Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach Quotes

Conquer but never triumph.

We should always forgive. We should forgive the repentant for their sake, the unrepentant for our sake.

Never strive, O artist, to create what you are not irresistibly impelled to create!

When the time comes in which one could, the time has passed in which one can.

It is unfortunate that superior talent and superior men are so seldom united.

Morals refine manners, as manners refine morals.

Our greatest indulgence towards a man springs from our despair of him.

Even virtue is an art; and even its devotees are divided into those who practise it and those who are merely amateurs.

The manuscript in the drawer either rots or ripens.

In youth we learn; in age we understand.

He who says patience, says courage, endurance, strength.

The greatest enemy of justice is privilege.

Whoever prefers the material comforts of life over intellectual wealth is like the owner of a palace who moves into the servants’ quarters and leaves the sumptuous rooms empty.

Only those few people who practice it believe in goodness.

Without imagination, there is no goodness, no wisdom.

The insignificant labor, the great create.

Accident is veiled necessity.

Consider once before you give, twice before you receive, and a thousand times before you ask.

Hatred is a prolific vice; envy, a barren vice.

The believer who has never doubted will hardly convert a doubter.

Beware of the virtue which a man boasts is his.

If there is a believe that is capable to move mountains it is the believe in our own strength.

Since the well-known victory over the hare by the tortoise, the descendants of the tortoise think themselves miracles of speed.

Runners are poor walkers.

Nothing is so irretrievably missed as an opportunity we encounter every day.

An intelligent woman has millions of born enemies... all the stupid men.

How happy are the pessimists! What joy is theirs when they have proved there is no joy.

Not reading a beautiful book again because you've already read it, that is, as if you were not visiting a dear friend again because you know him already.

Little evil would be done in the world if evil never could be done in the name of good.

The incurable ills are the imaginary ills.

We ask the poet: 'What subject have you chosen?' instead of: 'What subject has chosen you?

Be the first to say something obvious and achieve immortality.

A book cannot easily be too bad for the general public, but may easily be too good.

To be young is delightful; to be old is comfortable.

Grace is the outcome of inward harmony.

When art find no temple open, it takes refuge in the workshop.

Calmness is the graceful form of Confidence.

One has to do good in order for it to exist in the world.

Those whom we support hold us up in life.

To be satisfied with little is hard, to be satisfied with a lot is impossible.

If you have one good idea, people will lend you twenty.

The poor never estimate as a virtue the generosity of the rich.

There are more truths in a good book than its author meant to put in it.

Those who know nothing must believe everything.

Parents forgive their children least readily for the faults they themselves instilled in them.

We are valued wither too highly or not high enough; we are never taken at our real worth.

Pity is love in undress.

So soon as a fashion is universal, it is out of date.