Top 200 Franz Grillparzer Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “No one will stop to help you when you are in need, but everyone forces opinions upon you that you do not require.”

— Franz Grillparzer

2. “Prose talks and poetry sings.”

— Franz Grillparzer

3. “Moons and years pass by and are gone forever, but a beautiful moment shimmers through life a ray of light.”

— Franz Grillparzer

4. “The uneducated person perceives only the individual phenomenon, the partly educated person the rule, and the educated person the exception.”

— Franz Grillparzer

5. “History is the zoology of the human race.”

— Franz Grillparzer

6. “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.”

— Franz Grillparzer

7. “Freedom requires guns.”

— Franz Grillparzer

8. “No shortcomings of other people cause us to be more intolerant than those which are caricatures of our own.”

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

13. “Schiller moves upward. Goethe comes from up above.”

— Franz Grillparzer

14. “Progress will always have as its recourse to exaggerate what it cannot surpass.”

— Franz Grillparzer

15. “Art compares to nature like wine to the grape.”

— Franz Grillparzer

16. “Poetry, it is often said and loudly so, is life’s true mirror. But a monkey looking into a work of literature looks in vain for Socrates.”

— Franz Grillparzer

17. “Disregard for the consequences and for right and wrong nowadays passes as energy.”

— Franz Grillparzer

18. “Drink and be thankful to the host! What seems insignificant when you have it, is important when you need it.”

— Franz Grillparzer

19. “Austrian soldiers are like horses: brave but easily frightened.”

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

21. “Dilettantes appreciate the work, professors the master at the same time.”

— Franz Grillparzer

22. “Without a notion of the transcendental, human beings would, indeed, be animals; however, only fools can be convinced of it, and only degenerates need such a conviction.”

— Franz Grillparzer

23. “Never expect any recognition here – the system prohibits it. The cross is not affixed to the genius, no, the genius is affixed to the cross.”

— Franz Grillparzer

24. “German diligence is actually endurance.”

— Franz Grillparzer

25. “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.”

— Franz Grillparzer

26. “Do you think that it is possible to have a mere taste of commonness? Either one hates it or makes common cause with it.”

— Franz Grillparzer

27. “People of talent resemble a musical instrument more closely than they do a musician. Without outside help, they produce not a single sound, but given even the slightest touch, and a magnificent tune emanates from them.”

— Franz Grillparzer

28. “Since love is folly, a foolish woman is more dangerous than a wise one.”

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

30. “The most irascible person is most likely to become apathetic in dangerous situations.”

— Franz Grillparzer

31. “Gold schenkt die Eitelkeit, der rauhe Stolz, Die Freundschaft und die Liebe schenken Blumen. Gold is the gift of vanityand pride, Friendship and love offer flowers.”

— Franz Grillparzer

32. “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.”

— Franz Grillparzer

33. “Let no one say that taking action is hard. Action is aided by courage, by the moment, by impulse, and the hardest thing in the world is making a decision.”

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

35. “Christianity is the religion of melancholy and hypochondria. Islam, on the other hand, promotes apathy, and Judaism instills its adherents with a certain choleric vehemence, the heathen Greeks may well be called happy optimists.”

— Franz Grillparzer

36. “To declaim freedom verses seems like a poem within a poem; freedom requires guns, it requires arms, but no feet.”

— Franz Grillparzer

37. “Plato calls complacency the companion of loneliness.”

— Franz Grillparzer

38. “Love wants to be confirmed with concrete symbols, but recklessness loves instability.”

— Franz Grillparzer

39. “The cradle of the future is the grave of the past.”

— Franz Grillparzer

40. “This searching and doubting and vacillating where nothing is clear but the arrogance of quest. I, too, had such noble ideas when I was still a boy.”

— Franz Grillparzer

41. “Genius unrefined resembles a flash of lightning, but wisdom is like the sun.”

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

44. “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!”

— Franz Grillparzer

45. “You even called me stupid in your verse, and I’m almost agreeing, for where stupidity is involved, you are quite an expert, friend.”

— Franz Grillparzer

46. “Prose and poetry are as different as food and drink.”

— Franz Grillparzer

47. “Captivating the spirit of the age is a matter of great talent; being swept away by it characterizes an average mind. The two are as different from one another as activity and passivity.”

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

49. “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.”

— Franz Grillparzer

50. “Soon there will be nothing truly profound that is not achieved by everyone, and of the difficult things in this world only one will be left: simplicity.”

— Franz Grillparzer