Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach Quotes

Have patience with the quarrelsomeness of the stupid. It is not easy to comprehend that one does not comprehend.

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

What delights us in visible beauty is the invisible.

If there is a believe that is capable to move mountains it is the believe in our own strength.

Distrust your judgment the moment you can discern the shadow of a personal motive in it.

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

We usually learn to wait only when we have no longer anything to wait for.

In meeting again after a separation, acquaintances ask after our outward life, friends after our inner life.

Beware of the virtue which a man boasts is his.

We ask the poet: 'What subject have you chosen?' instead of: 'What subject has chosen you?

They understand but a little who understand only what can be explained.

A defeat borne with pride is also a victory.

Wit is an intermittent fountain; kindness is a perennial spring.

If there be a faith that can move mountains, it is faith in one's own power.

Accident is veiled necessity.

The mediocre always feel as if they're fighting for their lives when confronted by the excellent.

Even virtue is an art; and even its devotees are divided into those who practise it and those who are merely amateurs.

Where would the power of women be, were it not for the vanity of men?

Morals refine manners, as manners refine morals.

Only those few people who practice it believe in goodness.

Conquer, but don't triumph.

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

A man with lofty ideas is an uncomfortable neighbor.

However much you paid for a beautiful illusion, you got a bargain.

n every exalted joy, there mingles a sense of gratitude.

The incurable ills are the imaginary ills.

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

Old age transfigures or fossilizes.

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

The insignificant labor, the great create.

When the time comes in which one could, the time has passed in which one can.

Nothing makes us more cowardly and unconscionable than the desire to be loved by everyone.

We should always forgive. We should forgive the repentant for their sake, the unrepentant for our sake.

Little evil would be done in the world if evil never could be done in the name of good.

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

Nothing is so irretrievably missed as an opportunity we encounter every day.

Who doesn't know anything, has to believe everything.

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

Indifference of every kind is reprehensible, even indifference towards one's self.

One has to do good in order for it to exist in the world.

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

Pity is love in undress.

One remains young as long as one can still learn, can still take on new habits, can bear contradictions.

Passion is always suffering, even when gratified.

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

Hatred is a prolific vice; envy, a barren vice.

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

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

To have and not to give is often worse than to steal.

Conquer but never triumph.