Friedrich Schiller quotes:

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Dare to err and to dream. Deep meaning often lies in childish plays.
A gloomy guest fits not a wedding feast.
Lose not yourself in a far off time, seize the moment that is thine.
No doubt the artist is the child of his time; but woe to him if he is also its disciple, or even its favorite.
Aesthetic matters are fundamental for the harmonious development of both society and the individual.
The will of man is his happiness.
Great souls suffer in silence.
They would need to be already wise, in order to love wisdom.
Who dares nothing, need hope for nothing.
It hinders the creative work of the mind if the intellect examines too closely the ideas as they pour in.
Art is the right hand of Nature. The latter has only given us being, the former has made us men.
It is criminal to steal a purse, daring to steal a fortune, a mark of greatness to steal a crown. The blame diminishes as the guilt increases.
Mankind is made great or little by its own will.
Appearance rules the world.
Not without a shudder may the human hand reach into the mysterious urn of destiny.
The history of the world is the world's court of justice.
The universe is one of God's thoughts.
Votes should be weighed not counted.
Der Ring macht Ehen,und Ringe sind's, die eine Kette machen.II, 2. (Elisabeth)
Freedom can occur only through education.
The key to education is the experience of beauty.
Art is the daughter of freedom.
The voice of the majority is no proof of justice.
There is no such thing as chance; and what seem to us merest accident springs from the deepest source of destiny.
In the society, where people are just parts in a larger machine, individuals are unable to develop fully.
Nothing leads to good that is not natural.
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.
The world is ruled only by consideration of advantages.
That which is so universal as death must be a benefit.
Let not thy heart cling to the things which for so short a time deck out thy life. Let him who has, learn to lose, and him who is happy, familiarise himself with what may give pain.
The average estimate themselves by what they do, the above average by what they are.
Utility is the great idol of the age, to which all powers must do service and all talents swear allegiance.
Let him that sows the serpent's teeth not hope to reap a joyous harvest. Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, its own avenging angel,--dark misgivings at the inmost heart.
Revenge is barren of itself: it is the dreadful food it feeds on; its delight is murder, and its end is despair.
As freely as the firmament embraces the world, or the sun pours forth impartially his beams, so mercy must encircle both friend and foe.
If you have never seen beauty in a moment of suffering, you have never seen beauty at all. If you have never seen joy in a beautiful face, you have never seen joy at all.
A beautiful soul has no other merit than its own existence.
It is difficult to discriminate the voice of truth from amid the clamor raised by heated partisans.
A sublime soul can rise to all kinds of greatness, but by an effort; it can tear itself from all bondage, to all that limits and constrains it, but only by strength of will. Consequently the sublime soul is only free by broken efforts.
There is room in the smallest cottage for a happy loving pair.
Deep meaning lies often in childish play.
A deep meaning often lies in old customs.
Deeper meaning resides in the fairy tales told to me in my childhood than in the truth that is taught by life.
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.
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.
One drop of hatred left in the cup of joy turns the most blissful draught into poison.
Joy, thou spark from Heav'n immortal, Daughter of Elysium! Drunk with fire, toward Heaven advancing Goddess, to thy shrine we come. Thy sweet magic brings together What stern Custom spreads afar; All men become brothers Where thy happy wing-beats are.
No emperor has the power to dictate to the heart.
Happy he who learns to bear what he cannot change.
There are evil spirits who suddenly fix their abode in man's unguarded breast, causing us to commit devilish deeds, and then, hurrying back to their native hell, leave behind the stings of remorse in the poisoned bosom.
A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled one is truly vanquished.
It is not flesh and blood, but heart which makes us fathers and sons.
What shall he fear that does not fear death.
To gain a crown by fighting is great, to reject it divine.
Whoever fails to turn aside the ills of life by prudent forethought, must submit to fulfill the course of destiny.
Friends show me what I can do, foes teach me what I should do.
Dear is my friend--yet from my foe, as from my friend, comes good: My friend shows what I can do, and my foe what I should.
Posterity weaves no garlands for imitators.
If yon wish to be like the gods on earth, to be free in the realms of the dead, pluck not the fruit from the garden! In appearance it may glisten to the eye; but the perishable pleasure of possession quickly avenges the curse of curiosity.
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.
Satisfied if they themselves can escape from the hard labour of thought, they willingly abandon to others the guardianship of their thoughts.
When the measured dance of the hours brings back the happy smile of spring, the buried dead is born again in the life-glance of the sun. The germs which perished to the eye within the cold breast of the earth spring up with joy in the bright realm of day.
Have hope. Though clouds environs now, And gladness hides her face in scorn, Put thou the shadow from thy brow - No night but hath its morn.
An axe at home saves hiring a carpenter.
Be noble minded! Our own heart, and not other men's opinions of us, forms our true honor.
To rankling poison hast thou turned in me the milk of human kindness.
If thou art something bring thy soul and interchange with mine. - Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller.
O jealousy! thou magnifier of trifles.
The jest loses its point when he who makes it is the first to laugh.
His saying was: live and let live.
In love, Jealousy is the great exaggerator.
The Moor has done his work, the Moor may go.
If we do not find anything very pleasant, at least we shall find something new.
Peace is rarely denied to the peaceful.
Obedience decks the Christian most.
The first great law is to obey.
History, insofar as it accustoms human beings to comprehend the whole of the past and to hasten forward with its conclusions into the far future, conceals the boundaries of birth and death, which enclose the life of the human being so narrowly and oppressively, and with a kind of optical illusion, expands his short existence into endless space, leading the individual imperceptibly over into humanity.
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.
Yes great people are always subject to persecution and always getting into straits.
Power is the most persuasive rhetoric.
It is at the approach of extreme danger when a hollow puppet can accomplish nothing, that power falls into the mighty hands of nature, of the spirit giant-born, who listens only to himself, and knows nothing of compacts.
We can never replace a friend. When a man is fortunate enough to have several, he finds they are all different. No one has a double in friendship.
Only through Beauty's morning-gate, dost thou penetrate the land of knowledge.
The joke loses everything when the joker laughs himself.
The man of courage thinks not of himself. Help the oppressed and put thy trust in God.
Disappointments are to the soul what a thunderstorm is to the air.
Every true genius is bound to be naive.
Of all the possessions of this life fame is the noblest; when the body has sunk into the dust the great name still lives.
So it has reached this pass? Obedience and fear take flight together?
When the mechanic has to mend a watch he lets the wheels run out; but the living watchworks of the state have to be repaired while they act, and a wheel has to be exchanged for another during its revolutions.
Only those who have the patience to do simple things perfectly will acquire the skill to do difficult things easily.
Many a smiling face hides a mourning heart; but grief alone teaches us what we are.
The strong man is strongest when alone.
Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain.
A pity about the people! they are brave enough comrades, but they have heads like a soapboiler's.
Honesty prospers in every condition of life.
Time flies on restless pinions - constant never.
On the mountains there is freedom! The world is perfect everywhere, save where man comes with his torment.
Even the weak become strong when they are united.
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.
If you want to know yourself, Just look how others do it; If you want to understand others, Look into your own heart. What is life without the radiance of love?
What is life without the radiance of love?
Joy, in Nature's wide dominion, Mightiest cause of all is found; And 'tis joy that moves the pinion When the wheel of time goes round.
All things must; man is the only creature that wills.
O tender yearning, sweet hoping! The golden time of first love! The eye sees the open heaven, The heart is intoxicated with bliss; O that the beautiful time of young love Could remain green forever.
Keep true to the dreams of your youth.
A noble heart will always capitulate to reason.
The rich become richer and the poor become poorer is a cry heard throughout the whole civilized world.
It does not prove a thing to be right because the majority say it is so.
Opposition always inflames the enthusiast, never converts him.
The greater part of humanity is too much harassed and fatigued by the struggle with want, to rally itself for a new and sterner struggle with error.
Full of wisdom are the ordinations of fate.
Did you think the lion was sleeping because he didn't roar?
Love is only known by him who hopelessly persists in love.
Love guides the stars towards each other, the world plan endures only through love.
If you wish to know yourself observe how others act. If you wish to understand others look into your own heart.
Grace is the beauty of form under the influence of freedom.
Man, living, feeling man, is the easy sport of the over-mastering present.
When you are not happy with your life, always think that someone is happy simply because you exist
No, no! I do nature injustice. She gave us inventive faculty, and set us naked, and helpless on the shore of this great ocean,--the world; swim those who can, the heavy may go to the bottom.

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