Friedrich Schiller

The joke loses everything when the joker laughs himself.

When I hate I rob myself of something; but when I love I become richer by the object I love.

The world is narrow, broad the mind—
Thoughts dwell easily side by side
Things collide violently in space

The voice of our age seems by no means favorable to art, at all events to that kind of art to which my inquiry is directed. The course of events has given a direction to the genius of the time that threatens to remove it continually further from the ideal of art. For art has to leave reality, it has to raise itself bodily above necessity and neediness; for art is the daughter of freedom, and it requires its prescriptions and rules to be furnished by the necessity of spirits and not by that of matter. But in our day it is necessity, neediness, that prevails, and bends a degraded humanity under its iron yoke. Utility is the great idol of the time, to which all powers do homage and all subjects are subservient. In this great balance of utility, the spiritual service of art has no weight, and, deprived of all encouragement, it vanishes from the noisy Vanity Fair of our time. The very spirit of philosophical inquiry itself robs the imagination of one promise after another, and the frontiers of art are narrowed, in proportion as the limits of science are enlarged.

Everlastingly chained to a single little fragment of the Whole, man himself develops into nothing but a fragment; everlastingly in his ear the monotonous sound of the wheel that he turns, he never develops the harmony of his being, and instead of putting the stamp of humanity upon his own nature, he becomes nothing more than the imprint of his occupation or of his specialized knowledge.

Freundlos war der große Weltenmeister,
Fühlte Mangel - darum schuf er Geister.
Sel'ge Spiegel seiner Seligkeit!
Fand das höchste Wesen schon kein gleiches,
Aus dem Kelch des ganzen Seelenreiches
Schäumt ihm - die Unendlichkeit.

From the fields and from the vineyards
Came no fruits to deck the feats,
Only flesh of blood-stained victims
Smouldered on the altar-fires,
And whe'er the grieving goddess
Turns her melancholy gaze,
Sunk in vilest degradation,
Man his loathsomeness displays.

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

Wir sehen den Unglücklichen, der doch in eben der Stunde, wo er die Tat beging, so wie in der, wo er dafür büßet, Mensch war wie wir, für ein Geschöpf fremder Gattung an, dessen Blut anders umläuft als das unsrige, dessen Wille andern Regeln gehorcht als der unsrige; seine Schicksale rühren uns wenig, denn Rührung gründet sich ja nur auf ein dunkles Bewusstsein ähnlicher Gefahr, und wir sind weit entfernt, eine solche Ähnlichkeit auch nur zu träumen. Die Belehrung geht mit der Beziehung verloren, und die Geschichte, anstatt eine Schule der Bildung zu sein, muss sich mit einem armseligen Verdienste um unsre Neugier begnügen.

Der Menscheit Würde ist in Eure Hand gegeben, bewahret Sie! Sie sinkt mit euch! Mit euch wird sie sich heben!

While the womanly god demands our veneration, the godlike woman kindles our love; but while we allow ourselves to melt in the celestial loveliness, the celestial self-sufficiency holds us back in awe.

Der Mensch braucht wenig, und an Leben reich
Ist die Natur.

On the mountains there is freedom!
The world is perfect everywhere,
Save where man comes with his torment.

Nothing, it is true, is more common than for both Science and Art to pay homage to the spirit of the age, and for creative taste to accept the law of critical taste.

Courage, ne'er by sorrow broken!
Aid where tears of virtue flow;
Faith to keep each promise spoken!
Truth alike to friend and foe!