Quotes from Franz Grillparzer

A love that dies has never lived.

I would love to be able to write a tragedy in my imagination--it would turn into a masterpiece.

How can you say that love is blind? Keener than a young eagle's is its sight.

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

Although your knowledge is weak and small, you need not be silent: since you cannot be judges be at least witnesses.

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

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.

Whoever places his trust into a system will soon be without a home. While you are building your third story, the two lower ones have already been dismantled.

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

Prose talks and poetry sings.

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.

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.

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

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

Eifersucht ist eine Leidenschaft, Die mit Eifer sucht, was Leiden schafft. (Jealousy is a grievous passion that jealously seeks what causes grief.)

Der Weg der neuen Bildung geht von Humanität durch Nationalität zur Bestialität.

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

Ich gebe mir Müh, nichts zu wollen, zu denken.

Las cadenas de la esclavitud sólo atan las manos: es la mente la que hace al hombre libre o esclavo

Ich halte es mit der Gelehrsamkeit wie die Fürsten mit der Verräterei: Ich ehre die Gelehrsamkeit und verachte die Gelehrten, die eben nichts als Gelehrte sind.

Endlich, wie denn in dieser Welt jedes noch so hartnäckige Stehenbleiben doch nur ein unvermerktes Weiterrücken ist, erscheint auch diesem Status quo ein Hoffnungsstrahl.

Die Inspiration war mein Gott und ist es geblieben.

Das Einmaleins ist mir bis auf diese Stunde nicht geläufig.