Friedrich Schiller Quotes

Dare to be wrong and to dream.

An honest man you may form of windle-straws, but to make a rogue you must have grist.

A virtuous name is the precious only good, for which queens and peasants' wives must contest together.

Peace is rarely denied to the peaceful.

There is no such thing as chance; and what seem to us merest accident springs from the deepest source of destiny.

Deeper meaning resides in the fairy tales told to me in my childhood than in the truth that is taught by life.

There is room in the smallest cottage for a happy loving pair.

Live with your century; but do not be its creature.

Alas! When duty grows thy law, enjoyment fades away.

Cowards have done good and kind actions, but a coward never pardoned.

Be true, and thou shalt fetter time with everlasting chain.

The strong man is strongest when alone.

Cling to thy native land, for it is the land of thy fathers?

In the case of a creative mind, it seems to me, the intellect has withdrawn its watchers from the gates, and the ideas rush in pell-mell and only then does it review and inspect the multitudes.

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 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.

It is easy to give advice from a port of safety.

The history of the world is the world's court of justice.

Art is difficult, transient is her reward.

Illusion is brief, but repentance is long.

The voice of our age seems by no means favorable to art, at all events to that kind of art to which my inquiry is directed. The course of events has given a direction to the genius of the time that threatens to remove it continually further from the ideal of art. For art has to leave reality, it has to raise itself bodily above necessity and neediness; for art is the daughter of freedom, and it requires its prescriptions and rules to be furnished by the necessity of spirits and not by that of matter.

The game of life looks cheerful when one carries a treasure safe in his heart.

It is only through the morning gate of the beautiful that you can penetrate into the realm of knowledge. That which we feel here as beauty we shall one day know as truth.

What is life without the radiance of love?

He that is overcautious will accomplish little.

Have Love. Not love alone for one, but man as man they brother call; and scatter like the circling sun thy charities on all.

Song forbids victorious deeds to die.

Our safety is not in blindness, but in facing our dangers.

Will it, and set to work briskly.

Whoever fails to turn aside the ills of life by prudent forethought, must submit to fulfill the course of destiny.

No emperor has the power to dictate to the heart.

The storm is master. Man, as a ball, is tossed twixt winds and billows.

A deep meaning often lies in old customs.

To the fool-king belongs the world.

A gloomy guest fits not a wedding feast.

Man is never so authentically himself as when at play.

The gentlest man cannot live in peace if it does not please his wicked neighbor.

Deaf rage that hears no leader.

What reason, like the careful ant, draws laboriously together, the wind of accident sometimes collects in a moment.

It is well for a man when he has learned to endure what he cannot change, and to give up with dignity what he cannot retain.

Day's lustrous eyes grow heavy in sweet death.

Intellect--brain force.

The brave person thinks of himself last of all.

Whatever lives, lives to die in sorrow. We engage our hearts, and grasp after the things of this world, only to undergo the pang of losing them.

Full of wisdom are the ordinations of fate.

To rankling poison hast thou turned in me the milk of human kindness.

Where there is much freedom there is much error.

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.