"In history as in human life, regret does not bring back a lost moment and a thousand years will not recover something lost in a single hour."
"Decisive inventions and discoveries always are initiated by an intellectual or moral stimulus as their actual motivating force, but, usually, the final impetus to human action is given by material impulses ... merchants stood as a driving force behind the heroes of the age of discovery; this first heroic impulse to conquer the world emanated from very mortal forces"
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Source: Stefan Zweig (1955). “Stories and Legends”
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"Time to leave now, get out of this room, go somewhere, anywhere; sharpen this feeling of happiness and freedom, stretch your limbs, fill your eyes, be awake, wider awake, vividly awake in every sense and every pore."
"Truth to tell, we are all criminals if we remain silent."
"It is never until one realizes that one means something to others that one feels there is any point or purpose in one's own existence."
"Freedom is not possible without authority - otherwise it would turn into chaos and authority is not possible without freedom - otherwise it would turn into tyranny."
"All I know is that I shall be alone again. There is nothing more terrible than to be alone among human beings."