Heinrich Heine ( 13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was a German poet, writer and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of lieder by composers such as Robert Schumann and Franz Schubert.

Heine's later verse and prose are distinguished by their satirical wit and irony. He was part of the Young Germany movement. His radical political views led to many of his works being banned by German authorities. He spent the last 25 years of his life as an expatriate in Paris.

Heine's Buch der Lieder was a collection of already published poems. No one expected it to become one of the most popular books of German verse ever published. The poem "Allnächtlich im Traume" was set to music by Robert Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn.

Starting from the mid-1820s, Heine distanced himself from Romanticism by adding irony, sarcasm, and satire into his poetry, and making fun of the sentimental-romantic awe of nature and of figures of speech in contemporary poetry and literature.

In October 1843, Heine's distant relative and German revolutionary, Karl Marx arrived in Paris after the Prussian government had suppressed Marx's radical newspaper. Marx was an admirer of Heine and his early writings show Heine's influence.

Heine published several poems,including Die schlesischen Weber,in Marx's new journal Vorwärts. Ultimately Heine's ideas of revolution through sensual emancipation and Marx's scientific socialism were incompatible, but both writers shared the same lack of faith in the bourgeoisie.

Heine did not share Marx's faith in the industrial proletariat and remained on the fringes of socialist circles. Heine always had mixed feelings about communism. He believed its radicalism and materialism would destroy much of the European culture that he loved and admired.

“Where shall I, the wander-wearied,
Find my haven and my shrine?
Under palms will I be buried?
Under lindens on the Rhine?
...
Well, what matter! God has given
Wider spaces there than here.
And the stars that swing in heaven
Shall be lamps above my bier.”

~ Where?, H. Heine

Among the thousands of books burned on Berlin's Opernplatz in 1933,were works by Heine. To commemorate the event, one of the famous lines of Heine was engraved in the ground at the site: "Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bücher verbrennt,verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen."

“That was but a prelude; where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people as well.”
~ H. Heine

In 1835, 98 years before Hitler seized power in Germany, Heine wrote in his essay "The History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany":

“Christianity – and that is its greatest merit – has somewhat mitigated that brutal Germanic love of war, but it could not destroy it...”

H. Heine, 1835

Statue of Lorelei; the Lorelei Fountain – Heine Memorial – is located in the Bronx, New York City

"When the heroes go off the stage, the clowns come on."
~ Heinrich Heine

"The more i get to know people, the more i like dogs."
~ Heinrich Heine

"Experience is a good school. But the fees are high."
~ Heinrich Heine

"The men of the past had convictions, while we moderns have only opinions."
~ Heinrich Heine

"God will forgive me. It's his job."
~ Heinrich Heine

"The deepest truth blooms only from the deepest love."
~ Heinrich Heine

"A brainiac notices everything, an ignoramus comments about everything."
~ Heinrich Heine

"Where words leave off, music begins."
~ Heinrich Heine

"My heart resembles the ocean; has storm, and ebb and flow; and many a beautiful pearl lies hid in its depths below."
~ Heinrich Heine

"Whether a revolution succeeds or fails people of great hearts will always be sacrificed to it."
~ Heinrich Heine

"Money is the god of our time, and Rothschild is his prophet."
~ Heinrich Heine

"I pursue the good in life because it is beautiful and attracts me; and shun the bad because it is ugly and repulsive. All our acts should originate from the spring of unselfish love, whether there be a continuation after death or not."
~ Heinrich Heine

"I bequeath all my property to my wife on the condition that she remarry immediately. Then there will be at least one man to regret my death."
~ Heinrich Heine

"Sleep is good, death is better; but of course, the best thing would to have never been born at all."
~ Heinrich Heine

"Like a great poet, Nature produces the greatest results with the simplest means. These are simply a sun, trees, flowers, water and love."
~ Heinrich Heine

"It is extremely difficult for a Jew to be converted, for how can he bring himself to believe in the divinity of - another Jew?"
~ Heinrich Heine

"True eloquence consists in saying all that is necessary, and nothing but what is necessary."
~ Heinrich Heine

“The highest conception of the lyric poet was given to me by Heinrich Heine. I seek in vain in all the realms of millennia for an equally sweet and passionate music. He possessed that divine malice without which I cannot imagine perfection...”
~ Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo

“... And how he employs German! It will one day be said that Heine and I have been by far the first artists of the German language.”
~ Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo