Friedrich Schiller

What are hopes, what are plans?

Life is earnest, art is gay.

Dare to be wise! Energy and spirit is needed to overcome the obstacles which indolence of nature as well as cowardice of heart oppose to our instruction. It is not without significance that the old myth makes the goddess of Wisdom emerge fully armed from the head of Jupiter; for her very first function is warlike. Even in her birth she has to maintain a hard struggle with the senses, which do not want to be dragged from their sweet repose. The greater part of humanity is too much harassed and fatigued by the struggle with want, to rally itself for a new and sterner struggle with error. Content if they themselves escape the hard labor of thought, men gladly resign to others the guardianship of their ideas, and if it happens that higher needs are stirred in them, they embrace with a eager faith the formulas which State and priesthood hold in readiness for such an occasion.

Man, one may say, was never in such a completely animal condition; but he has, on the other hand, never escaped from it.

Und bin ich strafbar, weil ich menschlich war?

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

Wer tränen ernten will, muss Liebe säen.

Every true genius is bound to be naive.

Rarely do we arrive at the summit of truth without running into extremes; we have frequently to exhaust the part of error, and even of folly, before we work our way up to the noble goal of tranquil wisdom.

Wer nicht mit der Zeit geht, geht mit der Zeit

What is the short meaning of the long speech?

Therefore, one will see in the so-called refined ages, softness degenerate not seldom into effeminacy, plainness into insipidity, correctness into emptiness, liberality into arbitrariness, lightness into frivolity, calm into apathy, and the most contemptible caricature border upon the most glorious humanity.

A beleza não oferece resultados isolados nem para o entendimento, nem para a vontade, não realiza, isoladamente, fins intelectuais ou morais, não encontra uma verdade sequer, não auxilia nem mesmo o cumprimento de um dever, e é, numa palavra, tão incapaz de fundar o caráter quanto de iluminar a mente. Pela cultura estética, portanto, permanecem inteiramente indeterminados o valor e a dignidade pessoais de um homem, à medida que estes só podem depender dele mesmo, e nada mais se alcançou senão o fato de que, a partir de agora, tornou-se-lhe possível pela natureza fazer de si mesmo o que quiser — de que lhe é completamente devolvida a liberdade de ser o que deve ser. Com isso, porém, alcança-se algo infinito. Pois, se lembramos que justamente essa liberdade lhe havia sido tomada pela coerção unilateral da natureza na sensação e pela legislação exclusiva da razão no pensamento, temos de considerar a capacidade que lhe é de-volvida na disposição estética como a suprema de todas as dádivas, a dádiva da humanidade.

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.

Nichtswürdig ist die Nation, die nicht Ihr Alles freudig setzt an ihre Ehre!