Top 1200 German People Quotes & Sayings

Explore popular German People quotes.
Last updated on April 15, 2025.
There is nothing false or arrogant about German pride in German technical and business skills.
I speak in the name of the entire German people when I assure the world that we all share the honest wish to eliminate the enmity that brings far more costs than any possible benefits. It would be a wonderful thing for all of humanity if both peoples would renounce force against each other forever. The German people are ready to make such a pledge.
German economic salvation has been brought about solely through the efforts of the German people and the experience they have gained. Countries abroad have contributed nothing to this.
My grandparents were born in England but spoke German and had a German name. — © Rick Stein
My grandparents were born in England but spoke German and had a German name.
Frankly, I do not like the idea of conversations to define the term "unconditional surrender."The German people can have dinned into their ears what I said in my Christmas Eve speech--in effect, that we have no thought of destroying the German people and that we want them to live through the generations like other European peoples on condition, of course, that they get rid of their present philosophy of conquest.
Though German art can never be Bavarian, but simply German, yet Munich is the capital of this German Art; here, under shelter of a Prince who kindles my enthusiasm, to feel myself a native and member of the people was, to me, the homeless wanderer, a deep, a genuine need.
My wife is German, so I know something about German energy policy.
As a German citizen, as a German professor, and as a political person, I hold it to be not only my right but also my moral duty to take part in the shaping of our German destiny, to expose and oppose obvious wrongs.
I must say to you that my intensions for instance doing German, it is because Victoria de los Angeles is nothing to do with wanting to be like a German singer.
With every wish to take Europe forward with a German-French nucleus, the proposals must always fit with German interests.
We have made it possible, without gold and without foreign exchange, to maintain the value of the German mark. Behind the German mark stands the German capacity for work, while some foreign countries, suffocated by gold, have been compelled to devalue their currencies.
I did that all the more, if I may say so, because I was aware of the fact that there is an inclination to go to extremes in German people, and in the German character generally.
In order to pass the time I told him the story of the German who ate the other German whom he’d met on the internet.
Donald Trump is the grandson of German immigrants. Don't worry. The last time a German guy with crazy hair took over a country, everything turned out fine.
More particularly, having a largely German-oriented education has made me very responsive to 19th-century German literature. — © John le Carre
More particularly, having a largely German-oriented education has made me very responsive to 19th-century German literature.
I studied German at school. I lived in Berlin for two years and had a German girlfriend for five years, so I don't find speaking German particularly difficult. Singing was slightly more difficult.
Religion and race belong together. German man can only assimilate religious faith and religious thought with a German mind and in a German way. We must not think we can come to God except through our Volk....Wherever our blood rises in protest we act immorally, even though others may try to prove it to be moral.
America took me into her bosom when there was no longer a country worthy of the name, but in my heart I am German - German in my soul.
I have always been in favor of a healthy Americanization, but that does not mean a complete disavowal of our German heritage. It means that our character should take on the best of that which is American, and combine it with the best of that which is German. By doing this, we can best serve the American people and their civilization.
I call on God Almighty to have mercy on the German people. More than two million German soldiers went to their death for the fatherland before me. I follow now my sons - all for Germany.
I definitely won't play the bad German, the Nazi German, here in Hollywood or wherever.
From a German point of view, German-American and European-American relations are a pillar of our foreign policy.
Hitler was no inexorable product of a German 'special path', no logical culmination of long-term trends in specifically German culture and ideology. Nor was he a mere 'accident' in the course of German history.
I will employ my strength for the welfare of the German people, protect the Constitution and laws of the German people, conscientiously discharge the duties imposed on me, and conduct my affairs of office impartially and with justice to everyone.
Americans and British respondents don't want to let the German people off the hook. They make the case that if you get rid of Hitler, some other leader apart from Hitler would have emerged and, because of the structural constant of German nationalism, would have exploited German national feeling and produce the same kind of events no matter what.
The German people of today bear no guilt. Why are the German people not permitted the right to defend themselves? Why are the crimes of one group emphasized so greatly, instead of highlighting the great German cultural heritage? Why should the Germans not have the right to express their opinion freely?
German militarism and Nazism have devastated twice in our generation the lands of German neighbors.
When Thomas Mann arrived in California from Germany, they asked him about German literature. And he said, 'German literature is where I am.' It's really a bit grand, but if a German can afford it, I can afford it.
One day I heard a speech of Hitler. In this speech he said that the German factory worker and the German labourer must make common cause with the German intellectual worker.
Half of us are partly German! Half our language and culture, generally, in Anglo-Saxon terms, is German.
People stopped calling themselves Freethinkers because it was so specifically German and anything German was terribly unpopular because of the two world wars. My family became Unitarians instead - it's the same sort of thing.
The film [the white Ribbon] does try to use German Fascism as an example, but not specifically Fascism... the results of German Fascism. It shows how people are prepared or indoctrinated for an ideology... people who are already in a state of repression who have been humiliated by society and who clasp at a straw that's offered to them. And how that's then developed into a form of indoctrination.
Einstein was attending a music salon in Germany before the second world war, with the violinist S. Suzuki. Two Japanese women played a German piece of music and a woman in the audience exclaimed: "How wonderful! It sounds so German!" Einstein responded: "Madam, people are all the same."
German has always felt the language that I come back to. It's given a very hard time by most people for being ugly and guttural. In fact, it's one of the most melodic, lyrical languages around. And German literature is amazing. It's just a treasury for me.
what is a german? to say a man is a german, what is that? does it tell you if he is a good man? or a bad man? no, my friend, it tells you nothing about a man to say he is german. a man must think what he is inside. what he is on the outside, how can this matter?
Today, for a Jew who writes in the German language, it is totally impossible to make a living. In no group do I see as much misery, disappointment, desperation and hopelessness as in Jewish writers who write in German.
But as a German - and I am German-born - we Germans are condemned once again to be radical revisionists.
All German women are beautiful. It's not for nothing that we talk of the German "Fräuleinwunder." You don't get this word in any other language.
Against the vast majority of my countrymen, even at this moment, in the name of humanity and civilization, I protest against our share in the destruction of Germany. A month ago Europe was a peaceful comity of nations; if an Englishman killed a German, he was hanged. Now, if an Englishman kills a German, or if a German kills an Englishman, he is a patriot, who has deserved well of his country.
Jacob is a German Shepherd. (I have never understood why they aren't called German Sheepdogs. What do the Germans call shepherds?) — © Alan Coren
Jacob is a German Shepherd. (I have never understood why they aren't called German Sheepdogs. What do the Germans call shepherds?)
Developments since the rise of National Socialism make it probable that the continent will be freed from its Jewish destroyers of people and exploiters forever, and the German example after the German victory in World War II will also serve to bring about the destruction of the Jewish world tormentors on other continents.
There is something very powerful about German music. That's why I chose German music with a European meaning for the day of my election.
The Haavara agreement allowed the escape of well-to-do German Jews in exchange for the liquidation of their property and the purchase and export of German goods to break the boycott of Germany's Nazi-controlled economy.
German is more familiar now since I live part of the year in Rome and part in the German part of Switzerland. But it's not difficult to sing in German; it's difficult to feel in German. This takes time. It's a culture.
My grandmother was German. She didn't teach any of her children German. She really wanted them to be American. And now, she's since passed away, I get so frustrated sometimes. I'm like, "Oh, Oma, why didn't you teach your kids German?" My dad would have spoken German to me from birth, and I would have spoken German.
I always thought those World War II films with German people speaking English with German accents was weird.
It's up to [Angela Merkel] whether she wants to stand again and then ultimately, it'll be up to the German people to decide what the future holds. If I were here and I were German and I had a vote, I might support her.
Should the German people lay down their arms, the Soviets... would occupy all eastern and south-eastern Europe, together with the greater part of the [German] Reich. All over this territory, which would be of an enormous extent, an iron curtain would at once descend.
Eddie Izzard is doing his show in French... Will he be able to fake ad-lib as well in other languages? He's been speaking French for a while now, but he's talking about doing his act in German. Haven't the German people suffered enough?
When has there ever been a government in German history that came to the people and revealed its detailed plans for the coming years? That could not happen before, since German governments planned war and conquest.
Do not count the days, do not count the miles. Count only the Germans you have killed. Kill the German - this is your old mother's prayer. Kill the German - this is what your children beseech you to do. Kill the German - this is the cry of your Russian earth. Do not waver. Do not let up. Kill.
No other German writer of comparable stature has been a more extreme critic of German nationalism than Nietzsche. — © Walter Kaufmann
No other German writer of comparable stature has been a more extreme critic of German nationalism than Nietzsche.
I'm into all things German. Everything that I own is German. As far as cars go, anyway.
As Fuehrer of the German people and Chancellor of the Reich, I can thank God at this moment that he has so wonderfully blessed us in our hard struggle for what is our right, and beg Him that we and all other nations may find the right way, so that not only the German people but all Europe may once more be granted the blessing of peace.
After 15 years of work I have achieved, as a common German soldier and merely with my fanatical willpower, the unity of the German nation, and have freed it from the death sentence of Versailles.
The larger the German body, the smaller the German bathing suit and the louder the German voice issuing German demands and German orders to everybody who doesn't speak German. For this, and several other reasons, Germany is known as 'the land where Israelis learned their manners'.
I feel very German - and who can make himself a judge over what is German and what is not - in my ideas and the ideas of my spiritual brothers of German origin.
My father read Günter Grass. He introduced me to German literature. I believe the first book I read by a German author was from Grass. After that, Thomas Mann accompanied me for a few years during my literature studies. I tried again and again to read the original German text, but I never really succeeded.
There is a denial of the value of the individual. Christianity affirms the value of each individual soul. Nazism denies it. The individual is sacrificed to the idol of the German Leader, German State or the German race. The ordinary citizen is allowed to hear and think only as the rulers decree.
And another thing about German symphonic development. I tell you, our cold kvass soup is a horror to the Germans, and yet we eat it with pleasure. And their cold cherry soup is a horror to us, and yet it sends a German into ecstacy. In short, symphonic development is just like German philosophy and soup-all worked out and systematized. When a German thinks, he reasons his way to a conclusion. Our Russian brother, on the other hand, starts with a conclusion and then might amuse himself with some reasoning.
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