Q0362

Friedrich Schiller

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.
Thinker Friedrich Schiller
School German classical aesthetics
Source The Maid of Orleans
Theme Philosophy
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with The Maid of Orleans, within the tradition of German classical aesthetics. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of philosophy, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Friedrich Schiller's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Friedrich Schiller. (n.d.). Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0362

MLA: Friedrich Schiller. “Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain..” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0362.

Chicago: Friedrich Schiller. “Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain..” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0362.

Same thinker

More from Friedrich Schiller

  1. Live with your century, but do not be its creature.
  2. Man is only fully human where he plays.
  3. It is the task of beauty to lead the sensuous human being to the rational human being.

All quotations by Friedrich Schiller

Same theme

More on philosophy

  1. It is through wonder that people both now begin and first began to philosophize.
  2. A person's character is their destiny.
  3. What is opposed brings together; from what differs comes the finest harmony.
  4. Death is nothing to us: for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
  5. Pleasure is the beginning and end of the happy life — not the pleasures of profligates, but freedom from pain in the body and from disturbance in the soul.

Browse the philosophy theme