Art is the daughter of freedom.
All things must; man is the only creature that wills.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that while everything in nature follows a predetermined course, humans have the unique ability to exert their will and make choices.
Friedrich Schiller's quote emphasizes the fundamental difference between humans and other creatures in the natural world. While all beings are subject to the laws of nature and must follow their inherent paths, humans possess the distinct capability to shape their own destinies through conscious choice and willpower. This highlights the importance of human agency and the potential for self-determination in contrast to the inevitability that governs other forms of life.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about personal development, one might quote this to inspire self-motivation.
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
New York remains what it has always been : a city of ebb and flow, a city of constant shifts of population and economics, a city of virtually no rest. It is harsh, dirty, and dangerous, it is whimsical and fanciful, it is beautiful and soaring - it is not one or another of these things but all of them, all at once, and to fail to accept this paradox is to deny the reality of city existence.
Old age is a special problem for me because I've never been able to shed the mental image I have of myself - a lad of about 19.
Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.
Far from being the basis of the good society, the family, with its narrow privacy and tawdry secrets, is the source of all our discontents.
We are what we imagine. Our very existence consists in our imagination of ourselves. Our best destiny is to imagine, at least, completely, who and what, and that we are. The greatest tragedy that can befall us is to go unimagined.
It's not speech per se that allows democracies to function, but the ability to agree - eventually, at least some of the time - on what is true, what is important and what serves the public good. This doesn't mean everyone must agree on every fact, or that our priorities are necessarily uniform.