Inspirational Quotes by Friedrich Schiller (German Poet)

Inspirational Quotations by Friedrich Schiller (German Poet)

Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759–1805) was a German dramatist, historian, and philosopher. One of the most influential playwrights of German literature, he is best known for his historical plays.

Born in Marbach, Württemberg, Schiller started writing plays while still a student at a military academy. His first play Die Räuber (The Robbers, 1781) caused a sensation. It featured a nobleman who withdraws from society to join a band of criminals.

Schiller then turned to historical studies and, for the next ten years, wrote two major works, The Revolt of the Netherlands (1788) and A History of the Thirty Years War (1793.) He also wrote Wallenstein (1799,) his famed trilogy of dramas based loosely on actual historical events during the Thirty Years War. It consists of Wallensteins Lager (Wallenstein’s Camp,) Die Piccolomini (The Piccolomini,) and Wallensteins Tod (Wallenstein’s Death.)

In 1785, Schiller wrote the hymn “An die Freude” (“Ode to Joy,”) which Beethoven later used as the basis for the fourth movement for the choral movement of his Ninth Symphony. Beethoven’s tune (but not Schiller’s words) was adopted as the Anthem of Europe by the Council of Europe and later by the European Union.

During the next several years, Schiller produced his most mature works, including Maria Stuart (Mary Stuart, 1800,) Die Jungfrau von Orleans (The Maid of Orleans, 1801,) and Wilhelm Tell (William Tell, 1804.) William Tell sets the legendary hero against the backdrop of the Swiss War of Independence against the Austrians. A favorite in revolutionary situations, it was most memorably produced by the German Expressionist theater producer Leopold Jessner after World War I.

Schiller also published academic essays of great consequence about the theatre, including The Stage Regarded as a Moral Institution (1784.) This manuscript helped raise the theatre to an essential element in German culture.

As a philosopher, Schiller is remembered for his influential assertion of aesthetics. He was influenced by Immanuel Kant’s idealism. Schiller’s most important philosophical works are Briefeüber die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen (1794–95; Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Mankind, 1844) and Über naive und sentimentalische Dichtung (1795; On Naïve and Sentimental Poetry, 1861.)

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Friedrich Schiller

When the wine goes in, strange things come out.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Oddity, Alcohol, Peculiarity

Why should I deem myself to be a chisel, when I could be the artist?
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Goals, Aspirations

Speech is always bolder than action.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Conversation, Speech

The world is governed only by self-interest.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Selfishness

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 mom.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Hope, Morning

I have enjoyed the happiness of the world; I have lived and loved.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Love

Will it, and set to work briskly.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Willpower, Will Power, Will

Lose not yourself in a far off time, seize the moment that is thine.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Focus

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.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Beauty

We often tremble at an empty terror, yet the false fancy brings a real misery.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Anticipation

Ever building to the clouds, and never reflecting that the poor narrow basis cannot sustain the giddy, tottering column.
—Friedrich Schiller

Where there is much freedom there is much error.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Freedom

Peace is rarely denied to the peaceful.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Peace

Man is an imitative creature, and whoever is foremost leads the herd.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Imitation

In a narrow circle the mind grows narrow. The more one expands, the larger their aims.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Vision, Open-mindedness

The May of life blooms only once.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Opportunity

Jealousy is the great exaggerator.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Jealousy

A brave man hazards life, but not his conscience.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Conscience

That nation is worthless that will not, with pleasure, venture all for its honor.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Honor

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

When faced with a mountain, I will not quit! I will keep on striving until I climb over, find a pass through, tunnel underneath – or simply stay and turn the mountain into a gold mine, with God’s help!
—Friedrich Schiller

A childlike mind, in its simplicity, practices that science of good to which the wise may be blind.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Simplicity

No doubt the artist is the child of his time; but woe to him if he is also its disciple, or even its favorite.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Fashion, Art

What the inner voice says will not disappoint the hoping soul.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Soul

The blind, unwieldy monster, which, at first, rattles its bones, threatening to swallow high and low, the near and distant, with its gaping jaws, at last stumbles over a thread.
—Friedrich Schiller

Worthless is the nation that does not gladly stake its all on its honor.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Honor

Soon is the struggle past, and to the earth,
To the eternal sun, I render back
These atoms, joined in me for pain and pleasure.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Death

Our safety is not in blindness, but in facing our danger.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Risk, Danger

Truth lives on in the midst of deception.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Truth

They would need to be already wise, in order to love wisdom.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Wisdom