Top 218 Quotes & Sayings by Franz Grillparzer - Page 3

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

In Germany, a certain artistic sense is fairly common, but the artist's sense is foreign there.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beauty satisfies the senses completely and at the same time uplifts the soul. That which gratifies the senses is pleasant, and that which uplifts the soul without being sensual in the least is good, true, right, anything you like, but not beautiful.

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

Art compares to nature like wine to the grape.

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

Why must ancients, and provided the same talent, be better than modern authors? Free to exploit the vast realm of the simpleand the natural, they did not have to be artificial in order to be original (which every artist aspires to be).

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.

Prose and poetry are as different as food and drink.

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?

Love! Hate! Is there no third?

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

Man lives two lives, woe, were it otherwise! One is seized by death, the other one, his honor, remains.

What is the use of aesthetics if they can neither teach how to produce beauty nor how to appreciate it in good taste? It exists because it behooves rational human beings to provide reasons for their actions and assessments. Even if aesthetics are not the mathematics of beauty, they are the proof of the calculation.

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

A wise man can and should stand above his times, not so the poet, but he should be their apex.

Gold is the gift of vanity and common pride, but flowers are the gift of love and friendship.

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.

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

Recently, the Germans have developed a tendency to prefer the so-called first (youthful) style of great artists to their mature works. Could it be that they do not realize that their aesthetic criteria, generally speaking, are juvenile?

Why I love the ancients so much? Aside from everything else, when I read them, the entire past between them and me unfolds at thesame time. The hearts of how many heroes and poets may have been set on fire by Plutarch's biographies which now inspire me with their own and with borrowed flames!

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

German diligence is actually endurance.

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

When receiving an order, many servants repeat their "yes" numerous times, especially the lazy ones.

Only by himself, with one acre and a house, will a dunce be a dunce. Once he manages to gain power, he'll turn into a scoundrel.

A tailor can adapt to any medium, be it poetry, be it criticism. As a poet, he can mend, and with the scissors of criticism he candivide.

Do not push so fast ahead, do slow down a bit! Otherwise you won't catch up with yourselves.

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.

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

There is one privilege we'll never lose; currently it's called nationality. It means that everyone was born somewhere, which is infact self-evident.

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

They are miserly, the princes of Austria, you need not grieve about it; they may not donate anything, but they allow themselves tobe fleeced, the good lords.

I am a woman, and even if I could proceed with harshness and rigidity, it would disgust me nonetheless.

Drive the women from the bed just as you drove them from the choir; a eunuch sings in Rome, and the priests masturbate.

Isn't it awful that cold feet make for a cold imagination and that a pair of woollen socks induce good thoughts!

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

The plot! The plot! What kind of plot could a poet possibly provide that is not surpassed by the thinking, feeling reader? Form alone is divine.

Trousers and the reputation of not being a thief are similar in the following way: There is no particular honor in having them butonce they are lost, everyone thinks they have the right to insult us.

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

A cure by regression is homeopathic, like healing the damage done by ministers and ignorance with stupidity and Jesuits.

Two soldiers and a villain are enough to blow up the rights of the citizens.

North and West have always vied for power and territory, but their recent competition as to which one is more insidious of the twohas been more peaceful.

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

The real genres: good and bad.

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

No spoon has yet destroyed a mouth, but the knife of war cuts portions that are hard to swallow. Perhaps the big mouths of the privileged are able to cope with them, but they dull the teeth of the little people and ruin their stomachs.

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

I understand the phrase "Honor the Women" all too well: the poet has probably a wife of his own, but he prefers to honor another.

Dilettantes appreciate the work, professors the master at the same time.

Once you have looked at the land from atop the Kahlenberg, you will understand what I write and who I am.

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

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.

Right and proof are two crutches for everything bent and crooked that limps along.