Ernst Toller Quotes
Ernst Toller Quotes
- 1
And suddenly, like light in darkness, the real truth broke in upon me; the simple fact of Man, which I had forgotten, which had lain deep buried and out of sight; the idea of community, of unity.
Ernst-TollerErnst Toller
- 2
As a boy I used to go to the Chamber of Horrors at the annual fair, to look at the wax figures of Emperors and Kings, of heroes and murderers of the day. The dead now had that same unreality, which shocks without arousing pity.
Ernst-TollerErnst Toller
- 3
At that moment of realization I knew that I had been blind because I had wished not to see; it was only then that I realised, at last, that all these dead men, French and Germans, were brothers, and I was the brother of them all.
Ernst-TollerErnst Toller
- 4
But before my transfer came through I fell ill. Heart and stomach both broke down, and I was sent back to hospital in Strassburg.
Ernst-TollerErnst Toller
- 5
Gradually I became aware of details: a company of French soldiers was marching through the streets of the town. They broke formation, and went in single file along the communication trench leading to the front line. Another group followed them.
Ernst-TollerErnst Toller
- 6
How happy I am to go to the front at last. To do my bit. To prove with my life what I think I feel.
Ernst-TollerErnst Toller
- 7
I saw the dead without really seeing them.
Ernst-TollerErnst Toller
- 8
I was at the front for thirteen months, and by the end of that time the sharpest perceptions had become dulled, the greatest words mean.
Ernst-TollerErnst Toller
- 9
In a quiet Franciscan monastery kind and silent monks looked after me. After many weeks I was discharged. Unfit for further service.
Ernst-TollerErnst Toller
- 10
Later we learned that it was one of our own men hanging on the wire. Nobody could do anything for him; two men had already tried to save him, only to be shot themselves.
Ernst-TollerErnst Toller
- 11
Most people have no imagination. If they could imagine the sufferings of others, they would not make them suffer so. What separated a German mother from a French mother?
Ernst-TollerErnst Toller
- 12
My hands shook and my heart pounded wildly. The air was filled with a sudden high-pitched whine, and a brown cloud of dust dimmed my field of vision.
Ernst-TollerErnst Toller
- 13
My head was in a whirl, and I was trembling with excitement, surrendered to the passion of the moment like a gambler, like a hunter.
Ernst-TollerErnst Toller
- 14
The French got enough from the Germans to save them from starvation; but many a woman sold herself for a loaf or a chunk of sausage.
Ernst-TollerErnst Toller
- 15
The revolution is like a vessel filled with the pulsating heartbeat of millions of working people.
Ernst-TollerErnst Toller
- 16
The working class will not halt until socialism has been realized.
Ernst-TollerErnst Toller
- 17
We revolutionaries acknowledge the right to revolution when we see that the situation is no longer tolerable, that it has become a frozen. Then we have the right to overthrow it.
Ernst-TollerErnst Toller
- 18
We thrust our fingers into our ears to stop its moan; but it was no good; the cry cut like a drill into our heads, dragging minutes into hours, hours into years. We withered and grew old between those cries.
Ernst-TollerErnst Toller
