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Today's Document
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Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
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YOU ARE THE REASON
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@thatswhywelovegermany
Der Inbegriff aller Rechte ist die Persönlichkeit, und es ist die erste und höchste Pflicht des Staates, diese an seinen Bürgern zu schützen.
Personality is the embodiment of all rights, and it is the first and highest duty of the state to protect it in its citizens.
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1862 – 1814), German educator and philosopher
Sie ist vom Storch ins Bein gebissen worden.
literally: She was bitten in the leg by the stork.
She is (unintentionally) pregnant.
When sex education was still taboo, children were told that babies were brought by storks. (Storks carry live frogs, which wriggle like babies, as prey in their beaks back to the nest.)
Die Selbstsucht ist die Wurzel aller anderen Verderbtheit.
Selfishness is the root of all other depravity.
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762 – 1814), German educator and philosopher
jemandem Stolpersteine in den Weg legen
literally: to put stumbling stones in someone's path
Erecting or organizing obstacles to someone's plans or activities in order to make the undertaking more difficult, delay it, or prevent it entirely.
Laß dich nicht von den Umständen leiten, laß nicht deine Seele die Farbe der Gegenstände annehmen, die dich umgeben.
Do not let yourself be guided by circumstances; do not let your soul take on the color of the objects that surround you.
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762 – 1814), German educator and philosopher
einen Stier zu melken versuchen
literally: to try to milk a bull
attempting something impossible with superficial knowledge or blind ignorance
Origin: The crucial difference between cow and bull remains unnoticed (possibly even deliberately so).
Ein falscher Satz wird gewöhnlich durch einen ebenso falschen Gegensatz verdrängt, erst spät findet man die in der Mitte liegende Wahrheit.
A false statement is usually supplanted by an equally false opposite; it is only later that one discovers the truth that lies in between.
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762 – 1814), German educator and philosopher
einen Stich haben
literally: to have a sting / stab
to be not be quite right in the head, to have strange ideas
Origin: Possibly originating from sunstroke.
Ein falscher Satz wird gewöhnlich durch einen ebenso falschen Gegensatz verdrängt, erst spät findet man die in der Mitte liegende Wahrheit.
A false proposition is usually displaced by an equally false opposite; only later does one find the truth that lies in the middle.
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762 – 1814), German educator and philosopher
jemanden im Stich lassen
literally: to leave someone in the stab / sting
to let someone down, to abandon someone in danger
Origin: Possibly originating from the language of chivalry, referring to a wounded fighter left without aid, though an allusion to a bee losing its life upon stinging is also conceivable.
Pedestrian traffic lights
Ooooh, we have a bunch of really fancy pedestrian traffic lights in Germany! I need to share:
Starting off with the difference between formerly Eastern German traffic lights (upper images) and formerly Western German traffic lights (lower images):
The city of Erfurt had some additions, like an umbrella or a heart:
Same sex love in Marburg (upper image) and Frankfurt (lower image):
Traffic light lady in Bremen:
Karl Marx light in Trier:
Face of Friedrich Engels in Wuppertal:
Elvis in Friedberg (Hessen):
A sparrow (for the Golden Sparrow film awards) in Gera:
Winemaker in Bad Dürkenheim:
Mainzelmännchen (mascot of the public broadcasting service ZDF) in Mainz:
Otto Waalkes (German Comedian) in Emden:
Town musicians of Bremen in Bremen:
A miner in Pirmasens, Rheinland-Pfalz:
Bishop in Fulda:
Source: Saarbrücker Zeitung
Enjoy!
And we call these "Ampelmännchen" ("traffic lights little man").
omg that's amazing! I wanna visit Germany just to take pictures of all the cute traffic lights.
Nur derjenige ist frei, der alles um sich herum frei machen will.
Only the person who seeks to set everything around them free is truly free.
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762 – 1814), German educator and philosopher
bei jemandem einen Stein im Brett haben
literally: to have a stone in someone's board
to be in someone's good books, to be favored by someone, to enjoy someone's favor
Origin: In the medieval version of backgammon or trictrac, the key was to place one's pieces effectively. Thus, anyone who succeeded in doing so stood a good chance of winning and achieving success.
Ein Mensch wollt' immer recht behalten: / So kam's vom Haar- zum Schädelspalten!
A person always insisted on being right: that’s how it went from splitting hairs to splitting skulls!
Eugen Roth (1895 – 1976), German poet and author of lighthearted yet contemplative poems
Stein und Bein schwören
literally: to swear stone and leg / bone
to swear up and down, to reaffirm an oath with particular emphasis
Origin: The idiom is often traced back to medieval oath-taking rituals involving altar stones and relics ("Bein" in the sense of "bone"), though it is more likely that the phrase simply alludes to the exceptional hardness of the objects mentioned.
Die Menschen bezahlen die Vermehrung ihrer Macht mit der Entfremdung von dem, worüber sie Macht ausüben.
People pay for the expansion of their power with alienation from that over which they exercise power.
Max Horkheimer (1895 – 1973), German social philosopher
der Stein des Anstoßes sein
literally: to be the stone of impact or stumbling
to be the bone of contention, to be the cause of an argument or a source of annoyance
Origin: The source of this phrase is to be found in Luther’s Bible translation. It reads: “He will be a snare and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to both houses of Israel, a snare and a trap for the citizens of Jerusalem, […]” (Isaiah 8:14).
This passage is revisited in two places in the New Testament: “They stumbled at the stone of stumbling, […]” (Romans 9:32) and “[…] a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense; they stumble at it because they do not believe the word, to which they were also appointed.” (1 Peter 2:8).
