Top 218 Quotes & Sayings by Franz Grillparzer - Page 4

In the arts, foolhardiness is always harmful; even worse, however, is clumsiness.

I've never been on good terms with God, but now I'm becoming His intimate, for He is truly absolute and extremely legitimate.

Chance arrives unannounced. It emerges, and when it leaves, we are lucky if the changes it has produced are only external.

In certain countries, people seem to be think that three asses together make one intelligent person. However, that is completely wrong. Several asses in concreto make the ass in abstracto and that is a most terrifying animal.

The verdict on Prince Metternich will soon be out: An excellent diplomat and a bad politician.

It's actually the spirit helping the spirit; it is the doctor, the bed, the potion.

Many said selfishness was the flaw of our modern age; but then self-conceit emerged from a corner of the deepest hell to join selfishness.

Metaphysics must be based on what exists, for it has the task of explicating it.

Gratitude is a fickle thing, indeed. A person taking aim presses the weapon to his chest and cheek, but when he hits, he discardsit with indifference.

It is open to question whether the highly individualized characters we find in Shakespeare are perhaps not detrimental to the dramatic effect. The human being disappears to the same degree as the individual emerges.

Schiller moves upward. Goethe comes from up above.

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!

Jealousy is a grievous passion that jealously seeks what causes grief.

Finally and long overdue, your people, oppressed and disgraced by hatred and maliciousness, have achieved justice: now you enjoy full citizen's rights, but you'll remain Jews nonetheless.

Praised be the good willing women who understand and take part in the fun--the body is an exacting beater, and even the heart is made of flesh.

Turning popular opinion upside down does not make an original.

The prince exults whomever he selects as his consort, but the queen, rather than elevating the subject of her choice, humiliates him as a man. By all that is right, a man is not intended to be the husband of his wife, but a woman is to be her husband's wife.

A pious woman's neighbor, a philanthropist's child, a liberal's servant--these three have a hard life.

It is the emotions to which one objects in Germany most of all.

What is done for the children is doubly beneficial, since their success, obvious to everyone, educates the parents as well.

Compilers resemble gluttonous eaters who devour excessive quantities of healthy food just to excrete them as refuse.

Grief, first take on shape! what is shapeless causes fear and torment but when the enemy materializes, half the victory is won.

Woman is the crown of all creation, but Man is the head who wears it, and even the servant is master in his house.

It is fair to despise a cowardly man, but the female sex is strongest when it's weak.

Nothing genuinely historical was ever lost in this country. For this reason we have two ruling parties: villains and fools.

In the long run, only woman remains true to mankind's foremost mission. Whatever she achieves, she achieves through herself, and alone. Man's master is the--public.

The character of the crowds is made up of mimicry and hostility.

Do you call the jewel blind, because your eye is?

Profundity easily turns into dullness and astuteness deteriorates into wit. Be guided by natural common sense and it will accommodate great and small.

What's the meaning of all the pious clamor, condemning cocks and hens? Those who have no teeth are the greatest meat-haters.

Just as the queen bee, the highest-ranking, peerless creature of her hive, is surrounded by lowly drones to please her, whereas the workers produce honey, the same way is the one who sits on the throne an equal only to himself, and no one's companion.

Whoever considers morality the main objective of human existence, seems to me like a person who defines the purpose of a clock asnot going wrong. The first objective for a clock, is, however, that it does run; not going wrong is an additional regulative function. If not a watch's greatest accomplishment were not going wrong, unwound watches might be the best.

Man will return to his origins. Goethe has finally become as squiggly as the city of his fathers.

Today is, after all, today, but yesterday is of the same substance as tomorrow.

If human beings are immortal, so are animals. If matter has the ability to remember, it also has the ability to think.

Strength, strength alone, is honorable, the German nation clamors in its majesty. But since it is hard to muster strength so suddenly, they have to make do with boorishness.

Austrian soldiers are like horses: brave but easily frightened.

It is not a matter of desire, but of coercion and duty.