Top 200 Franz Grillparzer Quotes (2025 Update)
Page 2 of 5

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

— Franz Grillparzer

52. “Our poetry emulates the recent progress in military strategy: Our army’s strength is the foot soldiers.”

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

54. “A woman’s passion is not the measure of a man’s love.”

— Franz Grillparzer

55. “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.”

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

57. “Critics are reprimanded when they get sarcastic. How absurd! Is the torch of criticism supposed to shine without burning?”

— Franz Grillparzer

58. “Those who want to row on the ocean of human knowledge do not get far, and the storm drives those out of their course who set sail.”

— Franz Grillparzer

59. “Mankind is getting smarter every day. Actually, it only seems so. At least we are making progress. We’re progressing, to be sure, ever more deeply into the forest.”

— Franz Grillparzer

60. “A person who looks different all the time frightens me. Only one animal changes its skin: the snake.”

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

62. “A pious woman’s neighbor, a philanthropist’s child, a liberal’s servant – these three have a hard life.”

— Franz Grillparzer

63. “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.”

— Franz Grillparzer

64. “He who takes people for smart pays an expensive lesson.”

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

66. “Even with limited intelligence, knowing oneself is not as difficult as some say, but to act according to what one has realized about oneself in real life is as difficult as practicing anything else, compared to theory.”

— Franz Grillparzer

67. “The way in which modern German poetry follows theories reminds me of pupils who, scolded by their teacher for their insubordination, justify themselves by saying that they invented new rules of propriety according to which they are quite well- behaved.”

— Franz Grillparzer

68. “A book is quite a beautiful thing, even more so learning. Together, however, all they amount to is called book-learning.”

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

73. “Genius resembles a bell; in order to ring it must be suspended into pure air, and when a foreign body touches it, its joyful toneis silenced.”

— Franz Grillparzer

74. “Piety is the fermentation of the forming mind and the putrefaction of the disintegrating one.”

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

76. “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.”

— Franz Grillparzer

77. “The graceful flowers of innocence are more valuable than the laurel crown of fame.”

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

79. “Do old people always live in the past? What yesterday was firm and true, may not be so today.”

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

85. “The likeness of the world? A shadow! And world’s glory? A dream!”

— Franz Grillparzer

86. “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.”

— Franz Grillparzer

87. “In Germany, a certain artistic sense is fairly common, but the artist’s sense is foreign there.”

— Franz Grillparzer

88. “It is good insofar as it is not evil.”

— Franz Grillparzer

89. “What a pathetic creature is man! His senses are awakened by the hope for the very thing whose consummation puts him to sleep.”

— Franz Grillparzer

90. “At certain times, men regard poetry merely as a bright flame, but to women it was, and always will be, a warm fire.”

— Franz Grillparzer

91. “To test a modest man’s modesty do not investigate if he ignores applause, find out if he abides criticism.”

— Franz Grillparzer

92. “How can you say that love is blind? Keener than a young eagle’s is its sight.”

— Franz Grillparzer

93. “You ardently strive for freedom, and I do wish you were free – but, rather than for your sake, so that government won’t be.”

— Franz Grillparzer

94. “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.”

— Franz Grillparzer

95. “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.”

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

97. “A heart that overflows may seek out merrymaking and boisterous festivities to quietly rejoice, unnoticed amidst the reveling crowds.”

— Franz Grillparzer

98. “There shall be no slave in your home, male or female: Least of all the mother of your son.”

— Franz Grillparzer

99. “You can make the best of it and be content, or you can complain, it makes no difference. What does it matter that human beings judge the things that exist?”

— Franz Grillparzer

100. “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.”

— Franz Grillparzer