Friedrich Schiller - Life Quotes

13 Sourced Quotes

View all Friedrich Schiller Quotes
What's old collapses, times change,
And new life blossoms in the ruins.

Friedrich Schiller
Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.

Friedrich Schiller
Wouldst thou wisely, and with pleasure,
Pass the days of life's short measure,
From the slow one counsel take,
But a tool of him ne'er make;
Ne'er as friend the swift one know,
Nor the constant one as foe.

Friedrich Schiller
Just as nature began gradually to vanish from human life as experience…so we see it emerge in the world of the poet as an idea.

Friedrich Schiller
Who dares impede my progress? Who presume
The spirit to control which guideth me?
Still must the arrow wing its destined flight!
Where danger is, there must Johanna be;
Nor now, nor here, am I foredoomed to fall;
Our monarch's royal brow I first must see
Invested with the round of sovereignty.
No hostile power can rob me of my life,
Till I've accomplished the commands of God.

Friedrich Schiller
One moment spent in Paradise
Is not too dearly paid for with one's life.

Friedrich Schiller
Don't let your heart depend on things
That ornament life in a fleeting way!
He who possesses, let him learn to lose,
He who is fortunate, let him learn pain.

Friedrich Schiller
Life is only error,
And death is knowledge.

Friedrich Schiller
Life is but a moment. Death is but a moment, too.

Friedrich Schiller
Deeper meaning resides in the fairytales told to me in my childhood than in any truth that is taught in life.

Friedrich Schiller
There are three lessons I would write, —
Three words — as with a burning pen,
In tracings of eternal light
Upon the hearts of men. Have Hope. Though clouds environ now,
And gladness hides her face in scorn,
Put thou the shadow from thy brow, —
No night but hath its morn. Have Faith. Where'er thy bark is driven, —
The calm's disport, the tempest's mirth, —
Know this: God rules the hosts of heaven,
The habitants of earth. Have Love. Not love alone for one,
But men, as man, thy brothers call;
And scatter, like the circling sun,
Thy charities on all. Thus grave these lessons on thy soul, —
Hope, Faith, and Love, — and thou shalt find
Strength when life's surges rudest roll,
Light when thou else wert blind.

Friedrich Schiller
Culture, far from giving us freedom, only develops, as it advances, new necessities; the fetters of the physical close more tightly around us, so that the fear of loss quenches even the ardent impulse toward improvement, and the maxims of passive obedience are held to be the highest wisdom of life.

Friedrich Schiller
A free life is worth a few hours of slavery.

Friedrich Schiller