“The joke loses everything when the joker laughs himself.”

— Friedrich Schiller, Die Verschwörung des Fiesco, 1783

About Friedrich Schiller

1759 – 1805

German poet, playwright and philosopher, author of "The Robbers" and "Ode to Joy".

“A jest loses its point when the jester laughs himself.”

“I know that oft we tremble at an empty terror, but the false phantasm brings a real misery.”

“All men become brothers where thy happy wing-beats are.”

“Wit is cultured insolence.”

“A sense of humour is a sense of proportion.”

“The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power.”

“Humor is the most engaging cowardice.”

“At bottom the world isn't a joke.”

“This type is the grotesque; its new form is comedy.”