Top 140 Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “Morals refine manners, as manners refine morals.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

102. “Never strive, O artist, to create what you are not irresistibly impelled to create!”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

103. “Never expect women to be sincere, so long as they are educated to think that their first aim in life is to please.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

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

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

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

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

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

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

107. “Those who cannot remember clearly their own childhood are poor educators.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

108. “With our parents we bury our past, with our children our future.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

109. “It’s bad enough when married people bore one another, but it’s much worse when only one of them bores the other.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

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

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

111. “The wise man is seldom prudent.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

112. “Nobody knows enough, but many know too much.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

113. “Kindness which is not inexhaustible does not deserve the name.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

114. “One of the main goals of self-education is to eradicate that vanity in us without which we would never have been educated.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

115. “The understanding of some men is clear, that of others brilliant. The former illumines its surroundings; the latter obscures them.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

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

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

117. “Fools usually know best that which the wise despair of ever comprehending.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

118. “Between being able to and actually doing something lies an ocean, and on its bottom rests all too often the wreck of willpower.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

119. “There are women who love their husbands as blindly, as enthusiastically, and as enigmatically as nuns their cloister.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

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

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

121. “Oh happy pessimists! What a joy it is to them to be able to prove again and again that there is no joy.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

122. “Conquer but never triumph.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

123. “It is difficult to see the person who admires us as stupid.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

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

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

125. “The simplest and most familiar truth seems new and wonderful the instant we ourselves experience it for the first time.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

126. “The world belongs to those who possess it, and is scorned by those to whom it should belong.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

127. “Enthusiasm does not always speak for those who arouse it, but always for those who experience it.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

128. “One can acquire some virtues by feigning them for a long time.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

129. “No one is so eager to gain new experiences as he who doesn’t know how to make use of the old ones.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

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

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

131. “The mediocre always feel as if they’re fighting for their lives when confronted by the excellent.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

132. “Believe flatterers and you’re lost; believe your enemies and you despair.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

133. “Authors from whom others steal should not complain, but rejoice. Where there is no game there are no poachers.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

134. “Nothing is less promising than precocity. A young thistle is more like a future tree than is a young oak.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

135. “New happiness too must be learned to bear.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

136. “Runners are poor walkers.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

137. “All that is due to us will be paid, although not perhaps by those to whom we have lent.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

138. “The sympathy of most people consists of a mixture of good-humour, curiosity, and self-importance.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

139. “Consider well before you immerse yourself in solitude whether your own company will be good for you.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

140. “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.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

141. “Generosity, to be perfect, should always be accompanied by a dash of humor.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

142. “The moral code which was good enough for our fathers is not good enough for our children.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

143. “The world would be in better shape if people would take the same pains in the practice of the simplest moral laws as they exert in intellectualizing over the most subtle moral questions.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

144. “We are so vain that we even care for the opinion of those we don’t care for.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach