Art is the daughter of freedom.
The average estimate themselves by what they do, the above average by what they are.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that people of average ability evaluate themselves based on their actions, while those who are above average assess their worth based on their character and potential.
Friedrich Schiller's quote highlights a profound distinction between how individuals perceive their self-worth. Those who consider themselves average often gauge their value through their accomplishments and actions, focusing on tangible results. In contrast, those with higher aspirations and abilities evaluate themselves through their inherent qualities, values, and the potential they possess. This perspective offers a deeper understanding of self-worth, urging individuals to look beyond mere achievements and recognize the importance of character in self-assessment.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about personal growth.
More from Friedrich Schiller
All quotes βThere is no such thing as chance; and what seem to us merest accident springs from the deepest source of destiny.
Who dares nothing, need hope for nothing.
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.
As noble Art has survived noble nature, so too she marches ahead of it, fashioning and awakening by her inspiration. Before Truth sends her triumphant light into the depths of the heart, imagination catches its rays, and the peaks of humanity will be glowing when humid night still lingers in the valleys.
Wise to resolve, patient to perform.
Similar quotes
The most promising words ever written on the maps of human knowledge are terra incognita, unknown territory.
Sometimes you need to get hit in the head to realize that you're in a fight.
They [the Persians] are accustomed to deliberate on matters of the highest moment when warm with wine; but whatever they in this situation may determine is again proposed to them on the morrow, in their cooler moments, by the person in whose house they had before assembled. If at this time also it meet their approbation, it is executed; otherwise it is rejected. Whatever also they discuss when sober, is always a second time examined after they have been drinking.
I don't let my mouth say nothin' my head can't stand.
To be silent the whole day long, see no newspaper, hear no radio, listen to no gossip, be thoroughly and completely lazy, thoroughly and completely indifferent to the fate of the world is the finest medicine a man can give himself.
A single overstatement, wherever or however it occurs, diminishes the whole, and a carefree superlative has the power to destroy, for the reader, the object of the writer's enthusiasm.