# Theodor Fontane's best quotes

From the 'wide field' of Effi Briest to The Stechlin, Cécile and the Rambles through the March of Brandenburg: Fontane's best-known lines, each with the work and chapter.

- 0 votes · 13 items
- Jun 14, 2026 · dichter
- https://even.best/en/l/4566/theodor-fontane-s-best-quotes

## Top 13

1. **That is too wide a field.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Effi Briest (1895): old Briest's favourite phrase, in chapters 5, 15, 22 and 36.
2. **Words of farewell must be short, like declarations of love.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Cécile (1887), chapter 16.
3. **Between arrogance and humility stands a third thing to which life belongs: courage.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Cécile (1887), chapter 18.
4. **Letter-writing is like summer lightning: it all flashes away and the storm never comes.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Cécile (1887), chapter 17.
5. **Courage is good, but endurance is better. Endurance is what matters most.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The Stechlin (1898), chapter 4.
6. **'Free, but not cheeky' – that's my motto.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The Stechlin (1898), chapter 6.
7. **Marvelling is an art too. It takes something to recognise greatness as great.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The Stechlin (1898), chapter 29.
8. **The most human thing we have is language.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Irretrievable (1891), chapter 13.
9. **He who was born to hang will not drown.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Effi Briest (1895), chapter 15: Crampas.
10. **The heart remains a child.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Rambles through the March of Brandenburg, 'The Wendish Spree'.
11. **The magic always lies in the detail.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Letters to Georg Friedlaender.
12. **He who sees too much and too sharply also sees wrongly.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Letter to Paul Schlenther, 7 March 1890.
13. **Oh learn to think with the heart, and learn to feel with the mind.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Sayings, in Poems.

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