12 quotes
Man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he is only completely a man when he plays.
On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1794)
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.
On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1794)
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.
On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1794)
Utility is the great idol of the time, to which all powers do homage and all subjects are subservient.
On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1794)
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.
On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1794)
No doubt the artist is the child of his time; but woe to him if he is also its disciple, or even its favorite.
On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1794)
It is through beauty that we arrive at freedom.
On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1794)
It would be necessary that they should be already sages to love wisdom: a truth that was felt at once by him to whom philosophy owes its name.
On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1794)
Live with your century; but do not be its creature. Work for your contemporaries; but create what they need, not what they praise.
On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1794)
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.
On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1794)
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.
On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1794)
We are citizens of an age, as well as of a State; and if it is held to be unseemly, or even inadmissable, for a man to cut himself off from the customs and manners of the circle in which he lives, why should it be less of a duty, in the choice of his activity, to submit his decision to the needs and the taste of his century?
On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1794)