths etc. was known as a political joke in the GDR , for example like this:

Erich Honecker gives a speech on the development of socialism. “Dear comrades, the development of socialism cannot be stopped! Socialism already covers a fifth of our earth! And soon it will be a sixth, a seventh, an eighth, a ninth and a tenth! "

A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.

Embroidered slogan with the beginning of the text and a portrait of Martin Luther, 1883

A strong castle is our God is a hymn that was written and composed by Martin Luther before 1529 . It is sung especially on the Reformation festival and is based on Psalm  46, " God is our confidence and strength " ( Ps 46  EU ). The song is of great symbolic power for German Protestantism; Heinrich Heine described it as the " Marseilles Hymn of the Reformation ". It begins with the following verses:

A strong castle is our God, a good defense and weapons.
He helps us out of all the hardship that has now affected us.
The old, bad enemy, he now means it seriously;
great power and much cunning his cruel armor is,
on earth is not his equals.
"

Johann Sebastian Bach based the song of his choral cantata Ein Solid Burg ist Unser Gott, BWV 80 ; Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy used it in the last movement of his 5th symphony, the "Reformation Symphony".

A nasty song! Pooh! A political song.

This quote can be found in Goethe's drama Faust I , in the scene in Auerbach's cellar in Leipzig , where Brander sang the song “ Das liebe Heil'ge Röm'sche Reich, / How does it stick together? "- interrupts with the following words:

A nasty song! Pooh! A political song,
a song! Thank God every morning
that you don't need to take care of the Roman Empire!
"

The writer August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben wrote a poem in 1842 with the title A political song is a nasty song - A new song from my time that begins with the following verses:

A political song, a nasty song,
so thought the poets with Goethe
and believed that they had done enough,
they could coo and whistle!
"

A ghost is haunting in Europe

“A ghost is raging in Europe, the ghost of communism.” With this sentence begins the 30-page Communist Manifesto in which Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels developed large parts of the worldview later called “ Marxism ” as early as 1848 . The opening sentences are as follows:

A ghost is haunted in Europe - the ghost of communism. All the powers of old Europe have allied themselves in a holy hunt against this ghost, the Pope and the Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French radicals and German police officers.
Where is the opposition party that would not have been decried as communist by its ruling opponents, where is the opposition party that would not have hurled the branding accusation of communism back from both more advanced opposition figures and reactionary opponents?

A healthy mind in a healthy body

The Latin phrase " Mens sana in corpore sano " ("a healthy mind in a healthy body") is a shortened quote from the satires of the Roman poet Juvenal . There it says:

" Orandum est, ut sit mens sana in corpore sano. "
One should ask that in a healthy body there is a healthy mind. "

In doing so, Juvenal by no means called a healthy body as a prerequisite for a healthy mind, on the contrary, it wished that it would not be left with a healthy body. So the satirist parodied the body cult of his time.

A mighty hunter before the Lord

Pieter Brueghel the Elder Ä. : King Nimrod receives the homage of the stonemasons while building the
Tower of Babel

This expression is also carried over to other areas and goes back to a passage in Genesis . There it says of Nimrod , a descendant of Noah :

8 But Chus became the father of Nimrod. He began to be a mighty master on earth, 9 and was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Hence it is said: This is a mighty hunter before the Lord like Nimrod. "

According to the biblical narrative, Nimrod was " the first to win power on earth, " that is, the first person in history to rule over an empire and become king.

Today the quote is mostly used in other contexts:

  • Hannah Arendt. Thinker before the Lord "
  • Karlheinz Stockhausen. A musician of the future before the Lord "
  • " A weirdo before the Lord "
  • " A cross skull before the Lord "

Man is a god when he dreams, a beggar when he ponders.

With this exclamation, Hyperion in Friedrich Hölderlin's epistolary novel Hyperion or The Hermit in Greece laments the impossibility of being “one with that which lives ” and at the same time devoting oneself to science:

Oh, man is a god when he dreams, a beggar when he thinks, and when the enthusiasm is gone, he stands there like a misrathetic son whom the father pushed out of the house, and looks at the poor pennies gave him pity on the way. "

Anyone who quotes these words wants to express that man is limitlessly free only in the realm of fantasy. But as soon as the feeling of objectivity has to give way, one is brought back into the sobering world of reason.

A great effort is shamefully wasted.

This quote comes from Goethe's Faust II , from the fifth act. In the scene of the burial, Mephisto has to realize with resignation that all his efforts to win Faust's soul were in vain, that he lost his bet with God after Faust's angels became immortal Have abducted soul:

You are deceived in your old days. A great effort, disgraceful! is wasted. "

Faust is saved and Gretchen pleads as a penitent for the " early beloved, no longer troubled ".

A good lawyer and otherwise of moderate understanding

The royal judge Alois Eschenberger was a good lawyer and also otherwise of moderate intelligence. “The story“ The Contract ”by Ludwig Thoma , which Simplicissimus published in its March 19, 1901 edition, begins with this sentence . Thoma, who practiced as a lawyer from 1894 to 1899, introduces Eschensberger, who `` got a break in the state examination and thus a license for every stupidity in Bavaria on the right bank of the Rhine '', as a stupid paragraph rider. He insists on drafting a cumbersome written contract for the sale of his discarded bed linen to a second-hand dealer, which does not prevent him from being inadvertently handed over to the second-hand dealer not the bundle of old bed linen, but the new bed linen purchased to replace it, the return of which the second-hand dealer is now refusing to return, citing the written contract that excludes errors.

A trade union secretary said at a works meeting on November 22, 2006 that he was keeping up with Kurt Tucholsky , who said:

He was a lawyer and otherwise of moderate intelligence. "

A lawyer and managing director of the employers' association felt insulted by this and sued the Freiburg Labor Court , Villingen-Schwenningen chambers, for an injunction (13 Ca 511/06). There the labor jurisdiction was declared incompetent and the dispute was referred to the district court in Oberndorf am Neckar. The complaint lodged by the defendant trade unionist, however, was rejected by the Baden-Württemberg State Labor Court by decision of May 24, 2007 (9 Ta 2/07). With regard to the amount in dispute, which the plaintiff had put at 50,000 euros, it confirmed that the labor court had set it at 4000 euros:

The offensive content of the alleged statements of the defendant is limited. One reason to be offended would have been Dr. jur. Kurt Tucholsky, who got a quote from Ludwig Thoma in his mouth or his literary estate. But Ludwig Thoma could just as well feel offended, because his ironic language creation was robbed of its self-critical wit by the incomplete citation by the defendant. [...] The plaintiff himself may also be offended by the fact that the defendant omitted the word 'good'. It may also be grossly improper to say that the plaintiff is 'of moderate mind'. The whole thing is defused, however, by the fact that it is a phrase that is more common in relation to lawyers. […] If the facts are presented as described by the defendant, it seems unlikely to attribute an offensive character to this process, which, however, cannot be examined in terms of legal recourse. "

A heart and a soul

This expression can already be found in the Acts of the Apostles . There it says with reference to the community of believers:

But the multitude of believers was one heart and one soul; neither said of his goods that they were his, but everything was common to them. "

A heart and soul is the ironic title of a television series that exaggeratedly shows the coexistence of a typical German family in a working-class district of Bochum during the 1970s. The series was created by Wolfgang amount modeled on the US television series All in the Family - turn on the British series Till Death Us Do Part (Till death do us part) back.

An indian knows no pain.

The origin of this saying is unknown.

The stereotype of the Indian who supposedly knows no pain is found in James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans in 1826 :

"I would have believed," replied Cora, "an Indian warrior should be patient, and his spirit does not feel - do not know the torment that his body endures."

and in 1890 in Karl May's Der Schatz im Silbersee :

An Indian is trained in enduring physical pain from an early age. He gets so far that he can endure the greatest agony without batting an eyelid. Perhaps the red's nerves are less sensitive than the white's. When the Indian is caught and dies on the torture stake, he endures the pain inflicted on him with a smiling mouth, sings his death song in a loud voice and only interrupts it here and there to revile and laugh at his tormentors. A wailing man on the stake is an impossibility for the Reds.

1872 had been in a translation of about notes province of Vera Paz and the Indian settlements (or "pueblos") of the province of Fr. Alonzo de Escobar can read

The Indians are tireless and know no pain! How often have I not seen how they hold a burning spruce log to the injured area during a contusion as a result of a fall, whereby they heal themselves, and the next day they march on indefatigably!

The Indians [...] know no pain , but it has no equivalent in the original text, which was published in English in 1841 in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society in London . The procedure of bringing a flame close to a wound or bruise in order to prevent it from igniting is rather expressly referred to there as painful .

Later the Indian, who feels no pain or at least does not show it, became a standing idiom in German, as the following examples show:

  • Pläsier, who had the little ship's exam, was gaunt and taciturn and liked to use incontrovertible phrases such as: "Indian heart knows no pain" or: "The world should rather spoil than a sailor should die of grief" [...] .
Hermann Horn: With the pole in the fog (1928)
  • And sometimes I lie on the bed for hours and stare at the saying on the wall: Indian heart knows no pain.
Ernst M. Höhne: Spring 1932
  • With friends it was better to always be on the ball according to the slogan of their former boy games: Indians know no pain.
Hans Leip : Jan Himp and the Little Breeze (1934)
  • He has something for me, even if he's ashamed to show it. The Indian knows no pain, you know.
Jürgen Brinkmann : Frank Mellenthin. Novel of a change , Paul List Leipzig 1965
  • [...] the pain slowly became more and more annoying. No matter how, I had to endure it. Indian knows no pain. It's not for nothing that my colleagues call me Indian.
Peter Fischer: But you bear the risk: reports from the world of work , work group literature in the world of work, Rowohlt 1971
  • An indian knows no pain.
Gernot Wolfgruber : On the loose , Residenz Verlag 1975, p. 56.

The film comedy Der Schuh des Manitu (2001) says: An Indian knows no pain, we lack enzymes!

In the English language there are content equivalents (e.g. Big boys don't cry ), but no expression analogous to the word that refers to Indians and their alleged ignorance of pain .

During the Nazi era , Indian books and the ideals they contained were used for propaganda purposes.

Everyone should go to his door.

This proverb comes from Goethe's Zahmen Xenien . He also wrote them in his guest Freimund von Arnim's studbook :

Civil duty

Everyone should come to his door.
And every city quarter is pure.
Each one practice his' lesson,
so it will be good in guessing!

'Why then, like with a broom,
Is such a king brought out?'
If it had been kings,
they'd all still stand unharmed.
"

Everyone has their price.

This sentence is attributed to the first Prime Minister of Great Britain, Sir Robert Walpole , but was probably not uttered by him in this harshness. In William Coxe's Memoirs of the Life and Administration of Sir Robert Walpole it says:

He despised phrases. He attributed the utterances of alleged patriots to selfish intentions and said of them: 'All these people have their price'! "
The political axiom generally attributed to him, that all men have their price , and which has been so often repeated in verse and prose, was perverted by leaving out the word those . Flowery oratory he despised: he ascribed to the interested views of themselves or their reletives, the declarations of pretended patriots, of whom he said, " All those men have their price ;" and in the event, many of them justified his observation.

Every wish, if it is fulfilled, has kittens instantly.

Wilhelm Busch's statement comes from the poem Never :

What you were longing for,
you were told.
You triumph and cheer loudly;
Now I finally have peace!

Oh, friend, don't talk so wildly,
tame your tongue!
Every wish, if it is fulfilled, has
boy instantly.
"

Each has its time.

Everything has its time.

A cage full of fools

La Cage Aux Folles is the title of the transvestites milieu playing French film from 1978 with the title La Cage aux Folles . The script is based on a play by Jean Poiret called Men Are Better Women .

The film focuses on a homosexual couple: Renato and Albin. His son Laurent comes from Renato's only adventure with a woman. There are amusing entanglements when Laurent is about to get married. His fiancée is, of all people, the daughter of a politician who represents very conservative values.

The film title is occasionally used to characterize a group of people who are believed to be unreasonable:

  • " Stromberg: The office is like a cage full of fools "
  • Politicians in Carnival: A cage full of fools

One should neither twist nor interpret an imperial word.

Weibertreu castle ruins
Lovis Corinth : The women of Weinsberg

After Weinsberg was handed over , women were supposedly allowed to leave freely with whatever they could carry on their shoulders. Gottfried August Bürger writes in his ballad Die Weiber von Weinsberg :

" The women should go out,
with their best treasures,
What was left, they wanted to
chop up and shred.
"

But the women came out of town with their husbands on their backs. Konrad's followers urged him not to allow this ruse. But he replied:

Many a Hofschranz tried immediately
to thwart Das Kniffchen;
But Konrad said: 'An emperor's
word shouldn't be twisted or interpreted.'
"

A guy who speculates is like an animal on a dry heather.

With these words Mephisto wants to bring the scholar back to the ground of reality in the study room scene of Goethe's drama Faust I :

" Fresh! Let everything be sensible,
And straight into the world!
I tell you: a fellow who speculates,
Is led
around in a circle by an evil spirit like an animal on a dry heather ,
And all around lies beautiful green pasture.
"

Those who content themselves with theoretical discussions are passing life by and are like an animal that cannot find anything to eat.

A classic is a book that people praise but don't read.

The American writer Mark Twain wrote in Following the Equator on the subject of literary classics :

" 'Classic.' A book which people praise and don't read. "

In a speech to the Nineteenth Century Club in November 1900, Mark Twain said:

" [...] a classic - something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read "
A classic is something that everyone wants to read, but nobody wants to read. "

Lessing already wrote in a "epitome":

Who will not praise a Klopstock? // But will everyone read it? - no // We want to be less exalted // and read more diligently. "

One piano, one piano!

This exclamation comes from a sketch by comedian Loriot . This sketch shows a German family sitting at the coffee table and waiting for a piano that their grandmother gave them from America. The piano transporters have to come in the door again and again so that the film recordings of the father of the family from the arrival are perfect. The finished ribbon should be sent to the grandmother as a thank you.

But either the camera is not running properly, the piano transporter fails because of the inexpressible word Massachusetts, or the mother-in-law is upset about the scratches on her display case. The woman's initially euphoric exclamation “ One piano, one piano! “Is becoming increasingly bored and annoyed.

One small step for a person ...

Neil Armstrong stepping onto the surface of the moon

The first words spoken by astronaut Neil Armstrong when walking on the surface of the moon are narrated as follows:

"This is a small step for a human, but a giant leap for humanity."
( "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." )

Here Armstrong but a small mistake is made, because he actually said "one small step for man" ( "one small step for the people" ). It wasn't until years later that the NASA space agency admitted that it had corrected Armstrong's words. It is still not entirely clear who came up with the sentence. On the one hand, there are speculations that Armstrong came up with the sentence during the flight, on the other hand, that it came from the writer Norman Mailer .

A clever person notices everything, a foolish one makes his own remarks about everything.

This quote from Heinrich Heine plays with the double meaning of the word remark .

A kingdom for a horse!

This desperate exclamation comes from William Shakespeare's drama The Tragedy of King Richard III. where it reads in English:

" A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse! "
A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse! "

King Richard III shouts these words across the battlefield as his troops are routed and his horse is killed. He claims to have killed five people disguised as Richmond. The real Duke of Richmond slays Richard.

The Austrian action artist André Heller makes fun of this famous quote by applying it to modern times:

A state for a horse! "

The Jewish writer Salcia Landmann recounts an anecdote about the Jewish-Austrian actor Fritz Kortner , who played the leading role in Shakespeare's tragedy:

In the last act, after the words 'One horse, one horse, my kingdom for one horse!' Has a viewer called from the gallery:
'Can't it be a donkey?'
Kortner replied calmly: 'It can be a donkey. Please come up on the stage! '
"

This often used quote is often modified:

It can also be found in sports coverage :

  • " A kingdom for a goalscorer "

Nobody can refuse a kiss in honor.

This joking expression can already be found in collections of proverbs of the 17th century and was further spread through Albert Lortzing's opera The Armourer . In the second scene of the second act it says:

A kiss in honor,
no one can fight back.
"

At the end of the fourth chapter of Theodor Fontane's novel Unterm Birnbaum :

Hradscheck, fully in control of himself, went into the shop, which was just full of pretty peasant girls, and here one of them tugged on the bosom while the other untied the apron ribbons. But he gave an old woman a kiss. 'Nobody can resist a kiss in honor - isn't it, Mother Schickedanz?' "

A website that deals with the subject of sexual abuse says about this quote:

'Nobody can refuse a kiss in honor' is just not true: Children must be given the right to defend themselves against all touches that they do not like or that are unpleasant. "

One country, two systems

One country, two systems was the official policy strategy of the Chinese politician Deng Xiaoping towards Hong Kong , Macau and Taiwan .

This means that within the People's Republic of China of socialism will be maintained, while Hong Kong, Macao and the Republic of China (Taiwan) should retain its capitalist system for a peaceful reunification.

In Chinese this principle is called:

「一国两制」
Yìguó liǎngzhì

The model has already been applied to the integration of Hong Kong and Macao. A role model was also intended that would make the model appear acceptable to Taiwan.

A song goes around the world!

Postage stamp on the occasion of the 100th birthday of Joseph Schmidt, 2004

With the line A song goes around the world , sung by Joseph Schmidt , the refrain of the title hit of the film of the same name from 1933 begins . The text of the hit comes from Ernst Neubach .

The Comedian Harmonists sang the following version:

A song goes around the world,
a song that you like.
The melody reaches the stars,
each of us loves to hear it.
"

Pay lip service

There are two theories about the origin of this phrase. According to the first theory it comes from the Old Testament, according to the second theory from the High Middle Ages.

If one follows the first theory, the phrase refers to the Old Testament book of Isaiah , where God Himself laments that

This people approaches me with their mouths and honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me and they only fear me according to human commandments. "

With this image an outward piety is criticized.

If one follows the second theory, the phrase refers to the fact that in the time of the European High Middle Ages slaves or lower-ranking servants often had their tongues cut out for trivial matters. They then had to take a new vow of loyalty to their Lord. But since they could no longer speak intelligibly, one “read” the oath from one's lips. Often the punished tried to flee and go into hiding anyway. As a result, it became common practice to call this oath of loyalty, to which one could not give much, "lip service".

The lip service today is a special case of lies, in which the speaker says he is in solidarity with some or identified without really intending to do so.

The Star writes under the heading lip service too little for a German passport :

If a foreigner wants a German passport, mere lip service to the basic democratic order after a court decision is not enough. He must have at least basic basic knowledge and understand the so-called declaration of loyalty, according to a judgment of the Administrative Court (VGH) Baden-Württemberg. "

The specific case concerned a Tamil who had not understood a statement made.

A liar must have a good memory.

This sentence goes back to a passage from the comedy The Liar by Pierre Corneille where it says in French:

Il faut bonne mémoire après qu'on a menti. "
You have to have a good memory after lying. "

There is an earlier formulation in the Roman orator Quintilian , who says in Latin:

Mendacem memorem esse oportet. "
The liar must be able to remember well. "

Papageno wants a girl or a female.

In the second act of Mozart's opera The Magic Flute , the bird catcher Papageno sings a song and accompanies himself with the chimes:

A girl or a female
Papageno wishes
O such a gentle dove
warmth for me.
Then I enjoyed drinking and eating;
Then I
could measure myself with princes,
rejoice in life as a sage,
and be like in Elysium.
"

A man for certain hours

The German version of the American film American Gigolo is a man for certain hours . The film is about a man who makes his living working as a gigolo in the better circles of Los Angeles .

The film title is cited as an allusion to the role of a man as a lover. But it can also be found in modifications:

  • " A cook for certain hours "
  • " A woman for certain hours "
  • " Music for certain hours "

A man in his prime

This expression comes from a poem by Heinrich Heine in which it says of the devil:

He's not ugly and he's not lame,
he's a lovely, charming man,
a man in his prime.
"

This expression is actually used to describe a man in his highest physical and mental performance. Often, however, one refers jokingly to men who are already older.

This idiom also plays an important role - in a slightly modified form - in Mario Vargas Llosa's novel Aunt Julia and the Art Writer . The focus there is on the eccentric and vain radio play author Pedro Camacho, who for several decades cultivated the habit of always empathizing with the male protagonists of his pieces. He always uses the same description and describes his characters as "a man in his prime". Camacho's aging process can be traced from this formulation when he pushes this "best age" back further and further in the course of the novel.

A fairy tale from old times

Loreley as a statue

These words are often quoted with the variant " from ancient times " and come from the second poem of the section The Homecoming in Heinrich Heine's book of songs :

I don't know what it means
that I'm so sad;
A fairy tale from the old days,
I can't get it out of my mind.
"

With the fairy tale the legend of the Loreley is meant.

Today with this quote one comments on words that one does not want to believe:

Is it a fairy tale from ancient times? "
  • Lotti Buchwald: A fairy tale from ancient times

A man in his contradiction

This formula comes from the 26th poem of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's poem Homo sum from the cycle Hutten's last days. Ulrich von Hutten's monologue ends there with the lines that Meyer put in front of the book as a motto:

That means: I am not a sophisticated book,
I am a person with contradictions.
"

These words are used today to denote the complexity of one's personality.

Feel a human touch.

This joking phrase goes back to a passage in Friedrich Schiller's poem Die Bürgschaft . There the line marks the emotion of the tyrant Dionysius I of Syracuse when he recognizes the loyal friendship of the assassin Damon:

And astonishment seizes the people around,
Both lie in each other's arms,
And weep for pain and joy.
One does not see an eye devoid of tears,
And one brings the miracle fairy tale to the king,
He feels a human emotion,
lets them quickly lead to the throne.
"

Today this phrase is used jokingly to mean “to feel the urge to relieve yourself ”.

A murder everyone does

A murder that everyone commits is a novel by the Austrian writer Heimito von Doderer from 1938. It tells of a successful young man who believes he has found the murderer of his sister-in-law, but has to recognize that he is complicit in his recklessness was at her death. This leads him to the realization that he can no longer continue his life as before.

The title is occasionally quoted when one wants to say that everyone is jointly responsible for the fate of those around them. Gerhard Mauz writes in the news magazine Der Spiegel about the verdict against Günter Weigand :

So Paul Blomert was not murdered, but his suicide was an act of desperation to which many contributed. A murder like everyone does. So, if you will, there is constant murder. Of course, one shouldn't ask about moral guilt, certainly not legal guilt. "

A place in the Sun

A place in the sun was an action carried out from 1959 to 1964 for the benefit of the “Hilfswerk Berlin” foundation . From 1966 onwards, all television lotteries were run under the motto “A place in the sun for young and old” for the benefit of the “German Relief Organization” foundation .

A Place in the Sun ( "A Place in the Sun") was a 1951 first performed English film directed by George Stevens , the story destitute one, but ambitious day laborer who falls in love with a woman from the upper class and social advancement reached.

The expansionist policy of the Wilhelmine era was under the motto "a place in the sun" (Reich Chancellor von Bülow , 1897) for the "nation that came too late", which not least meant the possession of colonies. Verbatim he said during a debate in the Reichstag:

"We don't want to overshadow anyone, but we also demand our place in the sun ."

The colony in question was Kiautschou in the Chinese province of Shandong . At that time, a 99-year lease was signed (one year before the Sino-British Hong Kong lease ). The Germans lost their territory to the Japanese as early as the First World War.

A shadow of himself

This phrase goes back to the Roman poet Marcus Annaeus Lucanus , who in his epic Pharsalia (or Bellum civile ) about the civil war between Caesar and Pompey called the defeated Pompey after the battle of Pharsalus the " shadow of a great name ". In Latin that meant:

" Magni nominis umbra "

From this, today's idiom developed, with which one paraphrases that someone is only a pale image of his former personality, especially when he is recognizably sick and miserable. The phrase is also used in sports reporting when it is said of an athlete that he has passed his zenith, for example:

  • Klose just a shadow of himself
  • After drug and alcohol abuse, "Gazza" is only a shadow of itself.

But it can also be used as a joke to initiate a math problem:

  • When a tower is a shadow of itself

A show for gods

These words can be found in the first appearance of Goethe's Singspiel Erwin and Elmire :

A spectacle for gods
to see two lovers!
"

Goethe's formulation may have been inspired by Christian Fürchtegott Gellert's comedy Die Tender Sisters from 1747, in which it says:

Can it be a more beautiful sight than when you see two tender ones who, because of love, do not dare to confess their love to one another? "

A rogue who thinks evil.

According to Polydore Virgil's English story , the foundation of the Order of the Garter , the highest British order, and its motto goes to King Edward III. back:

" Honi soit qui mal y pense "
" A rogue who thinks evil "

Virgil tells that the king's wife or a lady-in-waiting lost her garter belt while dancing . The king picked it up. When he saw some of the courtiers smiling, he told them that the garter would soon be so honored that many would consider themselves lucky to be able to wear it.

The idiom is used when you want to express that you can interpret a harmless process differently:

  • A media company trains those who should report on the media. A rogue who thinks bad "

A ship will arrive.

A ship will come is the German title of a song from the Greek film Sonntags ... nie! , which was originallysungby Melina Mercouri and whose refrain reads as follows:

" A ship will come
and that will bring me the one whom
I love as much as nobody
and who makes me happy
"

The song title is also used today as a phrase to describe a longing for redemption in a rather hopeless situation.

But variations are also common:

  • For example, no ship will come is a play by Nis-Momme Stockmann , premiered in 2010
  • (K) A train will come or a train will come - or not (in relation to construction projects or infrastructure problems at the railways)

A butterfly can trigger a typhoon.

With the so-called butterfly effect (engl. Butterfly effect ) refers to the effect that in some complex dynamic systems , there is a great dependency of small changes in the initial conditions. The smallest variations in it can lead to a completely different development in the long term. The name comes from the meteorologist Edward N. Lorenz :

" Predictability: Does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas? "
Predictability: Can a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil cause a tornado in Texas? "

The manifesto of the You are Germany campaign states, among other things:

A butterfly can trigger a typhoon. The gust of wind that is displaced by the flapping of its wings uproots trees a few kilometers away. Just as a breath of air turns into a storm, so can your deed work. [...] Your will is like fire under your bum. [...] But once we pulled down a wall. Germany has enough hands to reach out to each other and grab them. We are 82 million. Let's get our hands dirty. You are the hand You are 82 million. Treat your country like a good friend. Don't complain about him [...] You are Germany. "

A faithful servant of his master

A loyal servant of his master is the title of a historical drama by Franz Grillparzer . The main character is the paladin Bancbanus, who was loyal to his king, Andrew of Hungary.

Today a submissive subordinate is referred to as a " faithful servant of his master ".

Misfortunes never come singly.

This proverbial expression is found pronounced in a similar form in the Old Testament. So it is said of the prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel):

1 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 2 Son of man, thus saith the Lord GOD of the land of Israel: The end is coming, the end of all four places of the land. 3 Now the end will come upon you; for I will send my wrath on you and will judge you as you deserve it, and I will give you what is due to all your atrocities. 4 My eye shall neither look over you nor overlook you; but I will give you what you deserve, and your abominations shall come among you, that you may know that I am the Lord. 5 Thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, calamity comes upon another. "

A violet blooming along the way

Violets at the edge of the forest

This expression comes from the well-known song Rejoice in the life of the Swiss poet and painter Johann Martin Usteri , from the year 1793. The first stanza of the song ends with the following lines:

One likes so much care and effort,
looks for thorns and finds them
and leaves the violet unnoticed that
blooms on our way.
"

In a poem by Eulogius Schneider “to Pastor Steiner zu Augsburg, because she lost her son”, it says:

A violet that stands by the way.
She thinks: 'the monster who is passing by,
how soon he cannot trample you!
Come dear violet, let yourself be saved!
You should bloom in a safe place. '
Then she plucks it.
"

With violets along the way, one characterizes a person who appears completely inconspicuous.

A wide field

A broad field is a novel by Günter Grass from 1995. The novel is set in Berlin between the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification, but paints a panorama of German history from the revolution in 1848 to German reunification in 1990.

The protagonist of the novel is the messenger Theo Wuttke, but prefers to be called Fonty and identifies with Theodor Fontane , from whose novel Effi Briest the following quote comes:

Maybe it's not our fault? "
Nonsense, Luise. How do you mean? "
Whether we shouldn't have bred them differently. "
Just us. Because Niemeyer is actually a zero because he leaves everything in doubt. And then, Briest, as sorry as I am ... your constant ambiguities ... and finally, with which I accuse myself, because I do not want to be harmed in this matter, whether perhaps she was too young? "
Rollo, who woke up at these words, shook his head slowly back and forth, and Briest said calmly: "Oh, Luise, let ... that's too wide a field. "

One quotes the sentence “ This is a broad field ” to express that a question is not easy to answer and that there is a lot to be said about it.

An era is visited.

The writer Heinrich Mann called his writings published in 1945 an era to be visited . The history of Europe will be visited, starting with the French Revolution through the "extensive phenomenon" Napoléon to Wilhelmine Germany . The author takes a closer look at the Weimar Republic and the era of National Socialism as an emigrant up to the foreseeable destruction of the Greater German Reich .

Heinrich Mann wants to interfere “ with moderation ”. So the “ viewer ” of this “tour” introduces himself with “Jx”. Even so, the distinction between his friends and enemies is almost always possible. Getting away from what's going on is a resolution that Jx can rarely keep.

Imagination is also a formation.

A joke tip for a cocky person in the sense of being cocky.

A thirsty soul.

This expression is originally a quote from Psalm 107, which speaks of those who got lost in the desert and were then led back on the right path by God:

4 They went astray in the desert, on a rough road, and found no city where they could live, 5 hungry and thirsty, and their souls fainted; 6 those who called to the LORD in their distress, and he delivered them from their distress, 7 and led them a right way, that they went to the city where they could dwell: 8 they should give thanks to the LORD for his goodness and for his wonders he does to the children of men, 9 to satiate the thirsty soul and fill the hungry soul with good. "

A woman without a man is like a fish without a bike.

This saying, which emerged in the 1970s and was used by representatives of the women's movement to express and express their independence, was used in the German title of a novel by the American author Elizabeth Dunkel in 1990. The women's book The Fish Without a Bicycle (English original title: Every Woman Loves a Russian Poet ) was the first novel to address the problems of post-feminist single women. The blurb of this novel reads:

'A woman without a man is like a fish without a bike' - that was the slogan of the women's movement that was supposed to dispel the old prejudice that a woman without a man is only half a person.
New Yorker Kate Odinokov is also a fish without a bike. Actually she has everything a woman could want, only one thing she misses: a man.
She constantly falls in love with the wrong person, such as Boris, the Russian poet in exile, or Frank, her psychiatrist. But at the end of her painful and pleasurable experiences, despite everything, there is the realization: You can enjoy life without a husband!
"

A gift from God.

This expression is found in the preacher Solomon of the Old Testament, et al. a. Chapter 3:13:

For every person who eats and drinks and has good courage in all his work is a gift from God. "

Psalm 127 says:

Behold, children are a gift from the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is a gift. Like arrows in the hand of a strong man, so are the sons of youth. Happy those who have filled their quiver with them! They will not be put to shame when they negotiate with their enemies in the gate "

A gift from God today is something very beautiful and pleasant. Gabe Gottes is a hat house near Johanngeorgenstadt in the Saxon Ore Mountains.

One hand washes the other.

The Article List of Winged Words / E # One hand washes the other. and Manus manum lavat overlap thematically. Help me to better differentiate or merge the articles (→  instructions ) . To do this, take part in the relevant redundancy discussion . Please remove this module only after the redundancy has been completely processed and do not forget to include the relevant entry on the redundancy discussion page{{ Done | 1 = ~~~~}}to mark. Vsop ( discussion ) 3:01 p.m., Nov. 26, 2015 (CET)

The proverbial saying goes back to a Latin formula that is documented both in the satire "Apocolocyntosis" by the Roman philosopher Seneca and in the picaresque novel "Satiricon" by the Roman writer Petronius :

" Manus manum lavat . "

In ancient Greek , the sentence that is traced back to the Greek comedy poet Menander is:

" Χεῖρ χεῖρα νίπτει. "
Cheir cheira niptei.

In the extension “ Χεὶρ χεῖρα νίπτει, δάκτυλοι δὲ δακτύλους. "The fingers are also included:

One hand washes the other, the fingers wash fingers. "
" Digitum lavat digitus et manum manus. "
Emblem of the SED

This expression refers to mutual help: a favor that has been shown to someone is rewarded with counter-service. It is in this sense that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe uses it in his poem "As you me, so I do you":

Man with buttoned pockets,
nobody does anything to please you:
hand is only washed by hand;
If you want to take, give!
"

Today the phrase is often used with the secondary thought that these favors are not entirely clean business transactions that go unpunished because those involved do not betray one another.

The emblem of the SED , created by the union of KPD and SPD with the symbolic handshake between Wilhelm Pieck and Otto Grotewohl, was interpreted accordingly in the vernacular:

'One hand washes the other' had a very practical meaning in the GDR in the 1950s. Without good relationships or adequate barter goods , various items that are only available 'under the counter' are simply not available for the common man. "

A wise woman has millions of born enemies - all stupid men.

This statement comes from the Austrian writer Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach and is used again and again today when women fall behind. For example, Der Spiegel headlines an article about women in the natural sciences and technical disciplines with the words “ millions of born enemies ”. The article states:

Even in contemporary science, smart women don't have much to laugh about. They are not spared from the pressure of traditional role stereotypes in research laboratories, lecture halls and institutes. "

The following version comes from the Bavarian politician Renate Schmidt :

Smart women have millions of enemies: the stupid men. "

Build a wall around us!

This request comes from the ballad Die Gottesmauer by Clemens Brentano , which tells of a lonely hut in Schleswig that was surrounded by enemy soldiers during the coalition wars in 1814. The situation is hopeless, but an old woman does not give up and continues to pray:

'Build a wall around us,'
sings the pious little mother,
'That the enemy before us shines,
envelopes us in your castle.' -
'Mother', says the world-minded one,
'A wall around our house
is impossible to get out so quickly
your dear God.' -
'Build a wall around us',
sings the pious mother.
"

Her skeptical grandson thinks these prayers are pointless, but snow falls during the night and the soldiers march past the hut. Now it says:

'Yes, the Lord can build walls,
love, pious mother, come to
look at God's wall!'
Cried the grandson and became pious.
"

A journey of a thousand miles begins under your foot.

The Chinese wisdom is ascribed to the ancient Chinese philosopher Laozi and is in the 64th chapter of Daodejing :

千里 之 行 ﹐ 始於 足下.
Qiān lǐ zhī xing, shǐ yū zú xià.

In the translation of the sinologist Günther Debon it says:

Even the mightiest tree
was as fine as fluff as a seedling.
A tower of nine stories
rose from a pile of earth;
A journey of a thousand miles
begins under your foot.
"

A rose broken before the storm stripped it.

Cover picture by Emilia Galotti

With this picture, the dying Emilia Galotti in Lessing's eponymous tragedy describes her fate in a bitter tone , while at the same time she picks up a rose. Emilia Galotti had demanded death at the hand of her father Odoardo in order to escape the prince who was chasing after her.

Odoardo
Yes, my daughter, yes! (by piercing it.) - God, what have I done! "(She wants to sink, and he takes her in his arms.)
Emilia
A rose broken before the storm stripped it. - Let me kiss you, that paternal hand. "

A rose among thorns

In the second chapter of the Song of Songs in the Old Testament, the boyfriend praises his girlfriend's beauty:

Like a rose among thorns, so is my friend among the daughters. Like an apple tree among the wild trees, so is my friend among the sons. "

Of course there are also variations of this phrase:

  • " Like a lily among thorns "

" Rose under thorns " is also the title of an Austrian film from 2006.

Feed a snake on the bosom

This idiom has its origins in Aesop's fable about the farmer who warms a snake under his shirt and is bitten by it when it has recovered. As he dies, he realizes his mistake in having pity on a villain.

Breast was also used to describe the male breast; the verb “ navor ” could have been added later.

A swallow doesn't make a summer.

This saying comes from Aesop's fable "The Prodigal Youth and the Swallow" and reads in Greek:

Μία χελιδὼν ἔαρ οὐ ποιεῖ.
Mia chelidōn ear ou poiei.

The expression has also entered the language of other European peoples:

  • Latin: " Una hirundo non facit ver. "
  • English: “ One swallow does not make a summer. "
  • French: “ Une hirondelle ne fait pas le printemps. "(German: a swallow doesn't make spring)

In the fable, a lavish young man even sells his coat when he saw the first swallow return home in spring. But when it got so cold again that the swallow froze to death, he cursed the swallow.

Blow a march

The word means: to rebuke, exhort to duty, disgrace him. In the 19th century, the regimental musicians gave the signal with their brass music to set off, for the soldiers to march out, who now had to perform their duties.

You don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

This proverb goes back to the church father Jerome , who quotes a Roman proverb in his commentary on the letter to the Ephesians:

Noli equi dentes inspicere donati. "
Do not check the teeth of a gift horse. "

At the horse trade, the buyer can determine the age and value of a horse by checking the condition of his bit.

The singer Hildegard Knef used the expression Der schenkte Gaul as the title of her memoir.

God loves a happy giver.

This saying, which was previously frequently used in appeals for donations, comes from the 2nd Corinthians , where the apostle Paul of Tarsus asks the church in Corinth to donate " for the poor Christians in Jerusalem ":

6 But I mean that whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly; and whoever sows with blessings will also reap with blessings. 7 Each one according to his will, not with indignation or compulsion; for God loves a happy giver. "

He wants to make a joke.

He wants to make a joke is the title of a farce by the Austrian writer Johann Nestroy from the year 1842. It tells how a solid business assistant goes on an adventure with the apprentice:

Weinberl
(seized by an idea) “ Stop! I have it -! "
Christopherl
Well what? "
Weinberl
I'm kidding myself. "
Christopherl
A joke? "
Weinberl
" Right now on the border between bondage and domination, I'm joking. For the whole future I want to decorate the empty walls of my heart with pictures of memories - I'm joking! "
Christopherl
"But how are you going to do that? "
Weinberl
Do you want to be there, Mussi Christoph? "
Christopherl
" Why not? I have been released: can freedom be celebrated more beautifully than with a joke ?! "

Have a long arm.

The phrase can already be found in the Heroides , which was previously attributed to Ovid , a collection of fictional love letters from famous women of mythical prehistoric times to their lovers. Helena warns Paris that the departure of her husband Menelaus to Crete is by no means clearing the way for Paris, as Menelaus is guarding her from afar.

Don't you know that kings have long hands? "
an nescis longas regibus esse manus?

Want to wash a carrot white

The phrase may have its origins in the Old Testament, where it says in the book of the prophet Jeremiah:

" 22 And if you want to say in your heart: 'Why do I meet such a thing?' For the sake of the multitude of your iniquities, your seams have been exposed and violence has happened to your heels. 23 Can a Moor change its skin, or a leopard its spots? In this way you can also do good who are used to evil. "

With this the prophet affirms that God will severely punish the sinful people because they cannot simply free themselves from the stain of evil.

The expression “carrot wash”, the attempt to wash clean someone obviously guilty, probably has the same origin.

One for all, all for one

D'Artagnan and the three Musketeers, illustration from 1894

The motto «  Tous pour un, un pour tous.  »(German:“ One for all, all for one ”) occurs in the novel The Three Musketeers by the French writer Alexandre Dumas the Elder . There in the chapter D'Artagnan develops :

“And now, friends,” said d'Artagnan, without bothering to explain his behavior to Porthos, “one for all, all for one! That should be our motto, okay? "

This motto became famous for the three musketeers Athos, Porthos and Aramis together with the fencer d'Artagnan. The four different people stick together:

  1. Athos is the educated, far-sighted man.
  2. Fat, vain Porthos is a bit stupid, but good-natured.
  3. The gallant Aramis keeps dreaming of a spiritual career.
  4. Finally, the daring d'Artagnan is the true hero of the story.

The motto is also used elsewhere:

  • "One for all, all for one" (motto of chimney sweeps and their guilds)
  • “Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno” (Latin for “one for all, all for one”) is Switzerland's unofficial, traditional motto .

One has to become the bloodhound.

The SPD politician Gustav Noske was the first social democratic minister in German history to be responsible for the military. He was responsible for suppressing the insurgents of the March fighting in Berlin, in which a number of Spartacists were killed. He was also responsible for the suppression of local uprisings and the like. a. responsible in Munich and Bremen. In the discussion of how to proceed against the insurgents of January 1919, Noske said:

" All right! One has to become the bloodhound, I am not afraid of the responsibility. "

The communists therefore called him bloodhound or bloodnoske .

To be true to a tradition means to be true to the flame, not the ashes.

The French socialist politician and historian Jean Jaurès said in a speech to Parliament on January 21, 1910:

Être fidèle à la tradition, c'est être fidèle à la flame et non à la cendre. "

There are also other ways of quoting in German, for example:

Maintaining tradition does not mean keeping ashes, but keeping embers glowing. "
Tradition is not keeping the ashes, but stirring up the flame. "

The sentence is wrongly also Pope John XXIII. , attributed to the writer Ricarda Huch , the composer Gustav Mahler , the inventor Benjamin Franklin and others.

In the WDR Tatort Satisfaction (2007), Prof. Walter Stielicke ( Michael Degen ) KHK Thiel (Axel Prahl ) explains the meaning of traditions as follows: "Tradition is not the preservation of the ashes, but the passing on of the fire." Later in the film there Thiel deliberately wrongly repeats this sentence: "Yes, I know that tradition is not about picking up the ashes, but about passing on the lighter" - presumably to emphasize the questionability of traditions that have frozen into hollow rites.

Bear one another's burdens.

This request is in Paul's letter to the Galatians , in which the Apostle Paul of Tarsus exhorts the congregation to be helpful. As a reason he says:

1 Dear brothers, if a person were to be hasty because of a mistake, help him right again with a gentle spirit, you who are spiritual; and take care of yourself that you are not tempted too. 2 Carry one another's burdens, and you will keep the law of Christ. "

A shadow's dream is man.

This sentence (ancient Greek: Σκιᾶς ὄναρ ἄνθρωπος. - Skiās onar anthrōpos. ) Comes from Pindar's Pythian Ode VIII .:

Diurnal! What is? What are you not?
A shadow's dream man!
But as soon as shine, God-given, comes, there
is radiant light with the people, their existence friendly.
"

Georg Büchmann chose a modification of this saying as his grave inscription:

" Σκιᾶς ὄναρ ἄνθρωποι. "
Skiās onar anthrōpoi.
People are a shadow's dream. "

The famous play “ La Vida es sueño ” - “ Das Leben ein Traum ” ( Life a Dream ), whose adaptation by Franz Grillparzer bears the German title “ The dream of a life ”, comes from the Spanish poet Pedro Calderón de la Barca .

Unity and justice and freedom.

Deutschlandlied , written by a 7 year old

These words are the beginning of the third stanza of the Deutschlandlied , which is officially considered the text of the German national anthem:

Unity and justice and freedom
for the German fatherland!
Let us all strive for that,
brotherly with heart and hand!
Unity and law and freedom
are the pledge of happiness -
|: Bloom in the splendor of this happiness,
bloom, German fatherland!: |
"

The “unity” in the third stanza is probably influenced by the words of the dying Attinghausen in Friedrich Schiller's drama Wilhelm Tell :

Be in agreement - in agreement - in agreement! "

In addition, Johann Gottfried Seume's poem " To the German People " may have had an effect:

"[...] Hatred and division reign in our tribes, unity only can restrain ruin [...]".

The three goals are based on the French motto " Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité " and describe the demand for a free, constitutional state.

The philosopher Karl Jaspers thinks about this three number:

" At first it sounds like a proud grandeur: 'Unity and justice and freedom are the German pledge.' Let us analyze what lies in it:
First: The order, at the same time the hierarchy of the essentials, is decisive: unity and law and freedom. Unity as the unity of Germany placed at the top means: first unity, law comes after, and after law comes freedom. Whereas for a political, that is, republican and democratic thinking, the matter is the opposite: first freedom, from it law and then finally unity.
The wrong order in the hymn has pronounced the basic attitude.
"

Once upon a time the guys crouched in the trees.

The poem The Development of Mankind by Erich Kästner begins with these words :

The guys once crouched in the trees,
hairy and with an evil face.
"

Kästner alludes to the relationship between humans and monkeys and testifies to his skeptical view of human development.

One day the day will come.

Hector says goodbye to his family for the last time

These words, with which the fall of Troy is announced, come from the Iliad of the poet Homer and are in Greek:

" Ἔσσεται ἧμαρ ὅτ᾿ ἄν ποτ᾿ ​​ὀλώλῃ Ἴλιος ἱρὴ. "( Essetai hēmar, hot 'an pot' olōlē Ilios hirē. )
The day will come when holy Ilion will perish. "

These famous words were uttered when the Trojan hero Hector said goodbye to his wife Andromache and his young son Astyanax, who was terrified of his armed father. Ilion is another name for Troy , the downfall of which Hector foretells here, and he is saddened by the thought that Andromache will be the slave of a Greek. Hector is the only one to stay outside the city walls to face the Greek fighter Achilles . Achilles chases him three times around the walls of Troy before he is killed.

Essetai ämar ΕΣΣΕΤΑΙ ΗΜΑΡ is also the title of a poem by Georg Herwegh against the counter-revolution, in which every stanza ends with the words “ The day will come ”.

Defeated, the rebel captured,
Defeated by the son of Verhuel,
The best man of the worst,
Ormuz defeated by Ahriman!
This is what the mourning lore sounded like this -
But someone in Paris was happy.
The day will come.
"

One, two, three, time runs at a pace, we run with it.

One-two-three,
time runs at a pace , we run with it.
"

This sentence, which accompanies the protagonist's entire life, comes from the picture story Julchen by Wilhelm Busch . With these words, Busch indicates how quickly time passes and how quickly we change. This is how Julchen - just a well-fed baby - becomes a chubby toddler and a fried fish .

In the 1980s there was the hit Codo by the band Deutsch-Österreichisches Feingefühl with the refrain:

And I jet off at the pace
and bring love with me from my sky ride.
"

One-two-three , the city of Hanover names city tours in the footsteps of Wilhelm Busch, who lived in Hanover for a long time.

The quote is also taken up in a children's song by Detlev Jöcker that begins like this:

" 1, 2, 3 at a whiz - all children go with
the ... is now in line - and runs past us.
"

Fifty-first state

fictional flag of the United States with 51 stars

In America, the 51st state refers to possible candidates who could be accepted into the alliance of the United States . The term is also often used for Canada . Areas under the control or influence of the USA are also less often referred to as the 51st state.

In Canada and other countries, the term is used to denote the negative extent of US influence. In Europe and Australia, people who fear an Americanization of their local or national culture criticize their respective countries. The pejorative term 51st stater usually refers to a non-US citizen who mimics American manners and culture, or a non-US politician who is particularly supportive of the US and its foreign policy.

The film The 51st State deals with the relationship between the United Kingdom and the USA, as does the song "51st State" by the English band New Model Army from 1986.

iron and blood

The term “iron and blood” (or blood and iron ) goes back to a speech given by the then Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck to the budget commission of the Prussian House of Representatives on September 30, 1862 . In order to enforce his ideas of an army reform against the budget law of the House of Representatives, he spoke among other things the sentence:

"The big questions of the time are not decided by speeches or majority decisions, that was the big mistake of 1848 and 1849, but by iron and blood"

Bismarck acted according to this maxim. a. Prepared for the Franco-Prussian War from 1870 to 1871 and created political, economic and social conditions that made the German Empire possible in 1871. Preparations for war in particular had a far-reaching influence.

You have to be eleven friends.

This soccer wisdom is wrongly assigned to the German soccer coach Sepp Herberger . However, it comes from the book Theory, Technology, Tactics by Richard Girulatis , which appeared in 1920. Girulatis wrote under the heading Theory of the Football Game

The eleven players on each team must be very close friends with each other, then success will not be lacking. 'You must be eleven friends to win victories'. This saying should be clearly visible in every club room. "

In order to implement the goal of " bringing down the opponent who is equally strong in numbers ", Girulatis calls for the withdrawal of every individual in favor of the community. Every lack of brightness within a soccer team affects success.

You have to be eleven friends if you want to win ” was engraved on the base of the so-called Victoria statue , the predecessor of today's soccer championship trophy , as early as 1903 . The author of the text was probably the art professor who had designed the " Viktoria " at the time .

Elvis has left the building!

" Elvis has left the building !" ( " Elvis has left the building. ") Is a figure of speech, often by speakers to concerts by Elvis Presley was used to cause an addition waiting spectators to leave.

This saying was coined by Horace Lee Logan on the occasion of Elvis' last concert in 1956. He tried to appeal to the raging audience not to storm outside for a last look at their idol, but instead to look at the other artists. The complete saying was:

" Please, young people ... Elvis has left the building. He has gotten in his car and driven away…. Please take your seats. "
(" Please, young people ... Elvis has left the building. He got into his car and drove away ... Please sit down. ")

end of the story

The term (English: End of History ) became popular in 1992 through an article and a book entitled The End of History and the Last Man by the American political scientist Francis Fukuyama . Fukuyama advocated the thesis that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the principles of democracy and the market economy of liberalism would soon finally prevail everywhere.

End of a business trip

The end of a business trip is the title of a story by Heinrich Böll , which is an ironic criticism of the practices of state institutions.

The cabinet maker Johann Gruhl has amassed considerable tax debts; his situation worsened when his son was drafted into the armed forces. At the end of his service, Georg Gruhl received the order to generate the speedometer reading required for the inspection by aimlessly driving a jeep, but instead drove home. Father and son Gruhl prepare the jeep together and burn it on the street. The district court sentenced them to damages and six weeks in prison for gross mischief.

This title is usually quoted when commenting on the abandonment of a project.

All's well that ends well.

English title page from All's well that ends well

All's Well That Ends Well (English: All's Well That Ends Well ) is a play by William Shakespeare , whose plot structure it in a story by Giovanni Boccaccio's collection of novellas Decameron found. It's a tumultuous comedy that shows how love can turn into obsession, hate and affection again.

The title of this comedy is quoted as a common closing sentence in narratives and stories. It corresponds to the end of fairy tales:

And if they haven't died, then they are still alive today. "

But the title is also used as a phrase in other contexts:

  • All's well that ends well? After years of quarrels, the reform of the spelling reform can come. "
  • The Sahara hostages are free: all's well that ends well? "
  • Collective bargaining: all's well that ends? "

The hour is finally approaching.

“The hour is finally approaching” are the opening words of Susanna's aria in the 4th act of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera “ Figaros Hochzeit ”. Susanna is happy because nothing seems to stand in the way of the wedding with Figaro:

" Giunse alfin il momento. "-" Deh, vieni, non tardar, oh gioia bella. "
The hour is finally approaching. “-“ Oh, do not delay any longer, beloved soul. "

These words are quoted as an expression of joy that a longed-for event finally occurs.

End of the line longing

Endstation Sehnsucht (English: "A Streetcar Named Desire") is an American feature film from 1951. The film is based on the drama of the same name by Tennessee Williams . Blanche, a teacher from the southern states, experiences the dissolution of her family and the auction of the once proud family property. She is shattered by her guilt for her husband's suicide and for the ruthlessness of those around her.

The film title is used to joke in everyday life that someone has not achieved the goal of their wishes.

enfant terrible

The French expression enfant terrible literally means " terrible child ", meaning family or citizen fright. Since when the term has been used in this sense seems open. Georg Büchmann said that it was " probably spread by the fact that the cartoonist Paul Gavarni [...] gave one of his comic series of pictures the title" Les enfants terribles " ".

As a rule, the term characterizes someone who shocks and provokes those around him with his eccentric behavior:

  • " The enfant terrible of film " ( Klaus Kinski )
  • "The enfant terrible of the university system receives the 'Golden Ring of Honor of the Technical University of Munich' " ( Detlef Müller-Böling )
  • " From enfant terrible to society lady " ( Sarah Ferguson )

England expects every man to do his duty.

JMW Turner : "The Battle of Trafalgar" (with the flag symbols for U, T, Y + end of message)

"England Expects That Every Man Will Do His Duty " (for English: "England expects that every man will do his duty" ) was the flag signal that Admiral Horatio Nelson from his ship HMS Victory in the Battle of Trafalgar (1805) sent out .

This flag signal is the most famous signal used by the British Navy and has been quoted and satirized on many occasions.

In a 2003 editorial in the UK's Daily Telegraph , referring to falling birth rates in the UK, it said:

England expects every man and woman to do their duty. British women of childbearing age - your country needs you! You know what to do ! "

The Battle of Trafalgar finally eliminated France's fleet as a rival to the Royal Navy . Napoleon Bonaparte was no longer able to endanger the naval rule of Great Britain and had to give up his plans to invade the British Isles. He now focused on mainland Europe and started his disastrous campaign against Russia in 1812 .

Entente cordiale

The Entente cordiale (French: cordial agreement ) was an agreement concluded in 1904 between the United Kingdom and France . The aim of the agreement was to resolve the conflict of interests of the two countries in the colonies of Africa. The Entente cordiale later developed into the Triple Entente , which embodied one of the warring factions in World War I.

The expression comes from a speech in the French Chamber of Deputies from 1840 to 1841 and is traced back to the politician and writer François Guizot by Prince Metternich in his estate papers .

The content of the agreement included:

Article I.
" His British Majesty's government declares that it has no intention of changing the political state of Egypt ... "
Article II.
" The government of the French Republic declares that it has no intention of changing the political state of Morocco ... "
Article IX.
The two governments agree to provide diplomatic support to each other in the implementation of the provisions of this declaration on Egypt and Morocco. "

Celibacy is the pleasure of doing things we don't get.

This realization comes from the poem The Hair Bag by Wilhelm Busch :

My dear son, I feel sorry for you.
You lack celibacy.
Celibacy is the pleasure of
things we don't get.
So live moderately, think wisely.
If you don't need anything, you have enough!
"

Excuse me, is that the special train to Pankow?

This is the beginning of Udo Lindenberg's song Sonderzug nach Pankow . The text is ironically directed at the then Chairman of the State Council Erich Honecker . The reference to the Berlin district of Pankow in the title is based on the fact that the Schönhausen Palace located there was the seat of the President from 1949 to 1960 and then the State Council of the GDR until 1964 . After the inner-German rapprochement after 1974, Pankow moved into the background in linguistic usage. Only in 1983 the term was refreshed by Udo Lindenberg.

The song was in the West German music charts for a total of seven weeks in 1983 , but it achieved cult status in the GDR . In response, Udo Lindenberg appeared in the Berlin Palace of the Republic on October 25, 1983, but without singing this title.

The song begins with the following words:

" Excuse me, is that the special train to Pankow,
I have to go there, to East Berlin,
I have to clarify something with your Oberindianer,
I'm a yodel talent, and I want to play with a band
"

Either Caesar or nothing

" Either Caesar or nothing " (Latin: "Aut Caesar aut nihil" ) was the motto of the Italian Renaissance ruler Cesare Borgia placed under a bust of Caesar . The model was probably Caligula's word with which he glossed over his excessive waste:

"Aut frugi hominem esse oportere aut Caesarem"
"You either have to be thrifty or a Caesar"

For Cesare Borgia, Fausto Maddalena Romano says in Latin:

" Borgia Caesar erat, factis et nomine Caesar,
aut nihil, aut Caesar, dixit: utrumque fuit.
"
Borgia was Caesar by name and work
'either nothing or Caesar' he said; he was both.
"

Similarly, a mocking poem by Jacopo Sannazaro says:

“LIV De Caesare Borgia
'Aut nihil aut Caesar' vult dici Borgia: quid ni,
cum simul et Caesar possit et esse nihil? "
" " Caesar or nothing "is what Borgia wants, it should read. Why not?
Since he can be Caesar at the same time and nothing.
"

I'm either worried or something to eat.

This is the first sentence from Ildikó from Kürthy's novel Blauer Wunder , which won third place in the competition The Most Beautiful First Sentence in the category children's and young adult literature. In the Hamburger Abendblatt it says about this sentence:

This author can say sentences for which all women will forever hold their hearts, while men sigh knowingly. For example: 'Either I'm worried or something to eat.' "

Equal goes it loose.

This sentence in the proverbial “ Lübke English ” should mean something like: “ It’s about to start. “Allegedly this is what the former German President Heinrich Lübke said in 1965 to the British Queen Elisabeth II in the garden of Schloss Brühl shortly before the tattoo. However, this saying is not guaranteed. It could have been put in his mouth by cabaret artists. The former Spiegel employee Hermann L. Gremliza claimed in 2006 that this quote was an invention of the Spiegel editorial team.

Since then, the sentence has often been quoted jokingly when trying to express that an event is about to begin. He is also quoted to clarify vocabulary errors in foreign language lessons ( Denglisch ).

It runs and runs and runs ...

“It runs and runs and runs” was the advertising slogan with which the Volkswagen Group advertised the VW Beetle for years . The success story of this car is in large part thanks to this successful advertising campaign , which VW commissioned the New York agency Doyle, Dane and Bernbach (DDB) to carry out in 1959 . The primary goal was to increase sales in the highly competitive American market. The DDB agency broke new ground with its advertising. It did not praise the Beetle, as is usually the case in advertising, and did not portray it as the best car per se, but instead emphasized the small but subtle differences compared to the competition. She designed advertisements that made customers think, laugh and discuss. And so slogans like:

"Think small."
"It runs and runs and runs ..."
"There are forms that cannot be improved."
“We keep the form. Until the end."
"If you don't show off, you get more out of life."

These slogans are still considered exemplary and pioneering in the advertising industry.

The slogan has meanwhile become independent. So it can be found in a modified form - but still recognizable - as a heading to an article about the soccer player Michael Ballack :

" Ballack runs and runs and runs "

He lived, took a wife, and died.

The ballad Der Greis by Christian Fürchtegott Gellert begins with the following verses:

I want to sing about an old man
who has seen the world for ninety years.
And if I don't succeed in a song at the moment:
It won't happen like this for ever.
"

The poem closes with the verses:

O fame, pierce the ears of posterity,
you fame that my old man earned!
Hear, times, hear it! He was born,
he lived, took a wife, and died.
"

Gellert is thus imitating an epigram by the poet Andreas Gryphius , who wrote in his Poetic Woods in 1718 :

A man of sixty was recently buried;
He came into this world, ate, drank, slept, died last.
"

There is a similar poem by the comedian Heinz Erhardt , which also describes an uneventful life:

As soon as you came into this world, went
to school, took
your wife, bought children, property and money , you were
already lying down because you were dying.
"

He said it himself.

He said it himself. “Is an expression that the students and followers of the Pythagoras of Samos used in cases when they wanted to produce irrefutable evidence to confirm the truth of a thesis. It is quoted in a Scholion for Aristophanes ' drama The Clouds

The American author Howard Bloom writes under the heading Know Yourself - Pythagoras, Subcultures and the Psycho-Bio-Circuit :

His followers did not question his orders, but curbed their will with a sentence that comes from slaves: ' Αὐτὸς ἔφα. (autos epha) ipse dixit ', which is usually translated as' he said it himself'. In other words, 'It is true because Pythagoras said it.' "

He himself said it ” was considered an unshakable argument in disputes by his disciples, stifled all discussions and became the classic formula of blind belief in authority.

Ergo bibamus!

Ergo bibamus monument in Jena

This Latin request means in German:

So let's drink! "

Ergo bibamus is also the title of a famous student song that was composed in 1810 by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and set to music by Traugott Maximilian Eberwein in 1813 . A memorial was named after the Goethe text and was erected in Jena in 1986 on the site of the university's former brewery. The text of the first stanza is as follows:

Here we are gathered to do laudable work
: Drum little brother Ergo Bibamus!
The glasses they
ring , conversations they rest, heed Ergo Bibamus!
That means an old and a good word,
It goes with the first one and so goes on,
And an echo resounds from the festive place
: A wonderful Ergo Bibamus.
"

Goethe's poem probably goes back to the favorite word of Pope Martin IV , who always used to say coming from the consistory :

“How much have we suffered for the holy Church of God! Ergo bibamus! "

What is allowed is allowed.

This saying comes from Goethe's play Torquato Tasso , which is related to a second quote:

What is permitted is allowed. "

In a dialogue between Tasso and Princess Leonore von Este, Tasso raves about a bygone "golden time" where

Every animal, wandering through mountains and valleys, said
to people: What pleases is allowed.
"

The princess brings Tasso back down to earth with the reference to the necessary civilization:

" Only in the motto changes, my friend,
One single word: what is proper is allowed.
"

Finally, she also explains to him what she means:

If you want to find out exactly what is proper,
only ask noble women.
"

She ends her execution with the following sentence:

The man strives for freedom, the woman for custom. "

Shot like Robert Blum

Carl Constantin Heinrich Steffeck : Execution of Blums

The politician Robert Blum took part in the revolutionary struggle against the government in Vienna in 1848 and was shot dead on November 9, 1848. In Germany there was general outrage, which is expressed in a widely used anonymous song:

" Your Robert was shot
. Your faithful Robert Blum.
"

From this this idiom developed in the sense of "being completely exhausted ".

In a description of the exhibition with the title " I gave everything for freedom and progress " in the German Federal Archives it says:

'Shot like Robert Blum' has become a household phrase and little more is generally known when speaking of the Cologne-born spokesman of the left in the Frankfurt National Assembly of 1848. "

In a lecture " The 48ers - using the example of Robert Blum " at the adult education center in Leipzig, this phrase is also taken up:

'Shot like Robert Blum' - as a child I often heard this phrase from my grandmother's mouth when she tried to persuade me that after a long day I had to be exhausted and now finally had to go to bed. After all, I was 'shot like Robert Blum'. But as a child I never asked who this shot Robert Blum actually was. "

Food comes first, then morality.

"Food Comes First" ( " Only the seizure is US propaganda poster") (ca. 1941)

This quote from Bertolt Brecht comes from the Threepenny Opera, which premiered in Berlin in 1928, and is sung by Mackie Messer and Jenny in the “ Second Threepenny Finale ” (“ Because what does man live on? ”). It is probably the best-known Brecht quote:

Gentlemen, you teach us how to live well
and avoid sin and misdeeds.
First you have to give us something to eat.
Then you can talk; that is where it begins.
You who love your belly and our bravery
know one thing once and for all:
How you always turn it and how you always push it
First comes the food, then comes the moral
"

The songs, above all Mackie Messer’s Moritat, made the piece famous around the world. Brecht's intention to make the audience think was undermined by the setting by Kurt Weill .

Only when the last tree has been cleared, the last river poisoned, the last fish caught will you notice that money cannot be eaten.

“Money is not edible”, final demonstration of the
International Degrowth Conference 2014 , Leipzig

The Cree's prophecy is a catchy saying of the environmental movement that was widely used in the 1980s:

" Only after the last tree has been cut down / Only after the last river has been poisoned / Only after the last fish has been caught / Then you will find that money cannot be eaten. "
Only when the last tree has been cleared, the last river poisoned, the last fish caught, will you notice that you cannot eat money. "

This so-called prophecy of the Cree is at least not of Indian origin in this form. It has often been confused with a similar phrase from the speech Chief Seattle of the Suquamish tribe gave in 1854 to Isaac I. Stevens, Governor of the Washington Territories. The American journalist Henry A. Smith, ear witness of the speech, recited the sentence from memory 33 years later in the Seattle Sunday newspaper as follows:

And when the last red man has disappeared from the earth and the memory of the white man has become a legend, then these shores will be overflowing with the invisible dead of my tribe ... then they are teeming with the returning multitudes who once made this land populated and still love it. "

The flowery and heroic formulations are therefore considered the work of Smith.

First servant of the state

Friedrich II at the age of 68

The Prussian King Friedrich II wrote the words "The prince is the first servant of his state" six times and always in French:

"Un prince est le premier serviteur et le premier magistrat de l'Etat."

These words can also be found in his “Political Testament” from 1752. It was in keeping with Frederick's understanding of his role as an absolutist monarch that he had to direct all things personally. These requirements and the loyalty to a king who did not spare himself personally promoted the growth of the Prussian official ethos:

The first civic duty is to serve one's homeland. I have tried to fulfill them in all the different situations in my life. As the bearer of the highest authority, I had the opportunity and the means to prove myself useful to my fellow citizens ...
Indolence, lust for pleasure and stupidity: these three reasons prevent the princes from their noble occupation to work for the happiness of the people ... The ruler is the first Servant of the state. He is well paid so that he can maintain the dignity of his position. But one demands of him that he works for the good of the state ...
"

Something always gets stuck.

This expression is also used in its Latin form, " Semper aliquid haeret ". The full version reads:

Audacter calumniare, semper aliquid haeret. "
Only slander cheekily, something always sticks. "

In this form it is cited as proverbial for the first time by the English philosopher Francis Bacon in his work On the Dignity and Advancement of Science .

The origin is often seen in a passage in the book About the Flatterer and Friend of the Greek writer Plutarch , where the slander is compared to a bite wound that always leaves a scar:

" Κἂν θεραπεύσῃ τὸ ἕλκος ὁ δεδηγμένος, ἡ οὐλὴ μενεῖ τῆς διαβολῆς. "
Kan therapeusē to helkos ho dedēgmenos, hē oulē menei tēs diabolēs.
Even if the victim treats the wound, the scar of slander remains. "

A call roars like thunder.

This patriotic line comes from Max Schneckenburger's song Die Wacht am Rhein , which was sung as an anti-French battle song, especially in the years 1870/71:

A call roars like thunder,
like the clang of swords and the crash of waves:
To the Rhine, to the Rhine, to the German Rhine,
Who wants to be the keeper of the river?
|: Dear fatherland, may you be quiet: |
|: The watch on the Rhine stands firm and true!: |
"

In a parody of this song it says:

" A call
roars as fast as the plague that Warken is in custody
"

There is no going back.

This is the title of a short story that the American writer Thomas Wolfe published in 1940 under the English title You can't go home again .

Wolfe was in Berlin during the 1936 Summer Olympics , where he met his German publisher Ernst Rowohlt . His insight into the changed conditions in Germany is reflected in this story, where he describes the arrest of a Jew at the border of the Reich.

The title There is no way back to your childhood comes from the German pop singer Howard Carpendale .

There is no going back , a walk with an emigrant is a trilogy of novels by Jörg W. Gronius in which he portrayed three decades in Berlin.

Everything passes.

These comforting words come from a song that the songwriters Kurt Feltz and Max Wallner supposedly wrote on behalf of the Propaganda Ministry in 1942 and whose refrain began as follows:

It will all pass,
it will all pass,
every December is
followed by May.
"

What was supposed to pass, however, was not evident from the text; instead of the Allied bombing raids, it could also mean the rule of the National Socialists. Hans Ermann writes in his book Winged Melodies :

The popular hit failed because of the success it owed to its ironic interpretation. It was banned the same year in 1942 that it came up. "

Another version of the song, which was spread orally during the time, replaced the last two lines with the following:

It will all pass,
it will all pass,
the Führer goes first
and then the party.
"

However, Eckhard John contradicts the thesis of the ban.

It happened in broad daylight.

It happened in broad daylight is a Swiss feature film from 1958 about a child murderer based on a screenplay by Friedrich Dürrenmatt .

The film title is quoted to characterize crime as particularly bold:

  • '... it happened in broad daylight!' The deportation of Jews from Baden, Palatinate and Saarland to the Gurs / Pyrenees camp "
  • It happened in broad daylight: The NPD was playing football and nobody knew about it! "

There are three types of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.

This saying writes Mark Twain in his autobiography falsely British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli to. In fact, it was written by Leonard Henry Courtney and read in English:

" There are three kinds of lies - lies, damned lies, and statistics. "

Mark Twain is cited as follows:

Mark Twain once suggested the following ways of increasing lying: 'First: nobly intended white lies; second: ordinary lies; and third: statistics. ' "

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill is credited with a similar saying:

There is no right life in the wrong one.

When Theodor W. Adorno writes in his Minima Moralia " There is no right life in the wrong ", he means that there can be no right life for individual people as long as society is wrong and does not function in the interest of satisfying human needs. In a real economy, needs would determine which products are made. But production has become an end in itself. Those who make themselves comfortable in unbearable conditions encourage them.

This is one of the favorite phrases among Adorno fans. Knapp comes to the conclusion that Adorno never believed in the realization of socialism for a moment:

Adorno's philosophy tells of a happiness that is in reality unattainable without ever revealing the desire for this happiness. "

There are more things in heaven and on earth than your school wisdom can dream of.

This famous phrase comes from William Shakespeare's drama Hamlet , where Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, says in English to his friend Horatio:

" There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, / Than are dream't of in your philosophy. "

This quote is mostly used to present doubtful facts as plausible.

There are such and such.

The colloquial Berlin saying with the meaning “it's just the fact that people are different” probably goes back to a quote from the local farce Graupenmüller by Hermann Salingré . There it says in Berlin dialect:

There is sun and there is such, because there are also others - and they are the worst. "

The saying is quoted today with various additions:

  • There are such and such youth welfare offices. "
  • Well, there are just such and such experiences. "
  • There are such and such - but more such than such. "

It was not meant to be.

Statue of the trumpeter von Säckingen in Bad Säckingen

This is the refrain from the so-called Das Trompeterlied in Viktor von Scheffel's drama Der Trompeter von Säckingen :

It is ugly in life
that the thorns stand by the roses,
and whatever the poor heart longs and writes, in
the end there is a divergence.
I once read in your eyes that
there was a glimmer of love and happiness in them:
God protect you, it would have been too beautiful,
God protect you, it wasn't meant to be.
"

The trumpeter von Säckingen was very popular in the 19th century as it describes the drama of the love affair between the bourgeois trumpeter and a noble daughter. Victor Ernst Nessler composed the opera of the same name, which premiered in Leipzig in 1884. Since then, Säckingen has also been nicknamed " Trumpeter City ".

The quote is used today in many different contexts, mostly with a resigned undertone. It wasn't meant to be is the headline that discusses Hollywood's most famous "near-casts" , according to which Leonardo DiCaprio was originally supposed to play with David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson on Baywatch .

It's all very complicated.

These words characterize the media coverage of the scandals and difficulties of the Austrian Chancellor Fred Sinowatz , who said in his government statement in 1983:

" I know it all sounds very complicated ... "

This saying is mostly given in the form above.

During his tenure, Sinowatz had to struggle with the glycol wine scandal , the scandal over the new building of the Vienna General Hospital and mainly with the crisis of the deeply indebted nationalized industry (especially VÖEST ).

It's easier to smash an atom than a prejudice.

Albert Einstein's saying suggests that splitting an atom is relatively difficult if you need a nuclear reactor . How much harder would it have to be to shatter a prejudice?

Einstein is often quoted with modified wording:

What a dreary epoch in which it is easier to smash an atom than a prejudice. "

In English it says:

It's easier to disintegrate an atom than a prejudice. "

I don't care who becomes Chancellor under me.

This self-confident statement comes from the Bavarian politician Franz Josef Strauss , who said this in 1975 in the pub of the Bavarian state representation in Bonn. Der Spiegel explains the background of this quote as follows:

After the fuss about his Sonthofen speech, the CSU chairman - or so it seems - buried his dreams of moving into the Palais Schaumburg and now wants to be content with the role of the strong man in the background. He has apparently also recognized himself what CDU General Secretary Kurt Biedenkopf formulated in front of the party presidium on Monday of last week: The voter who had been lured into the clearing like a shy deer in recent months by the CDU's policy, ' was driven back into the thicket by the gunshot from Sonthofen '. "

Of the candidates for the candidacy of the Union parties for chancellor, only the CDU chairman Helmut Kohl remained. But Strauss was of the opinion that Kohl was unable to lead the party in such a way that it could win the federal elections.

Kohl [...] will never become Chancellor. He is totally incapable, he lacks the character, the intellectual and the political prerequisites. He lacks everything for it. But you can possibly rule with anyone. "

However, Strauss himself ran for Chancellor four years later, although he had once said:

I hope the German people are never so badly off that they think they have to elect me as Federal Chancellor. "

The so-called Sonthofen strategy was proposed by Strauss in 1974 at a closed meeting of the CSU in Sonthofen . In it, Strauss took the view that it would be best for the 1976 elections if the opposition no longer brings its own proposals into the political discussion, but watches as the government under Chancellor Helmut Schmidt tries to deal with the problems, and then in the election year as the savior to be able to present.

It is not good for man to be alone.

Michelangelo : The Creation of Eve

This quote can be found in Genesis and refers to Adam , who is initially alone in paradise and wants to give God a companion by his side. It says there about the creation of Eve:

" 18 And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I want to make him an assistant who is around him. ... 21 And God the Lord sent a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept. And he took one of his ribs and closed the place with meat. 22 And the LORD God built a woman from the rib which he had taken from the man, and brought her to him. "

It's Not Good for Man to Be Alone is the title of an anthology of satirical stories by Raniero Spahn and the letters of an Irish matchmaker by John B. Keane.

It's never too late to have a happy childhood.

This aphorism is attributed to Erich Kästner. However, it is also used in psychotherapy (Milton Erickson) and in self-help literature. It can be interpreted in such a way that a person can also take on their own childish side in later phases of life and actively compensate for any emotional deprivation from early phases of life, so that nobody has to be a prisoner of his past.

It is not over till the evening.

“It is not all evening yet” (Latin: “… nondum omnium dierum sol occidisse” ) is a quote from the text Ab urbe condita by the Roman historian Titus Livius :

The Thessalians misused the forbearance of the Romans through arrogance and intemperance, just as if they were too greedy in the spirit drink of freedom after a long thirst. That is why they also allowed themselves this audacity in tone and language, like slaves who were suddenly released against their expectations, and enjoyed the vilification and abuse of their rule. Rushing out in anger, he added: Evening has not yet come every day. "

The phrase means something like: "The matter has not yet been decided and the outcome is still uncertain".

It is finished.

the dying Jesus

According to the Gospel of John ( John 19:30  EU ), “It is finished” were the last words of Jesus crucified . These words are also among the Seven Last Words , which Christianity attaches special importance.

Jesus said to the soldiers, “I'm thirsty!” A soldier dipped a sponge into a jug of vinegar water, put it on a stick, and held the sponge to his mouth. When Jesus had drunk it, he shouted, “It is finished!” Bowed his head and died. In the Greek original it says:

" Τετέλεσται. "(" Tetélestai. ")

According to general theological understanding, Jesus does not only mean here that his life is now coming to an end, but that his work as the Redeemer of men is now completed.

It is what it is.

These words are a recurring verse in Erich Fried's love poem Was es ist . It starts with the following words:

" It's nonsense
says reason
It is what it is
says love
"

With this poem Fried describes the conflict between mind and understanding with regard to love . All other feelings have their concerns, only love overcomes all objections.

The most pious cannot live in peace if the wicked neighbor does not like it.

Geßler and Tell

This quote - often used in connection with neighborhood disputes - has a slightly different wording in Friedrich Schiller's drama Wilhelm Tell :

The most pious cannot remain in peace
If the evil neighbor does not like it.
"

With these words, Wilhelm Tell defended his plan to shoot the bailiff to the corridor ranger, who came by with the wedding procession. The murder of Gessler works like a liberation for the common people.

Schiller has thus modified an older proverb:

Nobody can have peace longer than his neighbor likes. "

In the same piece there is also the quote:

Peace is readily granted to the peaceful. "

Long live the new; long live the German republic!

Philipp Scheidemann at the Reichstag building

With these words the social democratic politician Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed the collapse of the German Empire during the November Revolution on November 9, 1918 from a window in the Reichstag building and proclaimed the German Republic . According to his own account, Scheidemann was urged to give a speech by numerous workers and soldiers in the Reichstag.

There are thousands outside asking you to speak. Scheidemann come quickly, Liebknecht is talking from the castle balcony. "

For future development it was of great importance who first proclaimed the end of the monarchy . So Scheidemann stepped onto the balcony of the Reichstag around 2 p.m. and said:

The old Morsche collapsed; militarism is over. "

He further said:

... the old and rotten, the monarchy has collapsed! Long live the new; long live the German republic! "

Karl Liebknecht did not respond to this two hours later when he called for the " fight for the free socialist republic of Germany and the world revolution ".

It doesn't always have to be caviar.

It doesn't always have to be caviar is a novel by the Austrian writer Johannes Mario Simmel from 1960. It is about “ The cheeky adventures and exquisite cooking recipes of the unwilling secret agent Thomas Lieven. "

The well-known novel and film title is also cited in other contexts:

  • Pasta, fish and poultry. So it doesn't always have to be caviar at Eckart Witzigmann? "
  • Slack consumption: It doesn't always have to be caviar. "

A soldier is standing on the banks of the Volga.

This is the Tsarevich's song from Franz Lehár's operetta The Tsarevich .

There is a soldier on the edge of the Volga, keeping
watch for his fatherland.
In the dark night alone and far away,
no moon, no star shines for him.
"

This song had no particular echo at the premiere. It was not until the German armies penetrated the Volga during World War II that the song became popular. In a field post letter from Stalingrad in December 1942, the German soldier Ekkehard Johler wrote to his family:

Please tell all dear people that the little soldier on the banks of the Volga wishes you a happy festival as well as a happy new year. "

The title of the song has often been parodied, for example during the German Bundeswehr's foreign missions far from home in Afghanistan :

  • There is a soldier in the Hindu Kush. "
  • There is a soldier in the Afghan country, is he keeping watch for his home country? "(In memory of Willy Brandt:" Never again war on German soil! ") Hans-Dieterwege, Oldenburg, 2006

Nobody walks under palm trees with impunity.

This quote comes from Goethe's novel The Elective Affinities . There, after a conversation with the "assistant", Ottilie wrote in her diary critical thoughts about the interrelationship between people and their living environment:

Sometimes, when a curious longing for such adventurous things engulfed me, I envied the traveler who sees such miracles with other miracles in a living, everyday connection. "

But then she also states:

But he too becomes a different person. "

Ottilie also notes:

Nobody walks under palm trees with impunity, and attitudes will certainly change in a country where elephants and tigers are at home. "

This quote indicates that the experiences that one has gained in a distant country do not remain without an impact on the perspective of the ancestral surroundings.

The Ivorian German studies scholar Michel Gnéba completed his habilitation in 1992 with a thesis on Goethe and the Goethe era in French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa , which he gave the title Nobody walks with impunity under palm trees . In it, Gnéba subjects the image that the Senegalese writer and statesman Léopold Sédar Senghor had made of Goethe and which tends to hinder a new understanding of Goethe in sub-Saharan Africa , to a critical revision.

It was the nightingale and not the lark.

The quote " It was the nightingale and not the lark " (" It was the nightingale and not the lark . ") Comes from William Shakespeare's tragedy Romeo and Juliet :

“You want to leave already? It is far from day:
it was the nightingale and not the lark,
Which penetrated your ear into your anxious innre;
At night she sings on the pomegranate tree there:
Beloved, believe it was the nightingale. "

After the wedding night , Romeo and Juliet have to part because the lark is singing, a sign of the dawning. Juliet says it's the nightingale to keep Romeo with him a little longer, but when he agrees to stay and want to die, she agrees to leave.

"It was the lark" is a cheerful tragedy by Ephraim Kishon , which deals with speculation about what would have happened if Juliet had woken up in time and they were still living in Verona with Romeo 29 ​​years later . In this way, the most famous lovers in world history are not spared the arguments of everyday marriage. Ballet teacher Romeo and housewife Juliet also have a 14-year-old daughter who despises her parents:

But what makes life really worth living, you have no idea! Romeo and Juliet! What do you two know about love! "

There was once.

" Once upon a time " is the typical beginning of a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm . For example, start with this formula:

  • Rumpelstiltskin : “ Once upon a time there was a miller who was poor, but he had a beautiful daughter. "
  • Rapunzel : “ Once upon a time there was a man and a woman who had wanted a child for a long time and never had one, but at last the woman was hopeful. "
  • Little Red Riding Hood : “ Once upon a time there was a sweet little girl who loved everyone who just looked at her, but most of all her grandmother, who didn't know what to give the child. "

These introductory words are used today in different contexts:

  • Swan song for a discipline: Once upon a time ... cycling. "
  • " Once upon a time there was a Palestine: Jews and Arabs before the founding of the state of Israel "
  • Once upon a time there was the People's Party. "

Once upon a time ... (Original title: Il était une fois ... ) is a French animated series created by director Albert Barillé from 1978 to 1995 with the aim of entertaining and teaching children equally.

Once upon a time in America (Italian: C'era una volta in America ) is an Italian / American film directed by Sergio Leone .

There were two royal children.

William Turner : Heros and Leander's Farewell

This is the beginning and title of a popular folk song There were two royal children . The quote is used, for example, when talking about a relationship that is doomed to failure due to external circumstances.

The song deals with the theme of Hero and Leander , two characters from Greek mythology. Hero was an Aphrodite priestess on the Hellespont strait , which her lover Leander swam through every night to be with her. When the lamp Hero had set up went out in a storm, he got lost in the sea and drowned. The following morning, Hero discovered his body and threw himself off a cliff to his death.

Ludwig Christoph Heinrich Hölty and Daniel Schiebeler traversed the ancient material in their poems, which were renamed Leander and Hero.

Let there be light!

Let there be light! "

This quote from the Old Testament creation story of Genesis is a literal translation of the Hebrew יְהִי אוֹר. The well-known Latin version is “ Fiat lux ”. It is at the very beginning of the Old Testament and is the central statement on the first day of creation:

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 And the earth was desolate and empty, and darkness was over the deep; and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light. and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God separated light from darkness.
5 And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And there was evening and there was morning: the first day.
"

On the subject of the Big Bang , Axel Tillemans writes on Wissenschaft.de under the heading " Twice it was said: ' Let there be light '":

According to the Bible (Book Genesis 1: 3) one word of God was enough to illuminate the world. But more recent astronomical results indicate that he has run out of the 'cosmic sparkle' again and that he had to try a second time. “A billion years after the Big Bang, large parts of the universe were not ionized and the universe was still in the Dark Age.

There are never as many lies as before the election, during the war and after the hunt.

This bon mot can be identified for the first time printed in 1879:

"A member of the ' Löwe ' group also remarked aptly: 'There is never more lying than before the election, during the war and after the hunt.'"

Only years after the death of Otto von Bismarck was it ascribed to him.

As the author of knowledge

the truth is the first victim in war,

Aeschylus or Rudyard Kipling are often used . However, it was first published in 1916 by the Labor politician Philip Snowden.

However, it is true that Winston Churchill said to Stalin at the Tehran Conference on November 23, 1943:

"In war the truth is so precious that it should always be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies."

The aim was to keep Operation Overlord , the planning of an Allied landing in Normandy, a secret from the enemy by all means.

It draws like pike soup

The Yiddish hech supha or hech soppa means "strong wind". Whether this is really the basis for the winged word It draws like pike soup from the 19th century can only be guessed at. In any case, the phrase has nothing to do with pike and a traditional pike soup, such as is served at the Schaffermahl in Stralsund .

See also: List of German words from Hebrew and Yiddish .

The rotten bones tremble.

Controversial song by Hans Baumann , see there for details.

Something is wrong in the state of Denmark.

Johann Heinrich Füssli : Hamlet, Horatio and Marcellus and the spirit of the dead father

The saying goes back to a statement in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet :

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."

Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, returns home to discover that his father was murdered and not killed by a snakebite. This suspicion does not deceive, Hamlet's father, the King of Denmark, is murdered by his own brother, Claudius. At night the spirit of the father appears. After the ghost and Hamlet leave, the officer on watch Marcellus speaks to Horatio:

Horatio
He's beside himself with imagination. "
Marcellus
After him! We must not obey him like that. "
Horatio.
Come on, let's follow! What end will this be? "
Marcellus
Something is wrong in the state of Denmark. "
Horatio
Heaven will guide it. "
Marcellus
Let's go. "
Kronborg Castle in Elsinore

Michael Kircher wrote in July 2002 about a production of Hamlet in Copenhagen :

Hamlet is a Danish national epic. Hamlet was Prince of Denmark. Shakespeare has relocated the setting of his drama to Elsinore, to Helsingör in Denmark, where Kronborg Castle is considered a classic setting, even if the real Hamlet was a prince from Jutland. 'Something is wrong in the state of Denmark' is one of the clichés that a reporter can hardly resist. "

If this much-quoted Shakespeare sentence appears in an inappropriate place, it can lead to diplomatic resentment:

For example, at an EU meeting, a German interpreter translated the phrase 'something is rotten here' with 'something is rotten in the state of Denmark' - probably to prove his literary knowledge. The Danish delegation , which had to listen to the German interpreting, protested loudly. "

If " something is wrong in the state of Denmark ", it is assumed that something is wrong, which is also applied to other states, such as:

  • Something is wrong in the state of Germany. "
  • There is something fishy in the state of Turkey. "

Carrying owls to Athens

The idiom carrying owls to Athens stands for a superfluous activity. It goes back to the poet Aristophanes , who coined the saying in his satirical comedy " The Birds ". There, in verse 301, an owl flying by is commented on with the following words:

Pisthetairos: “ Do you see the owl there? "
Euelpides: " I ask, 'do you bring owls to Athens'?" "

There were very many owls as symbols of the goddess Athena , the patron goddess of the city. It is also likely that Aristophanes was referring to the coins on which an owl was minted. Aristophanes said it was superfluous to send silver coins (with the owl) to rich Athens.

In Greek the phrase is:

" Γλαῦκ᾿ εἰς Ἀθήνας. "
Glauk 'ice Athēnās
Owls to Athens. "

Everybody's darling, everybody's dork.

This - partly English, partly German - statement comes from the former Bavarian politician Franz Josef Strauss , who took this idea further by saying:

I think very highly of modesty, but sometimes I also agree with Goethe: only rags are modest [...] Today, surprisingly, I have been spared criticism. That's why I practice it on myself so that I can refute it. "

In an article about Günther Beckstein , his successor in the office of Bavarian Prime Minister, Peter Fahrenholz writes in the Süddeutsche Zeitung :

If Beckstein's strategy was to please everyone by the state elections next year in order to achieve a good election result and only then to start governing, that would be a dangerous strategy. Franz Josef Strauss already knew: Anyone who wants to be 'Everybody's Darling' is quickly 'Everybody's Dork'. "

A variant comes from the former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder :

Anyone who tries to be everyone's darling quickly becomes everyone's candlestick. "

Expert credite.

This quote from the Aeneid by the Roman poet Virgil reads completely in Latin:

Experto credite quantus // in clipeum adsurgat, quo turbine torqueat hastam. "

The Argiver Diomedes advises his compatriots to ally with the Trojans and confirms this with his own experiences.

The phrase can also be found in Ovid's Ars amandi and changed to “ crede experto ”. It means something like “ Believe who has experienced it. “Today it is used in the sense of“ Believe him who understands something about it. "

" Crede experto! "(Or" audi expertum ") writes Bernhard von Clairvaux in a letter.

Expressis verbis

This Latin expression (German: with express words ) can be found in the writing De Scientia Christi ( From the Science of Christ ) by the scholastic doctor of the church Bonaventura .

It is used today when someone expresses something very clearly and pointedly, so that misunderstandings are excluded, but also to underline that someone has used exactly the words with which he is quoted.

Extra ecclesiam nulla salus.

Short form of a Latin sentence by the church writer Cyprian of Carthage :

" Extra ecclesiam salus non est. "
Outside of the Church there is no salvation. "

Individual evidence

  1. Menschliches, Allzumenschliches , Fifth Chapter, Aphorism 263 (KSA 2, p. 219); The happy science , Third Book, Aphorism 270 (KSA 3, p. 519); see. also ibid., fourth book, aphorism 335 (KSA 3, p. 563).
  2. Quoted from: Ecce homo, Friedrich Nietzsche. In: handmann.phantasus.de. Retrieved February 10, 2015 .
  3. Quoted from: Goethe Johann Wolfgang von, Nobody is noble. In: literaturknoten.de. Retrieved February 10, 2015 .
  4. Humanism - "Be noble, helpful and good!" (25 min)
  5. Johann Joachim Winckelmann : Thoughts on the imitation of Greek works in painting and sculpture in the Gutenberg-DE project
  6. Romans 13,7  LUT
  7. Albert Schweitzer : From my life and thinking . Quoted from Verena Mühlstein: Helene Schweitzer Bresslau: a life for Lambarene . CH Beck, 2010, ISBN 978-3-406-60767-7 , pp. 173 ( preview in Google Book search).
  8. Radiopredigt Radio DRS 2 No. 22 June 5, 2006 ( Memento of February 10, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF)
  9. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, August 8, 2005, No. 182 / page 6: No honest broker. In: FAZ.net . August 8, 2005, accessed February 10, 2015 .
  10. Gerhard Herm : The Balkans. The powder keg of Europe. Econ Verlag GmbH, Düsseldorf / Vienna / New York / Moscow, 1993, p. 298, ISBN 3-430-14445-0 .
  11. Christoph Ries: The 10 greatest moments of the boat: "Eggs, we need eggs". In: 11freunde.de. November 10, 1990, accessed February 10, 2015 .
  12. Jealousy is a passion that eagerly seeks what creates suffering. In: universal_lexikon.deacademic.com. October 8, 2008, accessed February 10, 2015 .
  13. for example in: Complete Works. Volume 1, Munich 1960, p. 398. Or at Zeno
  14. 1 Mos 37 : 23-27  LUT
  15. My own flesh and blood on Friday .
  16. ^ Friedrich Schiller : Don Karlos . 1.5. Quoted from Dom Karlos - Part 1 on Wikisource
  17. ^ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Erwin and Elmire. I, 1.
  18. An image for the gods. In: az-web.de. May 16, 2008, accessed February 10, 2015 .
  19. Otto von Bismarck : Speech in the German Reichstag on March 4, 1881.
  20. Ruth Klüger: Lost on the way . Zsolnay 2008, p. 59
  21. Quoted from folksong.de ( Memento from May 3, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  22. Juvenal : Satires 10, 356.
  23. 1 Mos 10.8-9  EU
  24. Friedrich Holderlin : Hyperion or The Hermit in Greece . Volume 1.1. Book, 2nd letter to Bellarmine. Quoted from Hyperion to Bellarmine II on Wikisource
  25. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe : Faust II , 5th act. Vers 11.837.
  26. The contract
  27. Brucheinser denotes a grade that just misses grade one
  28. The Palatinate on the left bank of the Rhine also belonged to the Kingdom of Bavaria (Bavaria)
  29. LAG BW 9 Ta 2/07 of May 24, 2007
  30. Acts 4,32  LUT
  31. ^ Translation by Heinrich Döring , Sauerländer, Frankfurt / M. 1826 limited preview in the Google book search "I had thought, resumed Cora, that an Indian warrior was patient, and that his spirit felt not and knew not the pain his body suffered." The Last of the Mohicans. A Narrative of 1757. London 1826, Chapter 11, limited preview in Google Book search
  32. The treasure in Silver Lake. Magazine version 1890/91. Chapter 12: On death and life hs-augsburg.de
  33. as Appendix A in: Arthur Morelet : Reisen in Central-Amerika . In German adaptation by H. Hertz. Jena 1872. p. 353 ( limited preview in Google book search)
  34. ^ Account of the Province of Vera Paz, in Guatemala, and of the Indian Settlements or Pueblos established therein. By Padre Fr. Alonso de Escobar. Communicated by Don Carlos Meany. In: The Journal of the Royal Geographical Society. Volume 11, ( limited preview in Google Book Search): For the Indians, however, there is no road too bad; and where no beast can keep its feet, they go and carry loads with little difficulty. Herein is seen the power of habit, since these people beginning at six years old to carry burdens become such active carriers as to be able to make journeys of 200 leagues, or more, without suffering, when the best mule, if unshod, becomes so lame as to be unable to move a step. I have often seen them, after having hurt themselves by stumbling, hold a burning skewer near to the wound or bruise, to prevent inflammation, and start fresh on their journey the day after this painful treatment.
  35. Velhagen & Klasings monthly booklets: 42nd volume, 11th issue July 1928, p. 543,554 ( limited preview in the Google book search)
  36. The world stage . 28th year. First half of 1932, p. 797 archive.org
  37. Hans Leip: Jan Himp and the little breeze. Fischer, 1962 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  38. ^ Jürgen Brinkmann: Frank Mellenthin. List, 1965, p. 284 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
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  41. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, January 26, 1999, No. 21 / Page 10: Tecumseh. In: FAZ.net . January 26, 1999, accessed February 10, 2015 .
  42. ^ Dagmar Wernitznig: Europe's Indians, Indians in Europe . University Press of America, 2007, ISBN 978-0-7618-3690-2 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
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  44. Georg Büchmann : Winged words . The treasure trove of quotations of the German people . 19th ed. 1898. http://www.susning.nu/buchmann/0538.html
  45. ^ William Coxe: Memoirs of the Life and Administration of Sir Robert Walpole (1798) p. 349 f. books.google
  46. Quoted from Busch Werke v4 p 404.jpg
  47. Quoted from volksliederarchiv.de
  48. Mark Twain : Following the Equator , chapter XXV
  49. Mark Twain : speech to the Nineteenth Century Club , New York, November 20, 1900 Mark Twain's Speeches ; after Caleb T. Winchester
  50. Quoted from http://uni-salzburg.ac.at/fileadmin/oracle_file_imports/544336.PDF
  51. ^ Theodor Fontane : Under the pear tree in the Gutenberg-DE project
  52. gegen-sex-gewalt.de ( Memento from June 16, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  53. Isa 29:13  LUT
  54. DPA: judgment: lip service too little for German passport. In: stern.de . July 31, 2008, accessed February 10, 2015 .
  55. ^ Pierre Corneille : Le Menteur . IV, 5.
  56. ^ Quintilian : Institutio oratoria . IV, 2.91.
  57. Quoted from The Guarantee on Wikisource
  58. A murder like everyone commits ... In: Der Spiegel . No. 19 , 1966 ( online ).
  59. saarbruecker-zeitung.de
  60. ^ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe : Erwin and Elmire . 1. Appearance. 1st elevator
  61. Christian Fürchtegott Gellert : The tender sisters . 2.6.
  62. a rogue who thinks evil (thereby). on: redensarten-index.de
  63. Quoted from: Text: A ship will come. In: nanamouskouri.de. Retrieved February 10, 2015 .
  64. No ship will come. (Goethe Institute)
  65. Title of his 1972 talk at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting ; according to Science 320, 2008, p. 431.
  66. ^ The campaign manifesto ( Memento of October 21, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
  67. Ez 7.1-5  LUT
  68. ^ Eulogius Schneider: Gedichte , Frankfurt 1790, p. 79 books.google .
  69. Source, p. 148.
  70. Ps 107 : 4-9  LUT
  71. Quoted from: Elizabeth Dunkel - The fish without a bicycle. In: single-generation.de. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015 ; accessed on February 10, 2015 .
  72. Koh 3,13  LUT
  73. Ps 127,3-5  EU
  74. Quoted from: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Gedichte (last edition. 1827) - Epigrammatic. In: odysseetheater.org. Retrieved February 10, 2015 .
  75. Frank Wendler: Reading sample HISTORY: The Germans. In: frank-wendler.eu. Retrieved February 10, 2015 .
  76. Millions of born enemies . In: Der Spiegel . No. 20 , 1986 ( online ).
  77. Quoted from gedichte-garten.de
  78. ^ Gotthold Ephraim Lessing : Emilia Galotti . V.7. Quoted from Emilia Galotti, Act Five on Wikisource
  79. German by Harry C. Schnur , revised by Erich Keller. P.77 books.google , ancient Greek original Halm 97 p.76 books.google
  80. 2 Cor 9 : 6-7  LUT
  81. ^ Johann Nestroy : He wants to make a joke in the Gutenberg-DE project
  82. Translation NG Eichhoff, Frankfurt 1798 p. 221 ( limited preview in Google book search)
  83. Ovid: Heroides XVII. In: thelatinlibrary.com. Retrieved February 10, 2015 .
  84. Jer 13 : 22-23  LUT
  85. Gustav Noske : From Kiel to Kapp. On the history of the German revolution , Berlin 1920, p. 68.
  86. misquotations
  87. sueddeutsche.de May 26, 2020: Interview with Gerald Krieghofer, expert on "cuckoo quotes"
  88. Gal 6,1-2  LUT
  89. Karl Jaspers . Quoted from https://benjaminortmeyer.de/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/arg_auszug1_wurde_der_text_des_deutschlandliedes_ledIGE1.pdf (PDF)
  90. Iliad VI. v. 448ff.
  91. Georg Herwegh : Essetai Ämar in Project Gutenberg-DE
  92. ^ Wilhelm Busch : Tobias Knopp . 3rd part
  93. Quoted from 0x1b.ch
  94. Quoted from: Wilhelm Schüßler (Ed.), Otto von Bismarck, Reden, 1847–1869 , in Hermann von Petersdorff (Ed.) Bismarck: The collected works, Volume 10 , Berlin: Otto Stolberg, 1924–35, p. 139 -40.
  95. Quoted from Thorsten Langenbahn: The most popular football mistakes . Area Verlag, 2006. ISBN 978-3-89996-799-9 .
  96. Georg Büchmann : Winged words : the treasure trove of quotations of the German people . 33rd edition, Ullstein-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 1981, ISBN 3-550-07686-X , p. 214.
  97. The old continent lacks the young ( Memento of October 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  98. Quoted from lsg.musin.de ( Memento from September 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  99. Wilhelm Busch : The hair bag . Quoted from The Hair Bag / Introduction on Wikisource
  100. Quoted from asklyrics.com ( Memento from September 23, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  101. ^ Fausto Maddalena Romano, handed down by Paolo Giovio; Ragionamenti 5, Renzo Tosi, Dizionario delle sentenze latine e greche, ed. Rizzoli (BUR), Milano 1991. No. 992, p. 463.
  102. The dangerous old age: Either I'm worried or something to eat! In: Abendblatt.de . September 25, 2004, accessed February 10, 2015 .
  103. specifically . 3/2006, p. 74: “In truth, the alleged Lübke quote 'Equal goes it loose' [...] is an invention of the Bonn-based Spiegel correspondent Ernst Goyke, known as Ego [...]. In the week after Ego's story, Spiegel editors also wrote all other articles on »Lübke English« under false senders for the magazine's letter to the editor. "
  104. Hamburger Morgenpost
  105. Quoted from Der Greis on Wikisource
  106. Quoted from sabon.org
  107. Aristophanes : The Clouds 195.
  108. Howard Bloom: Know Yourself - Pythagoras, Subcultures, and the Psycho-Bio Circuit. In: heise.de . February 3, 1999, accessed February 10, 2015 .
  109. ^ Quoted from Georg Büchmann : Geflügelte Words , 32nd edition, Berlin 1972, p. 216.
  110. ^ Goethe: Torquato Tasso . II, 1.
  111. ^ "Shot like Robert Blum" ( Memento from February 11, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) In: museenkoeln.de
  112. ^ "The 48ers - using the example of Robert Blum" Lecture at the Volkshochschule Leipzig November 26, 1998 ( Memento from August 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  113. Quoted from: Thomas Leinkauf: Brecht's Dreigroschenoper has celebrated many successes since its premiere: And the shark, it has teeth ... In: berliner-zeitung.de. August 5, 2006, accessed February 10, 2015 .
  114. Quoted from Wissen.de ( Memento from August 14, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  115. Quoted from ingeb.org
  116. Quoted from volksliederarchiv.de
  117. Hans Ermann: Winged melodies . P. 289.
  118. Eckhard John: It will all pass, it will all pass. History of a "stick-through". In: Deutsches Volksliedarchiv, 2005, p. 163, pp. 208–212.
  119. ^ Leonard Henry Courtney: To My Fellow-Disciples at Saratoga Springs , The National Review, London, No. 26, pp. 21-26, 1895, p. 25.
  120. betanien.de
  121. philolex.de
  122. ^ William Shakespeare : Hamlet , 1st act, 5th scene
  123. Hans-Georg Müller : Adleraug und Luchsenohr - German twin formulas and their use. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-631-59764-4 (= Linguistics international, Vol. 22), p. 461.
  124. Quoted from "Bewüt 'Dich Gott ..." - the trumpeter song ( Memento from September 28, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  125. rooster24.com ( Memento from October 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  126. Election campaign: a quarter percent every week . In: Der Spiegel . No. 17 , 1975 ( online ).
  127. ^ Franz Josef Strauss on November 24, 1976 in front of delegates from the Junge Union Bayern
  128. 1949–1979 “If you want to pick up the gun again, your hand should fall off.” (1949) Advertisement // “In Bavaria, democracy is older than the white people in America.” (1951) “Bavaria is going most politically stupid. "(1955)
    “We live in a technical age in which the combined strength of our allies is sufficient to be able to cross the Soviet Union off the map.” (1956) “I am not a conscientious objector, but still not a coward.” (1957) “I I don't even know whether Mr. Brandt has personal weaknesses. But there is still one thing you can be happy about: What did you do outside in the twelve years, how we were asked, what did you do inside in the twelve years. "(1961)
    "It is not an act of revenge": words of the candidate Franz Josef Strauss. In: zeit.de . July 6, 1979. Retrieved February 10, 2015 .
  129. 1 Mos 2 : 18-22  LUT
  130. ^ Titus Livius : Roman history in the Gutenberg-DE project
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  132. ^ Friedrich Schiller : Wilhelm Tell IV, 3.
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  134. ^ Friedrich Schiller : Wilhelm Tell I, 3.
  135. Quoted from volksliederarchiv.de
  136. Quoted from lauritzen-hamburg.de
  137. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe : The Elective Affinities , 11.7.
  138. Spring Fever with virtuosity . Archived from the original on August 18, 2019. Retrieved August 18, 2019.
  139. Elegies in the climb . Archived from the original on August 25, 2019. Retrieved August 18, 2019.
  140. Quoted from ephraimkishon.de
  141. 1 Mos 1,1-5  LUT
  142. Twice it was said: 'Let there be light. '' On: Wissenschaft.de of February 26, 2004.
  143. q: Otto von Bismarck # wrongly attributed .
  144. ^ Salman Rushdie : The nature of truth , Times Daily June 17, 2005.
  145. q: Rudyard Kipling # Incorrectly attributed .
  146. Winston Churchill: The Second World War, Volume V: Closing the Ring (1952), Chapter 21 (Tehran: The Crux), p. 338.
  147. ^ William Shakespeare : Hamlet . 1st act, 4th scene. Quoted from Hamlet / First Act on Wikisource
  148. bizeps.or.at
  149. zuv.uni-heidelberg.de ( Memento from August 4, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  150. ^ Aristophanes : The birds in the Gutenberg-DE project
  151. Quoted from wordpress.com
  152. State Government - Becksteins verstolperter start. In: sueddeutsche.de . May 17, 2010, accessed February 10, 2015 .
  153. Virgil : Aeneid ; XI, 283.
  154. ^ Ovid : Ars amandi , 3, 511.
  155. ^ Bernhard von Clairvaux : Epistle 106.
  156. Cyprian of Carthage : Letters, ep. 73.21.