Franz Grillparzer Quotes

Genius differs from talent not by the amount of original thoughts, but by making the latter fertile and by positioning them properly, in other words, by integrating everything into a whole, whereas talent produces only fragments, no matter how beautiful.

Science and art, or by the same token, poetry and prose differ from one another like a journey and an excursion. The purpose of the journey is its goal, the purpose of an excursion is the process.

The noble woman is half a man, even a complete one. Only their imperfections make them women.

History is the zoology of the human race.

The course of modern learning leads from humanism via nationalism to bestiality.

As youth lives in the future, so the adult lives in the past: No one rightly knows how to live in the present.

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

Morality, a muzzle for the will; logic, a climbing iron for the mind.

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

Robespierre, this pedant of freedom!

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.

Trying to conceal a crime is like burying a seed in the ground.

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.

German diligence is actually endurance.

No matter which word it is, when I pronounce repeatedly, it ends up sounding utterly ridiculous and meaningless to me.

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.

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

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

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

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

The real genres: good and bad.