Those who understand only what can be explained understand very little.
Marie Von Ebner-EschenbachRead
Whoever prefers the material comforts of life over intellectual wealth is like the owner of a palace who moves into the servants’ quarters and leaves the sumptuous rooms empty.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the folly of prioritizing materialism over intellectual and spiritual growth.
Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach uses the metaphor of a palace and its servants' quarters to illustrate that choosing material comforts over intellectual wealth leads to an impoverished life. It suggests that true richness lies in knowledge, wisdom, and personal growth, rather than in superficial possessions.
Themes
MaterialismIntellectual WealthWisdomGrowthPriorities
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about pursuing knowledge and wisdom over wealth.
More from Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach
All quotes →We are so vain that we even care for the opinion of those we don't care for.
Marie Von Ebner-EschenbachRead
Authors from whom others steal should not complain, but rejoice. Where there is no game there are no poachers.
Marie Von Ebner-EschenbachRead
In meeting again after a separation, acquaintances ask after our outward life, friends after our inner life.
Marie Von Ebner-EschenbachRead
Have patience with the quarrelsomeness of the stupid. It is not easy to comprehend that one does not comprehend.
Marie Von Ebner-EschenbachRead
There is only one proof of ability - action.
Marie Von Ebner-EschenbachRead
Similar quotes
A great man stands on God. A small man on a great man.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
Begin where you are. Read every word, every phrase, every paragraph of the mind, as it operates through thought.
Jiddu KrishnamurtiRead
We can't really tell how crooked our thinking is until we line it up with the straight edge of Scripture.
Elisabeth ElliotRead
Humans are ridiculous. We're all pathetic strivers who will fall short. If you can accept that, it's optimistic because you can shoot for the moon and know you're never going to get there, and that's OK.
Bob OdenkirkRead
False thinking and false ideologies, dressed in the most pleasing forms, quietly - almost without our knowing it - seek to reduce our moral defenses and to captivate our minds. They entice with bright promises of security, cradle-to-grave guarantees of many kinds.
Ezra Taft BensonRead
Woe to the man who is always busy - hurried in a turmoil of engagements, from occupation to occupation, and with no seasons interposed of recollection, contemplation and repose! Such a man must inevitably be gross and vulgar, and hard and indelicate - the sort of man with whom no generous spirit would desire to hold intercourse.
William GodwinRead