Maria Von Ebner-Eschenbach, or Marie von Ebner-Eschenbachová, Marie Freifrau von Ebner-Eschenbach

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

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

A defeat borne with pride is also a victory.

Do not consider yourself deprived because your dreams were not fulfilled; the truly deprived have never dreamed.

Indifference and contempt will always be able to take on an aura of intellectual superiority over sympathy and love for others.

Nowadays people are born to find fault. When they look at Achilles, they see only his heel.

A poor, charitable person can sometimes feel rich, a miserly Croesus never.

Do your duty until it becomes your joy.

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

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

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

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

There is something so beautiful in trust that even the most hardened liar must needs feel a certain respect for those who confide in him.

The wise man is seldom prudent.

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

The incurable ills are the imaginary ills.

Pain is the great teacher of mankind. Beneath its breath souls develop.

Only the thinking man lives his life. The thoughtless man's life passes him by.

Never expect women to be sincere so long as they are educated to think that their first aim in life is to please.

Kindness which is not inexhaustible does not deserve the name.

How happy are the pessimists! What joy is their when they have proved there is no joy.

Grace is the outcome of inward harmony.

Beware of the virtue which a man boasts is his.

We should always forgive,--the penitent for their sake, the impenitent for our own.

There is only one proof of ability, action.