Markus Wolf famous quotes

One person can take papers, photograph them without getting excited, return them, and give them away without any scruples; while someone else has to overcome an enormous obstacle.
-- Markus Wolf

#Giving #Paper #Return

The particular feature of Berlin - well, all you need to do is look at the map: the geographical position of the city right in the heart of Europe, and the separation of the most powerful two blocs we've ever had in history, which went all the way through Germany.
-- Markus Wolf

#Powerful #Heart #Europe

There were some tragic cases of women whose love was abused, who for a certain time procured important documents or information, not knowing who for, what service they worked for, and for a variety reasons got jailed, were tried and sentenced.
-- Markus Wolf

#Love #Knowing #Important

I feel that I, and the people under my command, tried to use all the traditional methods of recruiting agents which were also used by other intelligence services; adopting also means like pressure, money, sex - but that did not characterize my service.
-- Markus Wolf

#Money #Sex #Mean

I tried to instill a different motivation, to give them the security and the conviction that they were doing something good, something necessary, something useful - if you want to use a grandiose expression, that they were doing something for peace.
-- Markus Wolf

#Motivation #Expression #Giving

Making use of human weaknesses in intelligence work is a logical matter. It keeps coming up, and of course you try to look at all the aspects that interest you in a human being.
-- Markus Wolf

#Work #Trying #Use

At our college we were taught a universal approach to find out about a person: what problems the person has, what difficulties, what personal tendencies and likings.
-- Markus Wolf

#College #Taught #Problem

You can't do anything if a person says no. In such a case, there's nothing you can do - unlike the popular cliche that pressure is exerted, or that maybe an unwilling source is done away with.
-- Markus Wolf

#Pressure #Done #Cliche

A diary need not be a dreary chronicle of one's movements; it should aim rather at giving salient account of some particular episode, a walk, a book, a conversation.

Give me a land of boughs in leaf A land of trees that stand; Where trees are fallen there is grief; I love no leafless land.

There is a certain indolence in us, a wish not to be disturbed, which tempts us to think that when things are quiet, all is well. Subconsciously, we tend to give the preference to 'social peace,' though it be only apparent, because our lives and possessions seem then secure. Actually, human beings acquiesce too easily in evil conditions; they rebel far too little and too seldom. There is nothing noble about acquiescence in a cramped life or mere submission to superior force.

Of course, relative citation frequencies are no measure of relative importance. Who has not aspired to write a paper so fundamental that very soon it is known to everyone and cited by no one?

Love, like light, is a thing that is enacted better than defined: we know it afterward by the traces it leaves on paper.

Just how do I design if not with prototyping? An excellent question. The short answer is 'on paper.'

Leave not a foot of verse, a foot of stone, A Page, a Grave, that they can call their own; But spread, my sons, your glory thin or thick, On passive paper, or on solid brick.

I enjoy looking at words on paper and visualizing how to make them come to life. As a director, the creative process is really amazing.

Things go away to return, brightened for the passage

Trust God in the dark until the light returns.