Friedrich Schiller
poet, philosopher, historian, librarian, physician writer, playwright, novelist, university teacher, translator, journalist, writer, physician, military physician, aesthetician
Read on Wikipedia1759 – 1805
All Quotes by Friedrich Schiller
“O the idea was childish, but divinely beautiful.”
“A moment lived in paradiseIs not atoned for too dearly by death.”
“I am calledThe sun in my dominion never sets.”
“Love is only known by him who hopelessly persists in love.”
“KING PHILIPP II: Can you establish some new creed to justify my bloody murder of my only son?GRAND INQUISITOR: Far and wide, everywhere people worship the cross.”
“Joy, thou spark from Heav'n immortal,Where thy happy wing-beats are.”
“Be embraced, ye millions!A loving Father surely dwells.”
“Welcome, all ye myriad creatures!Brethren, take the kiss of love!”
“Who dares nothing, need hope for nothing.”
“He, that noble prize possessing—Let him join the chorus too!”
“Bow before him, all creation!Yonder is his habitation!”
“Joy, in Nature's wide dominion,When the wheel of time goes round”
“Joy from truth's own glass of fireBursts the bondage of the grave!”
“To the Gods we ne'er can renderNo repentance bring him low!”
“Sense of wrongs forget to treasure— God will mete as we may measure.”
“Courage, ne'er by sorrow broken!Truth alike to friend and foe!”
“Lo, the dead shall rise to heaven!Hell forever cease to be!”
“We are citizens of an age, as well as of a State; and if it is held to be unseemly, or even inadmissable, for a man to cut himself off from the customs and manners of the circle in which he lives, why should it be less of a duty, in the choice of his activity, to submit his decision to the needs and the taste of his century?”
“It is through beauty that we arrive at freedom.”
“Nothing, it is true, is more common than for both Science and Art to pay homage to the spirit of the age, and for creative taste to accept the law of critical taste.”
“They have founded the whole structure of their happiness on these very illusions, which ought to be combated and dissipated by the light of knowledge, and they would think they were paying too dearly for a truth which begins by robbing them of all that has value in their sight. It would be necessary that they should be already sages to love wisdom: a truth that was felt at once by him to whom philosophy owes its name.”
“As noble Art has survived noble nature, so too she marches ahead of it, fashioning and awakening by her inspiration. Before Truth sends her triumphant light into the depths of the heart, imagination catches its rays, and the peaks of humanity will be glowing when humid night still lingers in the valleys.”
“No doubt the artist is the child of his time; but woe to him if he is also its disciple, or even its favorite.”
“Man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he is only completely a man when he plays.”
“While the womanly god demands our veneration, the godlike woman kindles our love; but while we allow ourselves to melt in the celestial loveliness, the celestial self-sufficiency holds us back in awe.”
“The Greeks put us to shame not only by their simplicity, which is foreign to our age; they are at the same time our rivals, nay, frequently our models, in those very points of superiority from which we seek comfort when regretting the unnatural character of our manners. We see that remarkable people uniting at once fullness of form and fullness of substance, both philosophising and creating, both tender and energetic, uniting a youthful fancy to the virility of reason in a glorious humanity.”
“Posterity weaves no garlands for imitators.”
“He who has done his best for his own time has lived for all times.”
“Art is the right hand of Nature. The latter has only given us being, the former has made us men.”
“Life is earnest, art is gay.”
“Whatever is not forbidden is permitted.”
“Mankind is made great or little by its own will.”
“What is the short meaning of the long speech?”
“My son, there's nothing insignificant,First and most principal is place and time.”
“There is no such thing as chance; and what seem to us merest accident springs from the deepest source of destiny.”
“The intelligible forms of ancient poets,They live no longer in the faith of reason.”
“In thy breast are the stars of thy fate.”
“Mankind is made great or little by its own will.”
“You say it as you understand it.”
“When the wine goes in, strange things come out.”
“The dictates of the heart are the voice of fate.”
“The hat is the pride of man; for he who cannot keep his hat on before kings and emperors is no free man.”
“Man is made of ordinary things, and habit is his nurse.”
“I have only an office here, and no opinion.”
“Virtue has her heroes tooAs well as Fame and Fortune.”
“The strong man is strongest when alone.”
“Many a crown shines spotless nowThat yet was deeply sullied in the winning.”
“There's no such thing as chance;Springs from the deepest source of destiny.”
“What is life without the radiance of love?”
“The strong man is strongest when alone.”
“The mountain cannot frighten one who was born on it.”
“Who reflects too much will accomplish little.”
“You saw his weakness, and he will never forgive you.”
“Happy he who learns to bear what he cannot change.”
“This feat of Tell, the archer, will be toldBy heaven! The apple's cleft right through the core.”
“No cause has he to say his doom is harsh, Who's made the master of his destiny.”
“What's old collapses, times change,And new life blossoms in the ruins.”
“A gloomy guest fits not a wedding feast.”
“The most pious man can't stay in peace If it doesn't please his evil neighbor.”
“The reason passes, like the heart, through certain epochs and transitions, but its development is not so often portrayed. Men seem to have been satisfied with unfolding the passions in their extremes, their aberration, and their results, without considering how closely they are bound up with the intellectual constitution of the individual.”
“The present age has witnessed an extraordinary increase of a thinking public, by the facilities afforded to the diffusion of reading; the former happy resignation to ignorance begins to make way for a state of half-enlightenment, and few persons are willing to remain in the condition in which their birth has placed then.”
“Rarely do we arrive at the summit of truth without running into extremes; we have frequently to exhaust the part of error, and even of folly, before we work our way up to the noble goal of tranquil wisdom.”
“Truth suffers no loss if a vehement youth fails in finding it, in the same way that virtue and religion suffer no detriment if a criminal denies them.”
“I speak with the Eternal through the instrument of nature, — through the world's history: I read the soul of the artist in his Apollo.”
“It is an unfailing maxim, that if policy enjoins an act of violence, its execution must never be entrusted to the violent.”
“Self Confidence has always been the parent of great actions.”
“Art is the daughter of freedom.”
“The key to education is the experience of beauty.”
“Art is the daughter of freedom.”
“The key to education is the experience of beauty.”
“Knowledge, the object of knowledge and the knower are the three factors which motivate action; the senses, the work and the doer comprise the threefold basis of action.”
“Grace is the beauty of form under the influence of freedom.”
“Happy he who learns to bear what he cannot change.”
“Revenge is barren of itself: it is the dreadful food it feeds on; its delight is murder, and its end is despair.”
“Every true genius is bound to be naive.”
“The key to education is the experience of beauty.”
“There is room in the smallest cottage for a happy loving pair.”
“He who has done his best for his own time has lived for all times.”
“The history of the world is the world's court of justice.”
“Nothing leads to good that is not natural.”
“Art is the right hand of Nature. The latter has only given us being, the former has made us men.”
“Keep true to the dreams of your youth.”
“Grace is the beauty of form under the influence of freedom.”
“Grace is the beauty of form under the influence of freedom.”
“I feel an army in my fist.”
“The joke loses everything when the joker laughs himself.”
“Did you think the lion was sleeping because he didn't roar?”
“The lemonade is weak, like your soul.”
“Translation: World history is the world's court.”
“What one refuses in a minuteNo eternity will return.”
“What the inner voice saysWill not disappoint the hoping soul.”
“If thou canst not give pleasure to all by thy deeds and thy knowledge Give it then, unto the few; many to please is but in vain.”
“Wouldst thou know thyself, observe the actions of others. Wouldst thou other men know, look thou within thine own heart.”
“Man is created free, and is free,Though he be born in chains.”
“Virtue is no empty echo.”
“O tender yearning, sweet hoping!Could remain green forever.”
“Appearance should never attain reality,And if nature conquers, then must art retire.”
“I am better than my reputation.”
“Who dares impede my progress? Who presume Till I've accomplished the commands of God.”
“The key to education is the experience of beauty.”
“Pain is short, and joy is eternal.”
“Life is only error,And death is knowledge.”
“What are hopes, what are plans?”
“Don't let your heart depend on thingsHe who is fortunate, let him learn pain.”
“On the mountains there is freedom!Save where man comes with his torment.”
“Only through Beauty's morning gate, dost thou enter the land of Knowledge.”
“Threefold the stride of Time, from first to last! And motionless forever stands the Past.”
“Have faith! where'er thy bark is driven,—The inhabitants of earth.”
“O who knows what slumbers in the background of the times?”