- Those who don't study the past will repeat its mistakes. Those who do study it will find other ways to do something wrong.
- Ever since planes have existed, distant relatives are no longer what they used to be.
- The constitutional state doesn't have to win, it also doesn't have to lose, it has to exist!
- Humans will always smoke.
- Those who have visions should go see a doctor.
- [Bonn is] a sad joke as the German capital, but reality.
- There isn't just a deficit in perspective at Wall Street, there is also a moral deficit there.
- Nothing great will be achieved at summit conferences, but they prevent worse things from happening.
- Markets are just like parachutes, they only work if they are open.
- Intellectuals can talk about everything, but very few of them can actually do something.
- Those who don't talk won't be heard.
- [to the head waiter at Hotel Atlantic in Hamburg after reading the menu which featured dishes such as lobster and truffled pigeons] Do you also offer anything edible here? [He ended up ordering Labskaus.]
- Determination is what you need. And cigarettes.
- Honesty doesn't demand saying everything you think. Honesty only demands not saying anything that you don't actually think.
- We have a use for everyone here, even if only as a cautionary tale.
- Back then businesses needed daring and a sense of proportion. Nowadays, they need market research and advertising agencies.
- Politicians should be role models in their field, but not in all aspects of their lives. That would be asking for too much.
- I never tried to quit smoking, I'm not crazy after all.
- The stupidity of governments should never be underestimated.
- [parliamentary speech] I wondered what might have caused this, especially if I remember the Chancellor's nervous performance at the same time yesterday. [heckling] He was nervous, wasn't he? Do you think this was him at his best? [laughter] I wondered what might have caused this and I... [a member of the Bundestag accuses Schmidt of being a sore loser] I haven't yet... I am only just getting started, why should I have lost already?
- And sensible it is, [I know that because] I wrote that thing myself, 20 years ago.
- Of course we are allowed to keep our differing opinions, aren't we? And if you would talk the way I did this evening, more people would realize that even more quickly.
- If you want me to, I will do pirouettes in the wheelchair.
- I was supposedly already loquacious as a child. I still am today, I still talk a little too much.
- I have never tended to think about myself much. I was rather reckless in the way I treated my body, and my abilities as well.
- It was a difficult year [1981], but it wasn't the only difficult year.
- Music played a very large role for me. It was music that made my soul recover from all kinds of tribulations and laboriousness, and the only personal tragedy that I experienced was the loss of music by means of the loss of hearing. I cannot hear music anymore nowadays.
- I was deeply moved when the [Berlin] Wall fell. I had always known that one day there will be a chance in Europe to bring both German postwar states under the same roof again, but I had not expected I would still personally witness it. Now this event came, and it almost overwhelmed me.
- Snail pace is the normal pace of every democracy.
- Those who want to become politicians at the age of 18 can go hang.
- [on being addressed as "Herr Bundeskanzler"/"Mr. Chancellor"] Schmidt, not Chancellor. Address me as Schmidt.
- In this republic there are smoking bans in so many places. You don't seriously believe I care about them.
- When on a diet, what you lose first is your patience.
- In the long run, every politician will physically look like what he is like as a person.
- [asked if he ever considered moving from his longtime home in Hamburg-Langenhorn to parts of the city that are regarded as particularly beautiful, i.e. close to the rivers Elbe or Alster] Nah, they were too posh for my liking.
- [on having described himself as a fairly lazy student, and the controversy such statements can cause in the age of the PISA student assessment and such] You are allowed to say that. Students are also allowed to be lazy if they achieve something otherwise.
- [on how he reacted to the Lichtwarkschule, which he attended from age 10, being much less strict than his previous school] I was being cheeky.
- [on people lacking general knowledge and failing to improve even if they are attending universities] If someone cannot muster the thirst for knowledge and strength to do so during their lifetime, I cannot help them. Unfortunately, they then won't be taught that by spending long years attending universities either.
- As a young man I was very athletic. With the exception of skiing, which was too expensive for someone from Hamburg, I participated in almost everything: Athletics, handball, football/soccer, rowing, sailing.
- Mr Kohl [Helmut Kohl], you are talking about things you evidently didn't understand.
- [Interviewer: How much do you still smoke?] Not a lot anymore. Depending on how many visitors I have during the day... 1 1/2 packs.
- [1971; on issuing the "Hairnet Decree" as Defense Minister, which permitted Bundeswehr recruits to wear their hair long on the condition that they wear hairnets if their work and safety might be impaired by their hairstyles] Unfortunately, it is part of the classic legacy of European military tradition that the physical appearance has always been regarded as more important than the inner values.
- I don't know enough about that. I am not able to judge that.
- Nothing in this world is inevitable, apart from the day-night cycle.
- If I thought it was necessary, I would be able to quit [smoking] tomorrow.
- I was never curious about weird food. No, no. I like pea soup and stuff like that.
- [on volume two of the biography "Helmut Schmidt, Macht und Verantwortung" and how only 10 out of the 40 pictures in this book show him smoking] That can't be; this is a smoke-free trivialization.
- Libraries are the mental petrol stations of the nation.
- [on his famous "visions" quote] It was a snotty reply to a daft question.
- [Sandra Maischberger asking if he has already tried out electronic menthol cigarettes] I never tried them. [...] Why should I commit follies?
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