“Nothing makes us more cowardly and unconscionable than the desire to be loved by everyone.”
Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 82.
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Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach 81
Austrian writer 1830–1916Related quotes
“Goethe; or, the Writer,” pp. 271-272
1850s, Representative Men (1850)
“All of my love letters are nothing more than the realization of my need to make phrases.”
Todas as minhas cartas de amor não são mais que a realização da minha necessidade de fazer frases.
Diary (16 July, 1930), quoted in Afinado desconcerto (2002), p. 272
Preface
1910s, The Doctor's Dilemma (1911)
Variant: A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
Context: Attention and activity lead to mistakes as well as to successes; but a life spent in making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
“Unconscionable Love,
To what extremes will you not drive our hearts!”
Improbe Amor, quid non mortalia pectora cogis!
Compare:
Σχέτλι᾽ Ἔρως, μέγα πῆμα, μέγα στύγος ἀνθρώποισιν,
ἐκ σέθεν οὐλόμεναί τ᾽ ἔριδες στοναχαί τε γόοι τε,
ἄλγεά τ᾽ ἄλλ᾽ ἐπὶ τοῖσιν ἀπείρονα τετρήχασιν.
Unconscionable Love, bane and tormentor of mankind, parent of strife, fountain of tears, source of a thousand ills.
Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica, IV, 445–447 (tr. E. V. Rieu)
Source: Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book IV, Line 412 (tr. Fitzgerald)
Closing sentence of the Preface to the general science (1677) (in P. Wiener (ed.), Leibniz Selections, Macmilland Press Ltd, 1951).