Talk:Friedrich Schiller

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Wikiquote no longer allows unsourced quotations, and they are in process of being removed from our pages (see Wikiquote:Limits on quotations); but if you can provide a reliable and precise source for any quote on this list please move it to Friedrich Schiller. --Antiquary 20:47, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

• A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled one is truly vanquished.

• A noble heart will always capitulate to reason.

• Aesthetic matters are fundamental for the harmonious development of both society and the individual.

• All things must; man is the only creature that wills.

• Appearance rules the world.

• Art is the right hand of Nature. The latter has only given us being, the former has made us men.

• As freely as the firmament embraces the world, or the sun pours forth impartially his beams, so mercy must encircle both friend and foe.
  • I suspect this is a variant translation of a few of the lines below, translated by Anna Swanwick, spoken by Johanna in The Maid of Orleans in Selections from the Dramas of Goethe and Schiller, Act III, Scene 4 (p 224 in the linked-to ebook):
    

A gracious sovereign throws his portals wide,

Admitting every guest, excluding none;

As freely as the firmament the world,

So mercy must encircle friend and foe.

The sun pours forth his vivifying beams

Through all the regions of infinity:

The heavens impartially dispense their dew,

And bring refreshment to each thirsty plant.

Whate'er is good, and cometh from on high,

Is universal and without reserve.

--Hughh (talk) 19:47, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

• Be noble minded! Our own heart, and not other men's opinions of us, forms our true honor.

• Dare to err and to dream. Deep meaning often lies in childish plays.

• Disappointments are to the soul what a thunderstorm is to the air.

• Every true genius is bound to be naive.

• Freedom can occur only through education.

• Full of wisdom are the ordinations of fate.
  • This is attributed to Schiller by various sources, including James Wood, in Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources (1893). A further search on the German in Wood's dictionary—"Voll Weisheit sind des Schicksals Fügungen"—reveals the phrase is from Schiller's translation into German of Euripides' play The Phoenicians.

• Glory to Women! They weave and entwine heavenly roses into an earthly life.

• Grace is the beauty of form under the influence of freedom.

• Happy he who learns to bear what he cannot change.

• He who considers too much will perform little.

• Honesty prospers in every condition of life.

• I am better than my reputation.

• I see before me the father of my parents.

• In the society where people are just parts in a larger machine, individuals are unable to develop fully.

• It does not prove a thing to be right because the majority say it is so.

• It hinders the creative work of the mind if the intellect examines too closely the ideas as they pour in.

• 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.
  • Variant: 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.

• It is difficult to discriminate the voice of truth from amid the clamor raised by heated partisans.

• It is easy to give advice from a port of safety.
  • Variant: One can advise comfortably from a safe port.

• It is often wise to reveal that which cannot be concealed for long.

• Keep true to the dreams of thy youth.
  • Variant: Keep true to the dreams of your youth.

• 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.

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

• Lose not yourself in a far off time, seize the moment that is thine.

• Mankind is made great or little by its own will.

• No emperor has the power to dictate to the heart.

• Not without a shudder may the human hand reach into the mysterious urn of destiny.

• Nothing leads to good that is not natural.

• Of all the possessions of this life fame is the noblest; when the body has sunk into the dust the great name still lives.

• Opposition always inflames the enthusiast, never converts him.
  • Variant: Opposition inflames the enthusiast, never converts him.

• Peace is rarely denied to the peaceful.

• Posterity weaves no garlands for imitators.

• Power is the most persuasive rhetoric.

• Revenge is barren of itself: it is the dreadful food it feeds on; its delight is murder, and its end is despair.

• That which is so universal as death must be a benefit.

• The key to education is the experience of beauty.

• The rich become richer and the poor become poorer is a cry heard throughout the whole civilized world.

• The voice of the majority is no proof of justice.

• The will of man is his happiness.

• The world is ruled only by consideration of advantages.

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

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

• To gain a crown by fighting is great, to reject it divine.

• Truth exists for the wise, beauty for the feeling heart.

• Utility is the great idol of the age, to which all powers must do service and all talents swear allegiance.

• Votes should be weighed not counted.

• 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!

• Who dares nothing, need hope for nothing.

• Worthless is the nation that does not gladly stake its all on its honor.

• Youth covets; let not this covetousness seduce you.

Re "Keep true to the dreams of thy youth.", a similar sentiment is expressed by Schiller with "A man, he must respect his young days’ dreams." in the first line of page 179 here. Does that help at all? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 23:15, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

The same source (Don Carlos, act IV, scene xxi; here), but translated differently, reads "Tell him, in manhood, he must still revere // The dreams of early youth...". — I.S.M.E.T.A. 23:49, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Joan of Arc Burning at Stake captioning

Why is the image captioned with "Folly, though conquerest...", when it is a speech for the part of Talbot?