Quote of the Day (Heinrich Heine, on How ‘Dark Times are Rumbling Toward Us’)

“Wild, dark times are rumbling toward us, and the prophet who wishes to write a new apocalypse will have to invent entirely new beasts, and beasts so terrible that the ancient animal symbols of St. John will seem like cooing doves and cupids in comparison.”—German poet Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), Lutetia; or, Paris. From the Augsberg Gazette, 12, VII (1842)

Song Lyric of the Day (Yip Harburg, on the Dour Profits of Genius)

"Mozart died a pauper

Heine lived in dread

Foster died in Bellevue

Homer begged for bread

Genius pays off handsomely—

After you are dead.” —Lyricist E. Y. (Yip) Harburg (The Wizard of Oz), quoted in “Good Vibrations: Sarah Ruhl and ‘Finian’s Rainbow’ Score,” The New Yorker, November 30, 2008

Quote of the Day (Heinrich Heine, on His Dog and His Friends)

“A dog you are, a dog who

   Conducts himself as such.

All of my other friends, alas,

   Disguise themselves too much.”—Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), from “I Love You, Little Mopser,” in Poems of Heinrich Heine, selected and translated by Louis Untermeyer (1957)

(Portrait of the poet by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, 1831)