Franz Grillparzer
It is open to question whether the highly individualized characters we find in Shakespeare are perhaps not detrimental to the dramatic effect. The human being disappears to the same degree as the individual emerges.Collection: Drama
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.Collection: Thinking
The state has no religion for the simple reason that it has each and everyone.Collection: Simple
Since people no longer attend church, theater remains as the only public service, and literature as the only private devotion.Collection: People
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.Collection: Mean
The old harlot, German philosophy, has finally turned into a church lady.Collection: Philosophy
Compilers resemble gluttonous eaters who devour excessive quantities of healthy food just to excrete them as refuse.Collection: Food
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.Collection: Children
What is the use of aesthetics if they can neither teach how to produce beauty nor how to appreciate it in good taste? It exists because it behooves rational human beings to provide reasons for their actions and assessments. Even if aesthetics are not the mathematics of beauty, they are the proof of the calculation.Collection: Beauty
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.Collection: Beauty
What's the meaning of all the pious clamor, condemning cocks and hens? Those who have no teeth are the greatest meat-haters.Collection: Hypocrisy
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.Collection: Grieving
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.Collection: Genius
Today is, after all, today, but yesterday is of the same substance as tomorrow.Collection: Future
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.Collection: Poetry
The character of the crowds is made up of mimicry and hostility.Collection: Character
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.Collection: Change
Chance arrives unannounced. It emerges, and when it leaves, we are lucky if the changes it has produced are only external.Collection: Change
What is done for the children is doubly beneficial, since their success, obvious to everyone, educates the parents as well.Collection: Success
Do you call the jewel blind, because your eye is?Collection: Eye
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.Collection: Marriage
Woman is the crown of all creation, but Man is the head who wears it, and even the servant is master in his house.Collection: Marriage
It is fair to despise a cowardly man, but the female sex is strongest when it's weak.Collection: Strength
In the long run, only woman remains true to mankind's foremost mission. Whatever she achieves, she achieves through herself, and alone. Man's master is the--public.Collection: Running
From a distance the rushing of the torrent delights and uplifts us, but it rocks us in a flimsy boat, we are overwhelmed by despair. The same applies to danger.Collection: Uplifting
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.Collection: Freedom
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.Collection: Art
The office of the prince and that of the writer are defined and assigned as follows: the nobleman gives rank to the written work,the writer provides food for the prince.Collection: Food
Isn't it awful that cold feet make for a cold imagination and that a pair of woollen socks induce good thoughts!Collection: Feet
The German mind, may it live! Almost invisible as a mind, it finally manifests itself assertively as a conviction.Collection: Mind
The sun of a prince's good graces resembles that in the skies in that it shines most kindly upon the blackest people.Collection: Sky
The real genres: good and bad.Collection: Real
Do hurry and proclaim the concordat. Then castrate yourselves to keep from sinning.Collection: Sin
The thing that pleases is not always good and, helas, the good thing does not always please.Collection: Doe
I cannot be exacting because I respect myself.Collection: Respect
It is good insofar as it is not evil.Collection: Evil
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.Collection: Average
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.Collection: Distance
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.Collection: Teacher
A woman's passion is not the measure of a man's love.Collection: Love
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.Collection: Courage
I would love to be able to write a tragedy in my imagination--it would turn into a masterpiece.Collection: Writing
The Germans believe that, no matter where, they can get by on knowledge alone. Art, however, requires skill.Collection: Art
Who could deny that our Austria is richer than any other country? As the saying goes: "We have money like manure.Collection: Country
Mozart starved, but you allow Thalberg and Liszt make tons of gold: Of course, you may think that someone immortal cannot die of hungerCollection: Thinking
The courts used to be, fair and square, the avengers of secular crimes; but nowadays they demand respect even for the criminal.Collection: Respect
No matter which word it is, when I pronounce repeatedly, it ends up sounding utterly ridiculous and meaningless to me.Collection: Matter
Servants honor their master by their service.Collection: Honor
Our poetry emulates the recent progress in military strategy: Our army's strength is the foot soldiers.Collection: Strength