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SCHILLER, Johann Christoph Friedrich von Quotes
(1759-1805), German poet
What reason, like the careful ant, draws laboriously together, the wind of accident sometimes collects in a moment.
Genuine morality is preserved only in the school of adversity; a state of continuous prosperity may easily prove a quicksand to virtue.
We often tremble at an empty terror, yet the false fancy brings a real misery.
Time consecrates and what is gray with age becomes religion.
The painter is, as to the execution of his work, a mechanic; but as to his conception and spirit and design he is hardly below even the poet.
Heaven and earth fight in vain against a dunce.
Ever building to the clouds, and never reflecting that the poor narrow basis cannot sustain the giddy, tottering column.
He that is overcautious will accomplish but very little.
There is no such thing as chance; and what seems to us the merest accident springs from the deepest source of destiny.
A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled one is truly vanquished.
Opposition always inflames the enthusiast, never converts him.
Of all the possessions of this life fame is the noblest: when the body has sunk into the dust the great name still lives.
Whoever fails to turn aside the ills of life by prudent forethought, must submit to the course of destiny.
The sin lessens in the guilty one's estimation, only as the guilt increases.
That nation is worthless that will not, with pleasure, venture all for its honor.
Man is an imitative creature, and whoever is foremost leads the herd.
The ridiculous rage for innovation, which only increases the weight of the chains it cannot break, shall never fire my blood!
Intellect is brain force.
The jest loses its point when he who makes it is the first to laugh.
The eye's light is a noble gift of heaven! All beings live from light; each fair created thing, the very plants, turn with a joyful transport to the light.
I have enjoyed the happiness of the world; I have lived and loved.
The voice of the majority is no proof of justice.
As freely as the firmament embraces the world, or the sun pours forth impartially his beams, so mercy must encircle both friend and foe.
Votes should be weighed, not counted.
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.
A virtuous name is the precious, only good, for which queens and peasants' wives must contest together.
The worm of conscience is the companion of the owl.—The light is shunned by sinners and evil spirits only.
The great happiness of life, I find after all, to consist in the regular discharge of some mechanical duty.
The May of life blooms only once.
Opposition inflames the enthusiast, never converts him.
Peace is rarely denied to the peaceful.
There are occasions when the general belief of the people, even though it be groundless, works its effect as sure as truth itself.
As inclination changes; thus ebbs and flows the unstable tide of public judgment.
Man, living, feeling man, is the easy sport of the over-mastering present.
Revenge is barren of itself; itself is the dreadful food it feeds on; its delight is murder; its satiety despair.
Secrecy is for the happy; misery, hopeless misery needs no veil; under a thousand suns it dares act openly.
The world is governed only by self-interest.
Every one stamps his own value on himself.—The price we challenge for ourselves is given us.—Man is made great or little by his own will.
Be noble-minded! Our own heart, and not other men's opinions of us, forms our true honor.
A childlike mind, in its simplicity, practices that science of good to which the wise may be blind.
Without a home must the soldier go, a changeful wanderer, and can warm himself at no home-lit hearth.
In what he leaves unsaid I discover a master of style.
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.
Every man stamps his value on himself. The price we challenge for ourselves is given us by others.—Man is made great or little by his own will.
Wine invents nothing; it only tattles. It lets out all secrets.
Honor to women! they twine and weave the roses of heaven into the life of man; it is they that unite us in the fascinating bonds of love; and, concealed in the modest veil of the graces, they cherish carefully the external fire of delicate feeling with holy hands.
Keep true to the dreams of thy youth.
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