269 Quotes by Franz Grillparzer

The plot! The plot! What kind of plot could a poet possibly provide that is not surpassed by the thinking, feeling reader? Form alone is divine.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

What a pathetic creature is man! His senses are awakened by the hope for the very thing whose consummation puts him to sleep.

The course of modern learning leads from humanism via nationalism to bestiality.

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