Franz Grillparzer quotes - page 2

Franz Grillparzer was an Austrian playwright and poet, regarded as one of the leading figures in 19th-century German-language literature. His dramatic works explore themes of fate, individuality, and the tensions between personal desire and societal expectations. He influenced generations of writers and remains a central figure in Austrian cultural history. Here are 39 of his quotes:

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.

Franz Grillparzer

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

Franz Grillparzer

This searching and doubting and vacillating where nothing is clear but the arrogance of quest. I, too, had such noble ideas when I was still a boy.

Franz Grillparzer

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

Franz Grillparzer

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

Franz Grillparzer

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

Franz Grillparzer

If we notice a few errors in the work of a proven master, we may and even will often be correct; if we believe, however, that he is completely and utterly mistaken, we are in danger of missing his entire concept.

Franz Grillparzer

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

Franz Grillparzer

When the theater gates open, a mob pours inside, and it is the poet's task to turn it into an audience.

Franz Grillparzer

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

Franz Grillparzer

The cradle of the future is the grave of the past.

Franz Grillparzer

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