Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is considered probably the most famous German author who has inspired many others i.e. Nietzsche, Kafka and Beckett. Goethe was poet, playwright and novelist and is considered the greatest literary figure of the modern era in Germany. His notable works are “Faust”, “The Sorrows of Young Werther”, “Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship”, “Italienische Reise”, “Prometheus” amongst many others. “Faust” is considered to be Goethe’s masterpiece and greatest work of German Literature.
Some of his famous quotes:
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”
“Few People have the imagination for reality”.
“The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone”.
“Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen”.
“Love does not dominate, it cultivates”.
“Man is made by his beliefs. As he believes, so he is”.
“Doubt can only be removed by action”.
“Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game”.
“A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart.”
“If you’ve never eaten while crying you don t know what life tastes like.”
“To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking.”

Hermann Karl Hesse, a German -Swiss poet, novelist and painter, is best known for his works such as “Demian”, “Narcissus and Goldmund”, “Steppenwolf”, “Siddhartha”, “The Glass Bead Game”. He was awarded Nobel Prize in 1946 for Literature.
Some of his famous quotes:
“Happiness is a how, not a what. A talent, not an object.”
“If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.”
“If I know what love is, it is because of you.”
“Love of God is not always the same as love of good”.
““Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest.”
“Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours.”
“Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else … Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.”
“Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish.”
“We must become so alone, so utterly alone, that we withdraw into our innermost self. It is a way of bitter suffering. But then our solitude is overcome, we are no longer alone, for we find that our innermost self is the spirit, that it is God, the indivisible. And suddenly we find ourselves in the midst of the world, yet undisturbed by its multiplicity, for our innermost soul we know ourselves to be one with all being.”
“It is not for me to judge another man’s life. I must judge, I must choose, I must spurn, purely for myself. For myself, alone.”
“To hold our tongues when everyone is gossiping, to smile without hostility at people and institutions, to compensate for the shortage of love in the world with more love in small, private matters; to be more faithful in our work, to show greater patience, to forgo the cheap revenge obtainable from mockery and criticism: all these are things we can do. ”

Paul Thomas Mann, a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist was awarded the Nobel prize for Literature in 1929. His notable works are “Buddenbrooks”, “The Magic Mountains”, “Death in Venice”, “Joseph And His Brothers”, “Doctor Faustus”. His great work Buddenbrooks has won recognition as one of the classic works of contemporary literature.
Some of his famous quotes:
“A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”
“A harmful truth is better than a useful lie.”
“If you are possessed by an idea, you find it expressed everywhere, you even smell it.”
“It is a strange fact that freedom and equality, the two basic ideas of democracy, are to some extent contradictory. Logically considered, freedom and equality are mutually exclusive, just as society and the individual are mutually exclusive.”
“What a wonderful phenomenon it is, carefully considered, when the human eye, that jewel of organic structures, concentrates its moist brilliance on another human creature!”
“Opinions cannot survive if one has no chance to fight for them.”

“For the sake of goodness and love, man shall let death have no sovereignty over his thoughts.”
“I never can understand how anyone can not smoke – it deprives a man of the best part of life. With a good cigar in his mouth a man is perfectly safe, nothing can touch him, literally.”
“The writer’s joy is the thought that can become emotion, the emotion that can wholly become a thought.”
“The task of a writer consists of being able to make something out of an idea.”
“A man lives not only his personal life, as an individual, but also, consciously or unconsciously, the life of his epoch and his contemporaries.”

Günter Wilhelm Grass is best known for his first novel “The Tin Drum”. It was the first book of his “Danzig Trilogy”, the other two are “Cat and Mouse” and “Dog Years”. Günter Grass was a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999.
Some of his famous quotes:
“Translation is that which transforms everything so that nothing changes.”
“And when the sun goes down and the mood comes upon me, I’ll watch the play of the colors on the water, yield to the fleetly dissolving images, and turn into pure feeling, all soft and nice. ”
“What did the onion juice do? It did what the world and the sorrows of the world could not do: it brought forth a round, human tear. It made them cry. At last, they could cry again. To cry properly, without restraint, to cry like mad. The tears flowed and washed everything away. The rain came. The dew. Oskar has a vision of floodgates opening. Of dams bursting in the spring floods. What is the name of that river that overflows every spring and the government does nothing to stop it?”
“What more shall I say: born under light bulbs, deliberately stopped growing at age of three, given drum, sang glass to pieces, smelled vanilla, coughed in churches, observed ants, decided to grow, buried drum, emigrated to the West, lost the East, learned stonecutter’s trade, worked as model, started drumming again, visited concrete, made money, kept finger, gave finger away, fled laughing, rode up escalator, arrested, convicted, sent to mental hospital, soon to be acquitted, celebrating this day my thirtieth birthday and still afraid of the Black Witch.”
“Even bad books are books and therefore sacred.”
“As a child I was a great liar. Fortunately, my mother liked my lies. I promised her marvellous things.”
“The job of a citizen is to keep his mouth open.”
“I have often supported Israel; I have often visited the country and want the country to exist and at last find peace with its neighbours.”
“For me, writing, drawing, and political activism are three separate pursuits; each has its own intensity. I happen to be especially attuned to and engaged with the society in which I live. Both my writing and my drawing are invariably mixed up with politics, whether I want them to be or not.”
“Homeland is something one becomes aware of only through its loss.”

“Often I had to imagine the things I needed. I learned very early to read amidst noise. And so I started writing and drawing at an early age.”

Erich Maria Remarque, born Erich Paul Remark, is one of the best known and most widely read authors of German literature in the twentieth century. He is the author of the great World War I novel All Quiet on the Western Front. This novel was an international best-seller and adopted into a film of the same name.
Some of his famous quotes:
“It’s only terrible to have nothing to wait for.”
“Life did not intend to make us perfect. Whoever is perfect belongs in a museum.”
“We have our dreams because without them we could not bear the truth.”
“But probably that’s the way of the world – when we have finally learned something we’re too old to apply it – and so it goes, wave after wave, generation after generation. No one learns anything at all from anyone else.”
“You may turn into an archangel, a fool, or a criminal—no one will see it. But when a button is missing—everyone sees that.”
“Life is a disease, brother, and death begins already at birth. Every breath, every heartbeat, is a moment of dying – a little shove toward the end.”
“Courage is the fairest adornment of youth.”
“Never do anything complicated when something simple will serve as well. It’s one of the most important secrets of living.”
“No soldier outlives a thousand chances. But every soldier believes in Chance and trusts his luck.”
“Good or ill, life is life; you only realize that when you have to risk it.”
“It’s no shame to be born stupid. Only to die stupid.”

Franz Kafka, a German speaking Bohemian novelist and short stories writer, is regarded widely as one of the major figures of 20th century literature. Some of his notable works are “The Trial- Der Process”, “The Metamorphosis- Die Verwandlung”, “The Judgement-Das Urteil” etc.
Some of his famous quotes:
“Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.”
“Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.”
“Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.”
“Paths are made by walking”
“By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.”
“Better to have, and not need, than to need, and not have.”
“First impressions are always unreliable.”
“My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.”
“Sleep is the most innocent creature there is and a sleepless man the most guilty.”
“Yours (now I’m even losing my name – it was getting shorter and shorter all the time and is now: Yours)”
“Writing is a deeper sleep than death. Just as one wouldn’t pull a corpse from its grave, I can’t be dragged from my desk at night.”

Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller was a German playwright, poet, and philosopher. His notable works are “The Robbers”, “Don Carlos”, “Wallenstein Trilogy”, “Mary Stuart”, “Ode to Joy”, “William Tell”. Schiller’s philosophical work was particularly concerned with the question of human freedom and his belief was that art, rather than religion, plays a central role in the moral education of an individual.
Some of his famous quotes:
“He who has done his best for his own time has lived for all times.”
“Honesty prospers in every condition of life.”
“Art is the right hand of Nature. The latter has only given us being, the former has made us men.”
“Be noble minded! Our own heart, and no other men’s opinions of us, forms our true honour.”
“Nothing leads to good that is not natural.”
“In the society, where people are just parts in a larger machine, individuals are unable to develop fully.”
“It does not prove a thing to be right because the majority say it is so.”
“Votes should be weighed not counted.”
“Worthless is the nation that does not gladly stake its all on its honour.”
“To save all we must risk all.”
“It hinders the creative work of the mind if the intellect examines too closely the ideas as they pour in.”