Franz Grillparzer Quotes

If someone took the finest marble and knew how to shape it artfully: Prometheus' material was lowly clay, but his statues walked.

What a pathetic creature is man! His senses are awakened by the hope for the very thing whose consummation puts him to sleep.

Uneducated people are unfortunate in that they do grasp complex issues, educated people, on the other hand, often do not understand simplicity, which is a far greater misfortune.

The first indication of a young person's growing smarter is that he no longer understands the things which he used to consider quite intelligible and self-evident.

Erroneous views and presumptuousness send a talent to the insane asylum.

You can make the best of it and be content, or you can complain, it makes no difference. What does it matter that human beings judge the things that exist?

A book is quite a beautiful thing, even more so learning. Together, however, all they amount to is called book-learning.

I cannot be exacting because I respect myself.

The thing that pleases is not always good and, helas, the good thing does not always please.

It is good insofar as it is not evil.

There shall be no slave in your home, male or female: Least of all the mother of your son.

Servants honor their master by their service.

Our poetry emulates the recent progress in military strategy: Our army's strength is the foot soldiers.

The manifestation of poetry in external life is formal perfection. True sentiment grows within, and art must represent internal phenomena externally.

Prose and poetry are as different as food and drink.

What raises great poetry above all else--it is the entire person and also the entire world.

Whoever places his trust into a system will soon be without a home. While you are building your third story, the two lower ones have already been dismantled.

Although your knowledge is weak and small, you need not be silent: since you cannot be judges be at least witnesses.

At certain times, men regard poetry merely as a bright flame, but to women it was, and always will be, a warm fire.

If someone were to think that trees are made to support the sky, they would all seem too short.

It's the misfortune of German authors that not a single one of them dares to expose his true character. Everyone thinks that he has to be better than he is.

When mundane, lowly activities are at stake, too much insight is detrimental — far-sightedness errs in immediate concerns.

Why do comparisons of words and tone poems (poetry and music) never take into consideration that the word is a mere signifier, but that the sound, aside from being a signifier, is also an object?

Let the famous not denounce fame. Far from being empty and meaningless, it fills those it touches with divine power.

I'd wish the government took honest people into consideration, it shows enough consideration for scoundrels.

My anger thought you too ignoble for my love, and close examination finds you too magnificent, and only equals are joined together smoothly.

Since people no longer attend church, theater remains as the only public service, and literature as the only private devotion.

Who claims that the heathen's view of the world is incorrect? Life gives you nothing! It is ruled by false gods! Nothing remains true to you but your own self; provided you remain true to it.

The present is never poetic as it serves necessity, necessity, however, is prosaic.

How frightening it is to have reached the height of human accomplishment in art that must forever borrow from life's abundance.

The German mind, may it live! Almost invisible as a mind, it finally manifests itself assertively as a conviction.

Swear words and profanities are mere abbreviations of speech, similar to the abbreviations in writing.

The state has no religion for the simple reason that it has each and everyone.

The spirit of poetry combines the profundity of the philosopher and the child's delight in bright pictures.

Historical! Must it be historical to catch your attention? Even though historicity, like notoriety, denotes nothing more than thatsomething has occurred.

The old harlot, German philosophy, has finally turned into a church lady.

Women, children, Tyroleans and preachers want to create a new kingdom of God, but the God of their kingdom looks like women, children, preachers, and Tyrolians.

A flutist who is moved to tears by his own performance will soon make the listeners laugh because of the sounds that he produces.

Much as I honor the wisdom of the princess--there is something more dashing about a man.

Love! Hate! Is there no third?

The real genres: good and bad.

Do hurry and proclaim the concordat. Then castrate yourselves to keep from sinning.

As far as the arts and the sciences are concerned, the German mind appreciates most highly that which it does not understand of the latter, and that which it does not enjoy of the former.

Art compares to nature like wine to the grape.

Bunglers and pedants judge art according to genre; they approve of this and dismiss that genre, but instead of genres, the open-minded connoisseur appreciates only individual works.

The art of acting presupposes three phases: understanding a part, intuiting a part, and contemplating the essence of a part.

Caution is the daughter of circumspection, but she tends to outgrow her mother.

The ramparts of Vienna are crumbling into the sand; no one wants to live so confined, however, the entire country is already surrounded by a Chinese wall!

Perhaps the most embarrassing experience is being caught at a lie by a simpleton who sneers at our asinine cleverness.

To enlist the support of the people and of parliament, you only have to propose a profitable villainy.