Quotes by Adalbert Stifter

About Adalbert Stifter:

Adalbert Stifter was an Austrian writer, poet, painter, and pedagogue. He was especially notable for the vivid natural landscapes depicted in his writing and has long been popular in the German-speaking world, while remaining almost entirely unknown to English readers.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Everything that God sends us is beautiful, even though we may not understand it - and we only need to give it some proper thought to see that what God gives is just sheer happiness; the suffering is what we add to it.

Adalbert Stifter

While they were speaking of - in their opinion - great things, around about them only little things - also in their opinion - were happening: everywhere the bushes were turning green, the brooding earth was germinating and beginning to play with her ...

Adalbert Stifter

Everyone is out for himself. Not everyone will say so but everyone so. And those that don't say so often behave in an even more grossly selfish way.

Adalbert Stifter

How great inexperience and innocence is. On the authority of their parents they go to a place where they could meet their death; for the Zirder in flood is very dangerous and, given the ignorance of the children, can be incalculably dangerous. But th...

Adalbert Stifter

Here for example the beautiful silver mirror of a river swells, a boy falls in, the water ripples sweetly around his locks, he sinks - and after a short while the silver mirror swells as before.

Adalbert Stifter

Great beauty and youth capture our attention, excite a deep pleasure; however, why shouldn't our souls gaze at a countenance over which the years have passed? Isn't there a story there, one unknown, full of pain or beauty, which pours its reflection ...

Adalbert Stifter

In the old pieces of furniture almost as in the old paintings, dwells the charm of the past, of the faded which becomes stronger in a man when he reaches an advanced age.

Adalbert Stifter

My heart was full and uplifted; it seemed that in my soul the question arose whether such things as Art, literature, science encompassed and completed life or whether there was still something in the distance which encompassed it even more completely...

Adalbert Stifter

Everything that now exists, no matter how great and good it is, lasts for a time, fulfills a purpose, and then passes on. And so it will be with all the works of art that now exist; an eternal veil of forgetfulness will lie over them, just as there i...

Adalbert Stifter

Between the wrinkles of age and her features which indicated a number of years resided a beauty that was touching and awakened trust. Since by now I had observed many faces quite closely in order to sketch them, I fully realized that it was more than...

Adalbert Stifter

People make themselves unhappy by desiring and praising only one thing, by becoming too one-sided in trying to find contentment. If we were just in harmony with ourselves we would enjoy the things of this world much more. But when we have an inordina...

Adalbert Stifter

Don't the overwhelming majority believe that mankind is the crowning achievement of Creation, that man is better than everything, even things we haven't yet investigated? And don't those people who aren't able to escape the bonds of their own ego thi...

Adalbert Stifter

How strange it was, I thought, that when the tiny though thousandfold beauties of the Earth disappeared and the immeasurable beauty of outer space rose in the distant quiet splendor of light, man and the greatest number of other creatures were suppos...

Adalbert Stifter

On increasingly warm nice days I liked to sit toward noon on the bench encircling the cherry tree and look at the bare trees, the freshly plowed fields, the green strips of winter planting, the meadows that were already sprouting, and through the fra...

Adalbert Stifter

Among the books there were also some containing bombast. They didn't try to portray Nature as it is within and outside of man; rather, they tried to make it more beautiful, seeking to elicit certain effects. I turned away from them. If reality isn't ...

Adalbert Stifter

Author Bio

  • NameAdalbert Stifter
  • Descriptionaustrian painter, pacifist and writer
  • BornOctober 23, 1805
  • DiedJanuary 28, 1868
  • CountryAustria
  • ProfessionWriter; Painter; Poet
  • WorksRock Crystal; Der Nachsommer