Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Quotes & Sayings

Morality without a sense of paradox is mean. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

The few existing writings against Kantian philosophy are the most important documents in the case history of sound common sense. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

In the ancients, one sees the accomplished letter of entire poetry: in the moderns, one has the presentiment of the spirit in becoming. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Wit is absolutely sociable spirit or aphoristic genius. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Plato's philosophy is a dignified preface to future religion. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

What do the few existing mystics still do?
They more or less mold the raw chaos of already existing religion. But only in an isolated, insignificant manner, through feeble attempts. Do it in a grand manner from all aspects with unified efforts, and let us awaken all religions from their graves, newly revivify and form the immortal ones through the omnipotence of art and science. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

The symmetry and organization of history teaches us that mankind, during its existence and development, genuinely was and became an individual, a person. In this great personality of mankind, God became man. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

What men are among the other formations of the earth, artists are among men. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

All the classical genres are now ridiculous in their rigorous purity. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Nothing is more witty and grotesque than ancient mythology and Christianity; that is because they are so mystical. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

In many a poetic work, one gets here and there, instead of representation merely a title indicating that this or that was supposedto be represented here, that the artist has been prevented from doing it and most humbly asks to be kindly excused. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Versatility of education can be found in our best poetry, but the depth of mankind should be found in the philosopher. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Irony is the form of paradox. Paradox is what is good and great at the same time. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

One can only become a philosopher, but not be one. As one believes he is a philosopher, he stops being one. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

The surest method of being incomprehensible or, moreover, to be misunderstood is to use words in their original sense; especially words from the ancient languages. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Whoever could properly characterize Goethe's Meister would have actually expressed what is the timely trend in literature. He would be able, as far as literary criticism is concerned, to rest. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Man is free whenever he produces or manifests God, and through this he becomes immortal. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

If you want to see mankind fully, look at a family. Within the family minds become organically one, and for this reason the family is total poetry. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

All men are somewhat ridiculous and grotesque, just because they are men; and in this respect artists might well be regarded as man multiplied by two. So it is, was, and shall be. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Religion and morals are symmetrically opposed, just like poetry and philosophy. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Mathematics is, as it were, a sensuous logic, and relates to philosophy as do the arts, music, and plastic art to poetry. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

A family can develop only with a loving woman as its center. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Original love never appears in pure form, but in manifold veils and shapes, such as confidence, humility, reverence, serenity, asfaithfulness and modesty, as gratefulness; but primarily as longing and wistful melancholy. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Aphorisms are the true form of the universal philosophy. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Gracefulness is a correct life: sensuality which contemplates and forms itself. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

No idea is isolated, but is only what it is among all ideas. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Every relationship of man to the infinite is religion, namely of a man in the full abundance of his humanity. Whenever a mathematician calculates infinity, that, to be sure, is not religion. Infinity conceived in this abundance is the Godhead. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Without poetry, religion becomes obscure, false, and malignant; without philosophy, licentious in all wantonness, and lascivious to the point of self-castration. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Like Leibniz's possible worlds, most men are only equally entitled pretenders to existence. There are few existences. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Duty is for Kant the One and All. Out of the duty of gratitude, he claims, one has to defend and esteem the ancients; and only out of duty has he become a great man. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

From what the moderns want, we must learn what poetry should become; from what the ancients did, what poetry must be. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Every form of life is in its origin not natural, but divine and human; for it must spring from love, just as there can be no reason without spirit. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

The subject of history is the gradual realization of all that is practically necessary. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Form your life humanly, and you have done enough: but you will never reach the height of art and the depth of science without something divine. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

The history of imitation of the older literature, particularly abroad, has among other advantages this one, that the important concepts of unintentional parody and passive wit can be deduced from it most easily and comprehensively. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

The need to raise itself above humanity is humanity's main characteristic. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

It is a thoughtless and immodest presumption to learn anything about art from philosophy. Some do begin as if they hoped to learnsomething new here, since philosophy cannot and should not do anything further than develop the given art experiences and the existing art concepts into a science, improve the views of art, and promote them with the help of a thoroughly scholarly art history, and produce that logical mood about these subjects too which unites absolute liberalism with absolute rigor. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

The life of the artist should be distinguished from that of all other people, even in external habits. They are Brahmins, a highercaste, not ennobled by birth, however, but by deliberate self-initiation. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

He who has religion will speak poetry. But philosophy is the tool with which to seek and discover religion. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Eternal life and the invisible world are only to be sought in God. Only within Him do all spirits dwell. He is an abyss of individuality, the only infinite plenitude. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

A critic is a reader who ruminates. Thus, he should have more than one stomach. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

If you want to penetrate into the heart of physics, then let yourself be initiated into the mysteries of poetry. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Imagination must first be filled to the point of saturation with life of every kind before the moment arrives when the friction of free sociability electrifies it to such an extent that the most gentle stimulus of friendly or hostile contact elicits from it lightning sparks, luminous flashes, or shattering blows. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Wit is the appearance, the external flash of imagination. Thus its divinity, and the witty character of mysticism. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

There are three kinds of explanation in science: explanations which throw a light upon, or give a hint at a matter; explanations which do not explain anything; and explanations which obscure everything. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

It is as deadly for a mind to have a system as to have none. Therefore it will have to decide to combine both. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

How many authors are there among writers? Author means originator. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

The essential point of view of Christianity is sin. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

What is called good society is usually nothing but a mosaic of polished caricatures. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

The poetry of this one is called philosophical, of that one philological, of a third rhetorical, and so on. Which is then the poetic poetry? — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

One should have wit, but not wish to have it; otherwise there will be witticism, the Alexandrian style of wit. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Even a friendly conversation which cannot be at any given moment be broken off voluntarily with complete arbitrariness has something illiberal about it. An artist, however, who is able and wants to express himself completely, who keeps nothing to himself and would wish to say everything he knows, is very much to be pitied. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Considered subjectively, philosophy always begins in the middle, like an epic poem. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

About no subject is there less philosophizing than about philosophy. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

As the ancient commander addressed his soldiers before battle, so should the moralist speak to men in the struggle of the era. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

As long as the artist invents and is inspired, he remains in a constrained state of mind, at least for the purpose of communication. He then wants to say everything, which is the wrong tendency of young geniuses or the right prejudice of old bunglers. Thus, he fails to recognize the value and dignity of self-restraint, which is indeed for both the artist and the man the first and the last, the most necessary and the highest goal. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

What is lost in the good or excellent translation is precisely the best. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Art and works of art do not make an artist; sense and enthusiasm and instinct do. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

The meanest authors have at least this similarity with the great author of heaven and earth, that they usually say after a completed day of work: And behold, what he had done was good. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Publication is to thinking as childbirth is to the first kiss. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

One of the two is almost always a prevailing tendency of every author: either not to say some things which certainly should be said, or to say many things which did not need to be said. The first is the original sin of synthetic natures, the latter of analytical natures. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Ideas are infinite, original, and lively divine thoughts. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

The German national character is a favorite subject of character experts, probably because the less mature a nation, the more she is an object of criticism and not of history. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

The main thing is to know something and to say it. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

There is so much poetry, and yet nothing is more rare than a poetic work. This is what the masses make out of poetical sketches, studies, aphorisms, trends, ruins, and raw material. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Since poetry is infinitely valuable, I do not understand why it should be more valuable than this or that which is also infinitelyvaluable. There are artists who perhaps do not think art to be too great, for this is impossible, and yet they are not free enough to be able to rise above their own best accomplishments. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

The obsession with moderation is the spirit of castrated narrow-mindedness. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Only through religion can logic develop into philosophy, only from this source stems that which makes philosophy more than science. And without religion we will have only novels, or the triviality today called belles lettres instead of an eternally rich and infinite poetry. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

A priest is he who lives solely in the realm of the invisible, for whom all that is visible has only the truth of an allegory. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

A so-called happy marriage corresponds to love as a correct poem to an improvised song. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Poetry and philosophy are, according to how you take them, different spheres, different forms, or factors of religion. Try to really combine both, and you will have nothing but religion. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

The naive which is simultaneously beautiful, poetic, and idealistic, must be both intention and instinct. The essence of intention, in this sense, is freedom. Consciousness is far from intention. There is a certain enamoured contemplation of one's own naturalness or silliness which itself is unspeakably silly. Intention does not necessarily require a profound calculation or plan. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

True love should be, according to its origin, entirely arbitrary and entirely accidental at the same time; it should seem both necessary and free; in keeping with its nature, however, it should be both destiny and virtue and appear as a mystery and a miracle. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Honor is the mysticism of legality — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Many works of the ancients have become fragments. Many works of the moderns are fragments at the time of their origin. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Life is writing. The sole purpose of mankind is to engrave the thoughts of divinity onto the tablets of nature. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

The difference between religion and morality lies simply in the classical division of things into the divine and the human, if one only interprets this correctly. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Every uneducated person is a caricature of himself. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

In order to be able to write well upon a subject, one must have ceased to be interested in it; the thought which is to be soberlyexpressed must already be entirely past and no longer be one's actual concern. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Religion is usually nothing but a supplement to or even a substitute for education, and nothing is religious in the strict sense which is not a product of freedom. Thus one can say: The freer, the more religious; and the more education, the less religion. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

God is each truly and exalted thing, therefore the individual himself to the highest degree. But are not nature and the world individuals? — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

If one writes or reads novels from the point of view of psychology, it is very inconsistent and petty to want to shy away from even the slowest and most detailed analysis of the most unnatural lusts, gruesome tortures, shocking infamy, and disgusting sensual or spiritual impotence. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Irony is a clear consciousness of an eternal agility, of the infinitely abundant chaos. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

In the world of language, or in other words in the world of art and liberal education, religion necessarily appears as mythology or as Bible. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

A classical work doesn't ever have to be understood entirely. But those who are educated and who are still educating themselves must desire to learn more and more from it. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

If the mystical lovers of the arts, who consider all criticism dissection and all dissection destruction of enjoyment, thought logically, an exclamation like "Goodness alive!" would be the best criticism of the most deserving work of art. There are critiques which say nothing but that, only they do so more extensively. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

There is no self-knowledge except historical self-knowledge. No one knows what he is if he doesn't know what his contemporaries are. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

The French Revolution, Fichte's Theory of Knowledge, and Goethe's Wilhelm Meister are the three greatest tendencies of the age. Whoever takes offence at this combination, and whoever does not consider a revolution important unless it is blatant and palpable, has not yet risen to the lofty and broad vantage point of the history of mankind. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

All the great truths are basically trivial and so we have to find new ways, preferably paradoxical ways, of expressing them, in order to keep them from falling into oblivion. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Religion can emerge in all forms of feeling: here wild anger, there the sweetest pain; here consuming hatred, there the childlike smile of serene humility. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

He who does not become familiar with nature through love will never know her. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

A genuinely free and educated man should be able to tune himself, as one tunes a musical instrument, absolutely arbitrarily, at his convenience at any time and to any degree, philosophically or philologically, critically or poetically, historically or rhetorically, in ancient or modern form. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

I have expressed some ideas that point to the center; I have saluted the dawn in my way, from my point of view. He who knows the way should do the same, in his way, and from his point of view. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Most thoughts are only profiles of thoughts. They must be inverted and synthesized with their antipodes. Thus many philosophical writings become very interesting which would not have been so otherwise. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Religion must completely encircle the spirit of ethical man like his element, and this luminous chaos of divine thoughts and feelings is called enthusiasm. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Mysteries are feminine; they like to veil themselves but still want to be seen and divined. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Whoever does not philosophize for the sake of philosophy, but rather uses philosophy as a means, is a sophist. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Strictly speaking, the idea of a scientific poem is probably as nonsensical as that of a poetic science. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Wit is an explosion of the compound spirit. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel