Ernst Toller Quotes

• Each had defended his own country; the Germans Germany, the Frenchmen France; they had done their duty.

  Ernst Toller

  Topics in Country

  Tags in Duty

• Slogans which deafened us so that we could not hear the truth.

  Ernst Toller

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Slogans

• 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 Toller

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Annual, Fair

• Soldiers and peasants lived together on friendly terms; they knew each other and their everyday routines, and trusted each other; they shook their heads together over the war.

  Ernst Toller

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Soldiers, Friendly, Trusted

• 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 Toller

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in French, Soldiers, Parade

• And the spirit of revolution will not die while the hearts of these workers continue to beat.

  Ernst Toller

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Workers, Revolution

• 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 Toller

  Topics in Truth

  Tags in Real

• After that I could never pass a dead man without stopping to gaze on his face, stripped by death of that earthly patina which masks the living soul. And I would ask, who were you? Where was your home? Who is mourning for you now?

  Ernst Toller

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Man, Serious, Questioning

• 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 Toller

  Topics in Life

  Tags in Feel, Happy

• 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 Toller

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Men, Hanging, Save

• I saw the dead without really seeing them.

  Ernst Toller

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Dead

• 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 Toller

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Revolution, Situation

• The working class will not halt until socialism has been realized.

  Ernst Toller

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Working, Socialism

• The revolution is like a vessel filled with the pulsating heartbeat of millions of working people.

  Ernst Toller

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Revolution, Working, Millions

• 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 Toller

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Ears, Fingers

Ernst Toller (15)

Birth:	1st December, 1893
Death:	22nd May, 1939
Nationality:	German
Profession:	Playwright

About

Ernst Toller was born in Samotschin, Posen, Prussia. He was a German left-wing playwright, best known for his Expressionist plays. He served in 1919 for six days as President of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic, and was imprisoned for five years for his actions. In 2000, several of his plays were published in an English translation. He wrote several plays include: transformation, Masses Man, The Machine Wreckers, Hinkemann, Oops, We're Alive!, The Fires, Letters from prison, and Mary Baker Eddy.

Related Authors

• Ann-Marie MacDonald
• César Vallejo
• Carlo Goldoni
• Gordon Bottomley
• Enid Bagnold
• Jean Giraudoux
• Isaac Bickerstaffe
• Thulani Davis
• Harvey Fierstein
• Delia Ephron

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 20th January

Births

• 1879 - Ruth St. Denis
• 1944 - Nancy Chodorow
• 1951 - Shelley Berkley
• 1964 - Fareed Rafiq Zakaria
• 1804 - Eugene Sue

Deaths

• 1990 - Barbara Stanwyck
• 1867 - Nathaniel Parker Willis
• 1962 - Robinson Jeffers
• 1989 - Beatrice Lillie
• 2011 - Reynolds Price