Top 200 Franz Grillparzer Quotes (2026 Update)
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101. “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

102. “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

Featured in: Fun Quotes

103. “Turning popular opinion upside down does not make an original.”

— Franz Grillparzer

104. “Mozart starved, but you allow Thalberg and Liszt make tons of gold: Of course, you may think that someone immortal cannot die of hunger.”

— Franz Grillparzer

105. “Caution is the daughter of circumspection, but she tends to outgrow her mother.”

— Franz Grillparzer

106. “The main reason why men and women make different aesthetic judgments is the fact that the latter, generally incapable of abstraction, only admire what meets their complete approval.”

— Franz Grillparzer

107. “I know how ingratitude burns, how falsehood tortures, for I have been deceived in friendship and in love; I have learned to lose and to resign myself.”

— Franz Grillparzer

108. “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.”

— Franz Grillparzer

109. “The courts used to be, fair and square, the avengers of secular crimes; but nowadays they demand respect even for the criminal.”

— Franz Grillparzer

110. “In order to succeed in a profession, a person not only needs to have its good, but also its bad qualities. The former are the spirit, the latter is the body of the job.”

— Franz Grillparzer

111. “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.”

— Franz Grillparzer

112. “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

113. “Pity, but never love bestows kind words upon the slave.”

— Franz Grillparzer

114. “A flutist who is moved to tears by his own performance will soon make the listeners laugh because of the sounds that he produces.”

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

116. “The military and the clergy cause us much annoyance; the clergy and the military, they empty our wallets and rob our intelligence.”

— Franz Grillparzer

117. “Women, children, Tyroleans and preachers want to create a new kingdom of God, but the God of their kingdom looks like women, children, preachers, and Tyrolians.”

— Franz Grillparzer

118. “Do you call the jewel blind, because your eye is?”

— Franz Grillparzer

119. “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.”

— Franz Grillparzer

120. “Human life, old and young, takes place between hope and remembrance. The young man sees all the gates to his desires open, and the old man remembers – his hopes.”

— Franz Grillparzer

121. “Reason and the ability to use it are two separate skills.”

— Franz Grillparzer

122. “To enlist the support of the people and of parliament, you only have to propose a profitable villainy.”

— Franz Grillparzer

123. “I’d wish the government took honest people into consideration, it shows enough consideration for scoundrels.”

— Franz Grillparzer

124. “North and West have always vied for power and territory, but their recent competition as to which one is more insidious of the twohas been more peaceful.”

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

126. “I look around me and nowhere do I see a stamp of disapproval with which nature marked a woman’s candid brow.”

— Franz Grillparzer

127. “Robespierre, this pedant of freedom!”

— Franz Grillparzer

128. “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.”

— Franz Grillparzer

129. “I cannot be exacting because I respect myself.”

— Franz Grillparzer

130. “Distinctly different as a child, as an adolescent, in his prime and in his old age, man considers himself as one, not because he acts, but because he knows.”

— Franz Grillparzer

131. “Why I love the ancients so much? Aside from everything else, when I read them, the entire past between them and me unfolds at thesame time. The hearts of how many heroes and poets may have been set on fire by Plutarch’s biographies which now inspire me with their own and with borrowed flames!”

— Franz Grillparzer

Featured in: Reading Quotes

132. “Trousers and the reputation of not being a thief are similar in the following way: There is no particular honor in having them butonce they are lost, everyone thinks they have the right to insult us.”

— Franz Grillparzer

133. “As far as the arts and the sciences are concerned, the German mind appreciates most highly that which it does not understand of the latter, and that which it does not enjoy of the former.”

— Franz Grillparzer

134. “Since people no longer attend church, theater remains as the only public service, and literature as the only private devotion.”

— Franz Grillparzer

135. “Only by himself, with one acre and a house, will a dunce be a dunce. Once he manages to gain power, he’ll turn into a scoundrel.”

— Franz Grillparzer

136. “Let the will embrace the highest ideals freely and with infinite strength, but let action first take hold of what lies closest.”

— Franz Grillparzer

137. “Before passing different laws for different people, I’d relinquish myself unto you as your slave.”

— Franz Grillparzer

138. “If only it were God’s will that printed and written materials have as much influence on the people as the princes and their censors fear! Considering the countless good books we have, the world would have changed for the better a long time ago.”

— Franz Grillparzer

139. “Someone who is reluctant to say what he needs to say, often ends up doing so with an insolence whose crassness is proportionate tohis fear, once he gathers the necessary courage.”

— Franz Grillparzer

140. “If someone were to think that trees are made to support the sky, they would all seem too short.”

— Franz Grillparzer

141. “Much as I honor the wisdom of the princess – there is something more dashing about a man.”

— Franz Grillparzer

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

— Franz Grillparzer

143. “The real genres: good and bad.”

— Franz Grillparzer

144. “You say I’m small? I certainly can relate, although it is a matter of perspective. The distance is deceptive, my friend, you standtoo low.”

— Franz Grillparzer

145. “Is it true that one travels in order to know mankind? It is easier to get to know other people at home, but abroad one gets to know oneself.”

— Franz Grillparzer

146. “Ideas are not thoughts; the thought respects the boundaries that the idea ignores thereby failing to realize itself.”

— Franz Grillparzer

147. “Why does the past look so enticing to us? For the same reason why from a distance a meadow with flowers looks like a flower bed.”

— Franz Grillparzer

148. “Art is eternally young, but the poet ages. If only he remained as young as art! If only it aged with him!”

— Franz Grillparzer

149. “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.”

— Franz Grillparzer

150. “They are miserly, the princes of Austria, you need not grieve about it; they may not donate anything, but they allow themselves tobe fleeced, the good lords.”

— Franz Grillparzer