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.)
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Our safety is not in blindness, but in facing our danger.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Risk, Danger
Every true genius is bound to be naive.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Ignorance, Genius
I have ever heard it said that spies and tale-bearers have done more mischief in this world than poisoned bowl or the assassin’s dagger.
—Friedrich Schiller
Only those who have the patience to do simple things perfectly will acquire the skill to do difficult things easily.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Patience
Folly, thou conquerest, and I must yield!
Against stupidity the very gods
Themselves contend in vain. Exalted reason,
Resplendent daughter of the head divine,
Wise foundress of the system of the world,
Guide of the stars, who are thou then, if thou,
Bound to the tail of folly’s uncurb’d steed,
Must, vainly shrieking, with the drunken crowd,
Eyes open, plunge down headlong in the abyss.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Death
The voice of the majority is no proof of justice.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Justice
The great happiness of life, I find, after all, to consist in the regular discharge of some mechanical duty.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Happiness, Occupation
Emulation is a noble and just passion, full of appreciation.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Role models
Who dares nothing, need hope for nothing.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Courage, Chance, Perspective, Success, Risk
Lose not yourself in a far off time, seize the moment that is thine.
—Friedrich Schiller
Wise to resolve, patient to perform.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Patience, Performance, Effort
Peace is rarely denied to the peaceful.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Peace
Truth lives on in the midst of deception.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Truth
A brave man hazards life, but not his conscience.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Conscience
Yes great people are always subject to persecution and always getting into straits.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Prejudice
Utility is the great idol of the age, to which all powers must do service and all talents swear allegiance.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Purpose
The average estimate themselves by what they do, the above average by what they are.
—Friedrich Schiller
The strong man is strongest when alone.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: One liners, Solitude
Measure not by the scale of perfection the meager product of reality.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Perfection
He that is overcautious will accomplish but very little.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Doubt, Success, Getting Going, Procrastination, Caution, Courage, Risk, Inaction
It is base to filch a purse, daring to embezzle a million, but it is great beyond measure to steal a crown. The sin lessens as the guilt increases.
—Friedrich Schiller
Topics: Guilt
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